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Be Sues Microsoft for Violations of Antitrust Laws
Eugenia writes: "While Be, Inc had the information for over 3 years that Microsoft 'through a series of illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain its monopoly in the Intel-compatible PC operating system market and created exclusive dealing arrangements with PC OEMs prohibiting the sale of PCs with multiple preinstalled operating systems' they filed a suit against Microsoft only today. Today Be employes a single person in a tiny office in Mountain View. Great ..."
Today it employs only one person in a tiny office...
Sounds like you're wondering why they'd do so *now* of all times, when they can't do anything.
Easy: Nothing to lose. The company has nothing left. Normally it is unwise to sue MS. They'll just drag it on and you won't get a significant gain (i.e. Apple's suit), even if you do win. But now, the worst the spending can do is bankrupt them: which is basically where they stand now anyway. OTOH, the damages they could land could put Be back on its feet.
Sounds like the smartest option left to them.
Companies will do things like this after the game is over to try and get some nickels on the dollar for the VC's. I would expect them to settle for a low dollar amount.
Well, I wish the litigator success, because it would definitely be a boon for PC's sold today to come equipped with more than one OS. However, nobody put a gun to the head of the OEM's who produced single system PC's. To win this case, you would need to demonstrate that the contracts between Microsoft and OEM's violated antitrust laws. Quite frankly, I doubt that this could be shown. Despite the finding of fact in the antitrust lawsuit, you would have to show that it was impossible or next to impossible for OEM's to sell PC's with alternate OS's.
But Dell has been able to sell Linux (which apparently they dropped, but don't worry, HP is now selling them). And other PC companies have been able to do the same (albeit in limited numbers).
To prove that it was impossible for OEM's to sell PC's with alternate OS's, you would need to demonstrate some sort of collusion between Microsoft and Intel, making it difficult for developers to produce alternate OS's on Intel CPU's. That clearly has not happened. The x86 Intel platform certainly didn't hinder kernel development, and Intel has been relatively open about publishing specs.
Good luck Be. Truly, I feel your pain.
Robert Nagle Idiotprogrammer
Austin, Texas, idiotprogrammer, Technical writer
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Allegedly Palm is using the Be technology as the basis for their next OS. The current Palm OS can't really do the type of things that, thanks to Microsoft et. al, everyone thinks a handheld device needs to do.
Also don't think that even if they get some money, they will return as a viable software company. More likely any money they get will go to their creditors.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Due to the conviction of Microsoft as an abusive monopoly and the many businesses they have destroyed more suits will likely emerge. The fact that Microsoft will battle multiple fronts will probably make it easier to win a suit. When Sun, DOJ, Be and AOL togheter pull resources in different directions it will be hard to focus. This will encourage more stomped companies to file aswell. I think that this also has a good side effect, that is open source will maybe have a window of opportunity to thrive. Microsoft will have their hands full for a while now, especially if IBM and other joins the fight.
HTTP/1.1 400
Remember - it's not illegal if you're not a monopoly, and it's not illegal to be a monopoly. It's just that certain things *become* illegal when you're a legally defined monoply. Most monopolies like utilities (power, water, phone, cable), just kowtow to heavy regulation and limited profits to maintain their monopoly.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I think people are missing the brilliance of this tactic. Yes, Be is no more. It has ceased to Be. (haha) However, they are illustrating the WHOLE POINT of suing by being out of business.
What better way to illustrate a Monopoly that prohibited vendors from bundling competing products, therby limiting the market and competition to any Microsoft monopoly, than to be a competing product driven out of business by the same monopoly?
Now, as long as they can afford the legal fee's, they may actually have a chance at illsutrating WHY MS should be broken up, and WHY MS IS a monopoly in the truest sense of the word.
You keep going until you die..."Me".
I am so tired of the following arguments:
1)You can't blame Microsoft for running a business for profits
2)You can't blame vendors for wanting to sell to largest majority
3)MS is simply giving the consumers what they want
etc. etc.
LISTEN: It doesn't matter if you are anti-MS, a VB Developer or Linus himself - Microsoft is a monopoly. It "earned" it's position in the marketplace through illegal practices.
It broke the law. It didn't do this yesterday, or a couple days ago, it's been doing it for years, ever since it came to be. All of the above arguments for "get off Microsoft's back" are invalid by means of history. The current industry landscape wasn't anyone's choice - it's the result of a crime.
"vendors install MS because they know people will buy it"
No, vendors install MS because MS has a monopoly on the OS market, giving them LITTLE CHOICE. This isn't conspiracy theory, it's fact.
Let Be sue Microsoft. We all should be suing Microsoft. How many hours of productivity have we lost to operating system which stole the industry? How much money have we given Microsoft without having a choice of where to spend it?
This isn't a "Microsoft sucks" thing - it's a "Microsoft broke the law" thing. Just because the Bush administration asked the DOJ to back down doesn't mean it wasn't illegal. They were still found guilty.
Thanks to this, we have Windows. We have an OS based on business, not technology. We the government buying it droves, which not only makes our national security at risk, but has actually caused battleships to "crash" (Anyone else remember the "smartship" that had to be dragged back to dock thanks to NT?)
Nobody should be letting Microsoft off early, especially Windows users. Imagine how much better Windows would be if they had a little competition to keep them busy?
inky
"While Be, Inc had the information for over 3 years [..snip..] they filed a suit against Microsoft only today."
If you read the press statement, it's for "for the destruction of Be's business". It would have been fairly hard for Be to sue Microsoft for destruction of their business three years before Microsoft had finally destroyed their business.
When you're trying desperately to stay afloat and keep your shareholders on board, the last thing you do is publicly sue someone for having irreparably harmed you. Admitting that you're sunk simply guarantees you'll lose whatever remaining chances you have.
I recall all the articles posted to slashdot about BeOS, and how nearly every one of them was greeted by jeers and disgust.
/. masses.
:-)
"Be wasn't free, it wasn't open source. Who wants to use that crap anyway?" was the response of the
Now the slashdot masses want to complain that Microsoft killed Be?
This is hilarious.
Couldn't agree more... how can they be punished for being a monopoly when they legally *weren't* a monopoly until the court ruled them one? Since there's no standard for what makes a software monopoly, how was MS supposed to know when they became one?
It might seem pedantic, but think about it -- nowhere else in the law (that I'm aware of) can you be punished retroactively to before your infraction was established.
Be, Inc did negotiate a preload deal, with a big vendor. The product actually did ship in limited quantities, after it got Microsoft'ed.
Be, Inc. and Hitachi created the Prius 1, and neat little desktop for the Japanese market. It was going to be a dual boot, Windows 98, BeOS box, with the 2 operating systems side by side. Before it shipped however, Microsoft evidently went in an played hardball, forcing the preload to be modified in such a way that the BeOS bootloader couldn't be displayed until after Windows was running, and even then it was buried in a menu in the programs folder of the start menu. Now considering that most users don't even know how to get to the calculator, this is pretty much a death knell. The deal fell apart a couple months later.
Now I'm not an insider to either company, but I've been around the industry and I've had enough exposure to make an educated guess about what happened. It probably went something like this.
1. Be makes press release announcing deal and is queitly nearing deals with at least one major US Vendor, probably Gateway or Compaq.
2. MS low level staffer tasked with watching the press wire sees the announcement and shuffles it into the channel for 'handling'
3. Hitachi and Be spend a month or so working out the technical details and prepare the machine for shipping.
4. The press release finally gets to the upper management at MS and the marketing and account relations machine goes into action. Considering Hitachi's size and volume in the the Pacific Rim, Steve Ballmer gets on a the phone with Hitachi's president and explains the 'hidden' costs of this preload deal. Namely no more discounts on MS Office, and discounted price of Windows just tripled. And oh yeah, if you reread your contract the we signed with you, Windows boot process cannot be alter in these methods. You are going to have to do it our way.
5. Hitachi cannot fight this in a market that is operating on increasingly tight margins.
6. MS sends out a private reminder of the preload agreement's fine print regarding bootloaders and dual booting non Windows Operating Systems. This effectively closes the US Vendor deals and seals Be's fate.
7. Be begins the 'Focus Shift', attempting to invade the only market left open to them.
8. Be discovers that the market that appeared open to them has a couple of entrenched players, and one entering the market that has assets and marketing to kill them.
9. Be runs low on cash and begins the liquidation process.
10. Part of the exit strategy is to liquidate all assets and IP, then using the entity, sue the snot out of MS.
11. This would pave the way for Palm or whomever to then invade the x86 market once again.
On a side note, as brilliant as Apple's Mac OS X is, all the furor about bringing to x86 presents the exact same stumbling blocks, and make it therefore a 'Bad Idea' (tm).
Andy Satori
dru@druware.com
Let me be the first to say that this is a pointless remark. Exposure, sure as h*ll can be free. More power to the companies that can make use of free exposure for their products.
But companies like Microsoft force feed it to you with rhetoric that causes the average consumer to become dizzy enough to buy their products for fear of the uncertain.
As a card carrying member of the 'John Q. Public Consumer Guild', I've wised up to the flashy and pushy advertisements for products. I've learned to look past all that and try to understand how the product really works. There will be more consumers like me in the near future. Pretty soon flashy advertising won't work anymore. Then Microsoft will have to stand on their own merits.
BeOS may have been a day late and dollar short, but they did set a precidence that all consumers may not be aware of now, but will be soon. Then you'll see future 'BeOS' getting a fair chance due to free exposure.
Maybe someday a new advertising concept of some sort will come out and will be licensed as GPL or BSD-like to offer the free chance these companies need on a fair playfield.
Seriously, MS has already been found guilty of being a monopoly.
I'm kind of nitpicking words here, but being a monopoly is not something you're found guilty of. Being a monopoly isn't a crime.
I remember so many PC makers who tried to offer Be on a pc till Microsoft totally went agro on the makers and made them stop.
I did hear something about this, but I didn't thing there were many, or that they were big companies. The reason computer companies would want to offer BeOS on their computers is to differentiate them from the competition. The downside of offering it is support costs. Don't underestimate how much supporting BeOS would cost a big name manufacturer. They contract out their support, and every call cuts into their low profit margins. Training a support staff enough to be useful on BeOS would be an expensive task, and the contractors are going to pass that price on to the computer companies.
BE never had a chance, and the OS from my point of view was incredible.
I never used BeOS, but it would have to be truely incredible to have even a slight chance. Most people with computers want the same OS that everyone else is using. That fact is the true barrier to entry for new OSs. I've heard from some people that BeOS definately shined in some areas, but even if Microsoft just ignored it, I doubt it stood a chance. Microsoft has a monopoly because they won the first round of the PC OS wars, and the nature of the OS business is that it works out easiest for everyone it they're all using the same one. Microsoft also doesn't sit still. They constantly work to make Windows better. They definately don't do that flawlessly, but they have definately done an exellent job on making their user interface easy to use, and they keep working on making it better.
Be may very well have a case. Microsoft may very well abused it's monopoly position out of paranoia. However, it's unlikely that the damages are in the billions if they are guilty. It's more likely that they crushed a niche OS that may have been able to make millions more. If they did that, they should be punished, and the damages trippled acording to law.
In the short run, a lot of economy professors will be making money as expert witnesses, and lawyers will get rich.