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 ..."

Comments

Why now?

[Pyromage]

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.

need to prove Intel/Microsoft collusion

[rjnagle]

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

Re:need to prove Intel/Microsoft collusion

[CaptainCarrot]

There was an old tagline for Schlitz beer: "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer." To which liquor store owners would frequently retort, "Yeah, but when you're out of Bud, you're out of business." Sure, sell all the brands of beer you want. If you don't have the most popular brand though, you're going to run out of customers sooner or later. Probably sooner.

The question wasn't whether anyone could have sold machines with non-MS OSs; clearly they could because some did. It's rather whether or not you could run a business exclusively selling machines with non-MS OSs. When the basic requirement to sell Windows pre-installed on your machines at all is to purchase a Windows license for every machine you sell regardless of whether or not it's actually installed, and when you're forbidden under the terms of the OEM agreement to sell machines with some other OS installed next to Windows, it simply does not make economic sense to offer more than one pre-installed OS. In that case, which OS are you going to choose? If you don't choose Windows, you're in a situation analagous to that of the liquor store owner who chooses not to sell Bud, but with a vengeance. Instead of locking out 50% of the market (or whatever Budweiser's market share is) you're locking out 99%. That's just foolish. It's a formula for going out of business. If it was a workable buisness model, VA Software would still be VA Linux.

Maybe, just maybe, if you're Dell or HP you have enough muscle to get MS to strike the offending clauses from its standard OEM contract. But for Joe's OEM and Bait Shop around the corner here, it would be impossible. To sell any other OS than Windows would be financial suicide.

Re:need to prove Intel/Microsoft collusion

[Jeremi]

That's not a gun. That's a mutual agreement between two consenting private parties. For example, there is nothing forcing OEM's to deal with Microsoft at all. They only do so because it's in their self-interest.

No, they do it because if they didn't do it, they would be out of the PC OEM business, because Windows has a monopoly on the PC desktop market.

Silly example: if I was the only person on earth who could provide you with food, you would be free to "not deal with me at all", by starving, right? So therefore any contract I asked you to sign, no matter how draconian, would be a "mutual agreement between two consenting parties"?

No, it's a gun to the head, and anyone who tells you otherwise hadn't thought the situation through.

More to follow me thinks.

[miffo.swe]

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.

Re:Very Fashionable

[JabberWokky]

Novell probably died out in quite a fair fashion. OS/2 probably would have a somewhat valid claim - if they could establish that MS held a monopoly at the time and used tactics that, given that monopoly, were illegal. Certainly, there were strong tactics used, and end runs around contracts.

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

BE is going to win or lose

[da_Den_man]

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.

Kind of funny seeing this on /.

[sheldon]

I recall all the articles posted to slashdot about BeOS, and how nearly every one of them was greeted by jeers and disgust.

"Be wasn't free, it wasn't open source. Who wants to use that crap anyway?" was the response of the /. masses.

Now the slashdot masses want to complain that Microsoft killed Be?

This is hilarious. :-)

Re:About 20-40 billion smackers?

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Whining about BeOS not having a chance because of exposure is bullshit. Exposure is not and should not be free. Advertising, product placement, money, its all required to earn a place in the market. Microsoft's OS fought a lot of other OSes out there when PCs were becoming popular in the early nineties. (OS/2, etc.) Are we to take away that market share they earned through being smart businessmen because BeOS is a day late and a dollar short? I don't think so.

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.