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Final Arguments in MS vs. the States
Bistronaut writes "Reports are in today on the final arguments between the 9 State Attorneys General and Microsoft (articles from eWeek). CNN also has a summary. Spoiler: States say, "Here are our priorities for reforming MS." - MS says, "We don't need no stinkin' remedy.""
Even all that Microsoft has done that is bad, lets think of the good things that they have also done for us. Where would we be without Microsoft's existance? How easy/hard would computers be to use? I don't think that Linux would even be as mature as it is because alot of people started off on Microsoft products, and turned to Linux as an alternative, but found their love of computers using Dos and Win3.1
Just an idea, perhaps they haven't done anything good, but I think that they have done some for us. We should think of this before we totally bash (no pun intended, well just a little) them.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I am really getting tired of Microsofts attitude towards this whole trial. Take your lumps and move on.
Microsoft also previously has argued that the states' demands go far beyond addressing the antitrust violations it actually committed and would harm consumers and the entire computer industry.
So, disclosing source would benefit all of Micro$oft's competitors, but harm the entire computer industry??? How can that be, unless Micro$oft considers themselves to be "the entire computer industry"??? What economic textbook teaches them that reining in a monopoly harms consumers?
You've got to give a lot of credit to the M$ lawyers for actually making these claims in court while keeping a straight face, but I suspect the judge is not amused by these insults to our intelligence.
Okay, I've got the script.
Basically, I've rewriten Bill's uninteresting personal life to be just like Larry Flynt's. Sorry, to be just like the personal life Larry was given in the movie. In Bill's case, we can gloss over the child pornography because it didn't happen.
If someone had asked you before The People vs. Larry Flynt "can Courtney Love act?" you would say "No," but she did. Therefore, Britney Spears will play Mrs. Gates. She will play a heroine addict - she will win an Oscar. If Britney Spears gets an Oscar, it must be God's will. He works in mysterious ways.
Bill Gates, who is every bit as ethical as Larry Flynt, is the hero of the picture. Only one man can make such a part work: Samuel L Jackson. Seth Green ("Scott Evil") spins well among teens - he'll cameo as Ashcroft. We've seen recently that only one man has the radiant malifluousness to play Judge Thomas Penfied Jackson: Christopher Lee. He'll really bring home the senseless brutality of the breakup order. Kevin Costner will produce and direct - he'll also play a fictionalised Gestalt of all of Bill's lawyers. Kevin is the only one who can make this star-bloated, ishtaresque monster expensive enough to actually sink a studio. Running Time: 4 hrs, 11 min.
At the end of the picture, we roll Bill on in a wheelchair and he dedicates the picture to that mousy wife of his. Oh, yeah, she needs to die.
The only question is - how can we convince Bill Gates to go before the court of appeals wearing a diaper?
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Microsoft lead attorney John Warden told Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly that the states' proposed remedy was punitive...
Yeah, imagine that. Being convicted of a crime and then actually being punished. What a crazy world we live in, huh?
Cheap humor aside, can anyone explain (and IANAL, so I'm asking honestly here) why a company that lost an antitrust suit gets to make arguments about what the punishment should be? If a private citizen is successfully sued, does s/he get to go through another round of hearings arguing that s/he shouldn't be penalized?
Frood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
I am not really trying to Troll here, but I am just thinking of what Microsoft does for me on a day to day basis. Yes, I can see from other posts here, that other OSes would have probably taken the place of Windows if Microsoft had dissapeared in the 90's. I do know that after Win95, alot more people were starting to buy computers, but for some reason the release of OS/2 didn't fly as well, even though it had a few months up on Win95.
What does Windows do for me?
Compatability- let's face it, even all of our beloved OSes like *nix and OS2 dont' support everything that we want. Microsoft is generally up to date a good bit of stuff. If I want a Paralell scanner that I have to work, its easy. Linux, I look online, sorry that's not supported, it needs to be SCSI or USB. OS2, I don't know, but IBM isn't really pushing its updating now are they... Other things also fall into this pit. Alot of hardware is Windows only, while this isn't Microsoft's fault, its certainly nice to have an OS that's 'standard' on most desktops, no it's not the only OS I use, I have 3 linux boxes and 5 windows boxes around the house, all different flavors on all.
Simplcity- While Mac OS offers this as well, which I am grateful for. I know Windows well. I know linux well too. However, there are too few 'standards' around for linux setups and configs. Its hard to troubleshoot. Perhaps thats just me, but it still needs maturing for standard setups, etc...
There are a few other ways that Windows helps me, but I am outta time....
Anyway, sorry if you guys thought I was trolling, but I just didn't see the 'antitrust' suits as being really a big deal, Microsoft didn't ever stop me from using a 3rd party utility or 'confuse' me about their options to install software. I can put Opera, or Mozilla, or Netscape, or AOL, or Realplayer on my system as easy as anything else. It's not stopping me from doing what I need to do. Anyway, there goes my Karma...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Remember when railroad companies used different sized track to eliminate competition? They also eliminated any semblance of travel convenience for the consumer.
The commercial software establishment is largely like these now non-existant railroad franchises. People have discovered that it's just software, and they are happier to enjoy a level of compatibility accross a variety of systems.
Of course, once the railroad industries agreed on standards it became possible for mass production of standards-based railway hardware. This eliminated much of the guesswork, tracks were wide enough to support trains of various sizes and shapes. Without these standards, the golden age of travel would have been unachievable.
Software needs to adopt standards, and the open source community has been vital to that process.
Given Microsoft's track record in this area, I think the best outcome now is for the judge to force MS to abide by standards for all present and future networking protocols. If a networked feature of MS software does not employ a documented RFC, W3C recommendation, etc. it must be fixed.
And there should be a federal committee responsible for reviewing and enforcing this. It is not acceptable that standards can be implemented along with a proprietary MS protocol (eg: MS Exchange).
Ultimately, all commercial software should be made to follow these rules, only the open source community will be allowed to innovate networking protocols. Most of the significant protocols came from open source / public domain anyway, let's mandate that tradition and stop companies like Microsoft from meddling with a good thing.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com
Never underestimate the twistiness of a lawyer- and judges are uber-lawyers.
I'd have done the same thing. It's way more effective than asking them, "Are you going to obey the outcome of this proceeding, or laugh at it and scorn it?" You don't ask them directly, 'are you going to obey the law'. You ask, 'how much of this is reasonable and just'. If they take it as an opportunity to grandstand, you know they're gonna ignore the ruling, because they don't believe in it, or in the law.
FWIW, I burst into incredulous, delighted laughter just seeing the news.com subhead about what Microsoft had done for a reply to the question. Forget foot-shooting: they've blown off their f**king leg here. Spectacularly bad judgement. And Judge Kollar-Kotelly is a smart lady :D
A report in the NYTimes earlier this week said that six former DOJ Antitrust officials chimed in on the proposed remedies. I've looked in several places, but haven't found a copy of the brief. Does anyone know where it can be found?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
-if the judge asked me 'Will you obey the restraining order?' I would likely have sense enough to protest that of course I would, your Honor.
-if the Judge asked me 'What parts of this restraining order are fair and reasonable?', I would likely erupt in wild diatribes about how it's all totally unfair and unreasonable... which would be the truth as I saw it... and would be a far more revealing answer to the first question than you'd get from asking me the first question directly.
Microsoft, in their closing argument, have made it absolutely clear that they will not cooperate with the eventual ruling in any way, and will continue to devote all their resources to evading it and denying it. I think the Judge asked them about it on purpose, to see how they'd react. Now we know. And now she knows.
I say that if Microsoft didn't have a monopoly, then you would be able to get better driver support for other OSes. Microsoft establishes "standards" not for your benefit, nor for the benefit of hardware makers, but for their own benefit, and they break or "change" them when it suits their business goals. And they use access to these standards as reward or punishment.
As for 3rd party apps, you can expect an unchecked monopoly to stop you from using them in subtle ways. I'm not saying that everything they have done is bad for us, I'm saying that a person who says "there is nothing wrong here" is ignoring the facts. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is smarter than you or I, and he studied this issue for a very long time and heard the best arguements money could buy, and he came to the conclusion that there is something very wrong here, and that it is bad for you and I, and that drastic measures are warranted.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
..that no computers can be sold with Windows preinstalled or bundled, so that consumers must buy Windows separately at a fixed, non-discountable full retail price (of Microsoft's choosing) and install it themselves. Everyone pays the same price, with no volume discounts.
OEMs may ship computers with any other OS, or with no OS at all. If people truly want Windows, they are welcome to purchase and install it separately, and Microsoft can include anything they want in it, so there's no restriction on "innovation". They would not have to stick to standards, dislose APIs, include Java, whatever. Consumers would just be forced to make the conscious choice to buy and use it.
For existing installations of Windows, Microsoft would be prohibited from selling upgrades to anyone other than consumers who bought retail - OEM installations would require a new retail purchase.
I'm from Panamá, and many latin american countries have the same opinion on this issue:
Here, people is convinced that the DOJ is hurting USA's economy by fighting MS. They are convinced that MS is the "good guys" of the movie.
When I try to explain that MS is really an unethical monopoly, no-one understands.... whats worst, is that there is people that doesn't wants to understand the facts.... "No, No, Microsoft is the messiah".
It is sad to live in a third world country. Big companies like Microsoft can convince everyone of their lies.
I have seen all kind of people beleiving MS's lies, in person. High school students, college students, government people in the highest positions (like our president), PhDs (not in computer science, of course).
What could I do to make people open their eyes and see the truth???
The problem wasn't just giving the browser away, it was leveraging their OS monopoly to obtain a browser monopoly. Yes, legally, if you have a monopoly there are some things you can't do that everyone else can do.
It's never been 'a Technically Right Choice' in any sense of the word, that's just horseshit. It's been done for one reason and one reason only - to sabotage the consent decree.
They were? Huh? They still use the same tactics today.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Congressman Villanueva's response to MS' letter opposing the law up for a vote in Peru's Congress is telling.
_ to _ms.html
http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/villanueva
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
When AT&T lost an antitrust case, the whole phone system had to be rearchitected. That was a massive technical effort of enormous complexity. Supporting multiple long distance carriers was a huge job. But, by court order, it was done.
The sanctions proposed for Microsoft are mild by comparison. A comparable remedy for Microsoft would be to force Microsoft to separate into an applications business unit and an OS business unit, with a requirement for published APIs.
Since all the antitrust lawyers and the judge know the history of antitrust law, they know all this, and Microsoft is just grandstanding.
Every other software vendor has had the same options and opportunities available to them
Really?
So you're saying that BeOS had the same options and opportunities available? They could have gone to the hardware companies and said "Look, if you give any indication that you're putting Windows on the same system, we're going to charge you double for the BeOS license" and not get laughed out of the office?
You're suggesting that Netscape had the opportunity to use the revenue from their massive monopoly on OEM OS sales to back them giving away their browser until it crushed the competition?
Possibly you're suggesting that Word Perfect or Lotus had the opportunity to leverage their intimate knowledge of propietary Windows APIs to make their software run as fast as any competitor, or that they could modify the underlying OS to cause problems with Microsoft Word or Excel?
Now, can you argue that other companies dropped the ball? Sure, some did. But don't be so quick to assume stupidity on the part of a public that was robbed of any choice from a company leveraging it's monopoly in one area (the OS) to eliminate competition in other areas.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
So Sun and Apple and SGI and Linux and BSD etc. all had the opportunity to supply the operating system for IBM's PC? Do remember that microsoft didn't get to where it is by some sort of tactical genius on the part of bill gates, it got where it is largely by luck. Microsoft was chosen to supply the operating system on what wasn't planned to be a huge product. However, when compaq reverse engineered the PC and started making them cheaply, the market for them exploded handing microsoft the dominant position as the OS distributor.
Microsoft's boat was carried by the rising waters of the PC hardware industry - rising waters that they were in no way responsible for.
Now, granted, it was possible for microsoft to lose its tremendous windfall, and to their credit (as tactitions) they didn't. They managed to kill their competition for PC operating systems (of course, the only competition that I can think of was OS/2 which came late in the game (and unmarketed) and something called NeoGeo (or something of that kind), which was also later on). But had microsoft not had this tremendous advantage, had their company not been hugely bolstered by events far beyond their control, they would have found their dominance much harder to win.
Another advantage little commented on is the boom that the internet has provided for them. They were again in a good position when the internet gave a huge number of people a reason (email + the web) to own a computer. So again with a giant boom in computer purchases stimulated by this new reason to own a computer, microsoft again had its boat brought up by rising waters.
And as the saying goes, there's nothing so conducive to success as huge gobs of money. But give microsoft time. They may yet drop the ball that they've been handed. There are some interesting rumors of what will happen when they become a mature company whose stock does not rise in value (abnormally) and thus they are unable to print money in the form of stock options. But that isn't relevant to the current discussion.
You said that everyone had the same opportunities. They did not. That doesn't make microsoft any better or worse than other companies, but it also means that they are not comparable. Microsoft has been immensely successful and they have immensely abused their success. That is what's really important. We need to undue the damage that they've done and unshakle computing from the bonds that microsoft put on it in an attempt to keep it from running away.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
You have completely missed the point!
/. story on this case, but I guess it's not redundant until people actually understand it...
There is at least one comment that explains why in every
Microsoft is NOT ON TRIAL for being a monopoly.
There is NOTHING WRONG with being a monopoly under US law.
Microsoft were ABUSING their monopoly, which there ARE laws against.
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