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MS Faces Hard Sell in EU Antitrust Case
juicy_pants writes "The software giant emerged virtually unscathed in November from an eight-year battle with U.S. federal and state authorities over how its violations of antitrust laws should be rectified. But it may not fare as well in another major antitrust case, now entering its final phase at European Union headquarters in Brussels."
Lets face it, this is really all political. I doubt the EU will be as lenient as the US has been, simply because it's not at all in their interests to have a powerful company based in the US controlling their desktops. Not that the US really does, but M$ is really a huge and powerfull company. It's value to our economy is enormous.
The really intresting thing is that for the first time there's a real alternative to microsoft in the form of Linux and Free software. The rest of the world is jumping on it in order to escape.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
can you say: "steel, bananas, oh fuck it, almost everything else!?"
i'm just waiting for the chinese anti-microsoft anti-trust suit. how ironic would that be?
MS will be found guilty and given the biggest fine ever. MS appeal - and the appeal process takes forever - RealPlayer fades away (nobody notices or cares)- Bill Gates donates $100M to fight AIDS in eastern Europe and is lauded as Europe's hero, a selfless white knight whose moral integrity should never be questioned again.
'Be the change you want to see in the world' - Al Gore
> I doubt the EU will be as lenient as the US has been...
... whose past victims include General Electric Co.'s legendary former chairman Jack Welch (from the article)
MS has been spending a lot of time and $ and lobbying in Washington to handle the anti trust suit domestically, and they've been very successful. However, apparently, even with that money and power MS can't handle European politics.
>
The article is talking about Honeywell acquisition right? MS is becoming a big player in Washington, but I'm guessing that GE is still a bigger player in Washington and the world politics. They couldn't make EU to say "Yes", so it'll be tough for MS. Of course, it's not that I'm taking their (MS) side though.
Microsoft's position has been that unbundling Media Player would tear an irreparable hole in Windows and stifle future innovation. It has also said that Media Player's main rival, a product made by RealNetworks Inc., has more than three-quarters of the global market
Two points.
1. What exactly does RealNetworks have 3/4+ of the global market in? being the default media player? Or in web streaming? or maybe being a fk'ing annoying resource hog thats only life blood is a closed source streaming protocol that most people think of as "pretty nifty"?
2. If RealNetworks Inc. indeed does have more than three-quarters of the global market (we'll assume default media player) then isn't that proof that Microsoft's bundling of Media Player does NOT have a major affect on competitors?
I see where they are coming from but i'm just worried where the courts draw the line of OS and application. After all, if I make a calc program for windows and try to sell it would Microsoft have to not include "calc.exe" in the next release? Keep in mind this is setting precedence that could possible haunt linux distros and MacOS down the line.
Thats a good part solution, but I also think they should be hit with a large fine.
I mean big enough to make the shareholders go OUCH.
I reckon the shareholders back the management, because they think all these abuses are earning money for them. So you hit MS in the pocket and the shareholders will then keep the company on the right side of anti-trust laws.
I think its better than the EU micro-managing a solution.
Trouble is, the EU can only levy a smallish fine (a couple of billion isn't going to have the OUCH effect).
I did and I saw exactly the same as the Opera developers did:
- Neither IE nor Opera can render the Opera pages
- Opera (6.00, 6.04 and 7) renders the IE pages just fine
Which brings me to the same conclusion as the Opera developers: MS made an active effort to break the msn site in Opera browsers!I wasn't surprised, but reserve the right to be disappointed that MS feels it is necessary to play dirty...
MS charges various prices on different products in different countries. In china,XP is USD 5.00. MS now ssends 100's of millions of USD to China in an attempt to keep Linux out. China has not put that much money into MS's coffers. Most of those "donations" is coming from the US economy as we are paying the top dollars. The same goes for India, Africa, and South America donations. Basically, we get screwed all the way around by MS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Microsoft's position has been that unbundling Media Player would tear an irreparable hole in Windows and stifle future innovation.
This is one of the more blatant examples of Microsoft's attempts to monopolize through bundling.
They made a similar case with IE.. "if we rip out IE, all the programs that have been written to include web page display functionality will break. <heavy sigh/> we could hide the icon, maybe."
The thing is, if they ripped out media player, what it would break would be the ability of software written for windows to display.. some Microsoft proprietary data formats.
Of course, this is one of those areas where you have a tipping point.. get enough users to write 'software' in your media player, and pretty soon you can't have new competition, because your new competition will be legally prohibited from playing your content, either through copyright law, patent law, or DRM/DMCA.
The EU is right to be looking at this.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX