Slashdot Mirror
AOL Time Warner Files Anti-Trust Suit against MS
ChazeFroy writes "This article at the Washington Post says that AOL Time Warner has filed a suit against Microsoft seeking damages from anti-competitive practices over the Netscape browser."
Can't say I'm surprised.
Actually, you can't be tried on the same case twice in civil law
either. However, the difference between civil law and criminal law
is that in civil law, the plaintiff can be anyone, while in criminal law,
only the government can bring the case.
Who is bringing the suit does matter.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
First shot?! You must be joking. The Corporate wars have been raging since the early 1900s. Cars were probably the largest example pre-1960s, but we've seen this in agricultural products, chain stores, computer manufacturers (DEC vs IBM comes to mind), movie studios (the wars between which have become movies themselves), etc, etc.
This is the most recent volly in the long-standing AOL/MS fight which has affected the Windows desktop, AOL's bundling, MSN's partnerships, Netscape's buy-out and many other skirmishes.
AOL isn't in the best financial shape right now - the merger with Time Warner didn't work out as well as planned, and they're going to have huge losses this year. I'm guessing the thinking here is that if they can reach a huge out-of-court settlement with MS, it'll help them get back in the black. After all, Netscape's not good for much else anymore...
No, it's not arguable whether Microsoft's business practices were illegal. Microsoft has been found guilty in federal court of breaking federal anti-trust laws.
That's what this AOL suit is all about. In essence their suit is saying "You were found guilty of breaking anti-trust laws. Now we want to be compensated for our loss that resulted from your illegal actions."
Not me. Microsoft and AOL-TW have one fundamental difference- AOLTW isn't afraid to play fair. Remember that there is nothing
AOLTW has their hands dipped in just about everything. Music, TV, Movies, Magzines, Internet, All kinds of entertainment... But there's not a single market in which they hold a 90% dominance. They Play fair, and the battles that their products win, they win based on the customer view of superiority. Microsoft plays off it's 90% dominance, and tries to destroy all competition.
get 0wned. irc.w30wnzj00.com
A couple of years ago (more?) when this whole thing started, I was a staunch supporter of Netscape. I really wanted to see Microsoft lose this one.
.exe was in use.) I either had to have these programs on a CD, or I had to wait for Netscape to download (through command-line FTP, even!)
.Net, which is the future of Microsoft, instead of IE, which is the past.
Now, however, I worry about things like the following:
"A judge would still have the challenge of choosing a remedy that would restore competition to the Internet browser market. Netscape has only a sliver of the Internet browser market, compared to its dominance several years ago."
One of the "suggested" remedies is to force Microsoft to not include a browser with the OS. I have to question, though, whether this would really be best for the consumer.
Remember back in the day when Windows 95 first shipped? The first thing I did upon loading 95 was to install a web browser. Usually, this meant a tedious process whereby I would use FTP to connect to ftp.netscape.com and go through several directories until I found the correct binary. This was a time-consuming and tedious process. Without a web browser, I couldn't install many of the programs I typically used, including an FTP client and WinZip (used to unpack programs back before the self-extracting
So I question whether the "stripped-down" version of Windows is a real remedy, as it causes more inconvenience to consumers that way. Rather, I'd like to see Internet Explorer installed and a shortcut to install Netscape on the desktop, much like there are AOL shortcuts on most desktops now. That way, Netscape could be installed locally with little hassle, but there would still be a web browser in the OS for those who didn't care.
A few years ago, I was up in arms about this whole thing. Now, I don't care any more, and I have a feeling that the vast majority of users feel the same way. I like my IE6 with its Google toolbar and Web development tools ("view partial source", anyone?). I would have applauded this decision a while ago, but now I think that Microsoft should just pay AOL its due and move on. This lawsuit is about something that should have been settled years ago, and it's time to worry about
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
How is an OS defined?
If it is just a kernel, then Microsoft should be sued for including:
the Windows desktop
the Windows start menu
cd player
calculator
etc
I think it is ridiculous to argue that a complete OS-in-a-can like MS Windows should not include a web browser. MS have demonstrated that a browser can be used to manage local files as well as surf the web, and is a fundamental part of their integrated package.
Just because they were slow in including a web browser does not mean that they don't have the right to do it in the future.
Now AOL's purchase of Netscape makes more business sense now... they could get billions in damage payments now that Microsoft's anti-competitive illegal business practices have been established by anit-trust court.
Much as I dislike them, the government's lawsuit against Microsoft has always looked a little too much like the government getting nervous with MS's cash reserves.
Uhh.... I'm nervous about MS's cash reserves. Actually... any corporation that giant (including AOLTW) should give us all pause about the amount of money they can throw at anything. I'd much rather the government have the money than MS, but I guess AOLTW will have to do (considering simply the justice-for-predatory-business-practices concept.) Until someone wakes up at the FCC that is.
Remember... Your tax money in the early 80's helped give rise to the ARPA/NSFNET. Your money blown on MS-DOS 3.3 helped give rise to Windows 3.
The gov't doesn't like entities it can't push around.
Citizens should be able to push the Government around, corporations should not.
And "free-market" (ie, battle-of-the-corner-Quik-E-Marts) concepts notwithstanding, Citzens alone can't do much to push around a trans-national corporation. Governments can.
------------
"...and Maddest of all, to see Life as it Is, and not as it Should Be."
Let's get one thing straight here: However M$ managed to win with IE, it was NOT because it was a better piece of software. What the industry lost with the death of netscape was far more of a blow to
the technological progress of web technologies than
just the simple fact that IE is considered by most internet users to be the only acceptable browser. What the industry lost was JavaScript.
... now hear me out at least before you dismiss this post. The javascript i'm talking about isn't the cheesy mouseover-effect popup-annoyance ad-spamming tool that the industry knows today... the javascript i'm talking about is the client-side event-based windowing/navigation scripting language that the original technology could have evolved into before M$ crushed netscape and with it any chance of javascript growing past it's infancy.