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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."
The Justice Department released today the long awaited upgrade to the "Lawsuit `92" This update will fix the "Well there is always Linux" bug, and the ever persistant crashing or the case's funding.
There are no gods but ourselves.
Oh yeah, THAT'LL happen... I can just imagine Scott McNealy saying "Hey, I got a great idea! We've been spending far too much time and money on this 'Solaris' thing. Let's implement Windows NT!"
I think what they don't really want to come out and say here is that they don't want Solaris to play nice with Windows (wasn't there a fiasco with Samba a couple years ago?)
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
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?
But they couldn't figure out how to convert US dollars to Euros...
Karma whorin' since 1999
Mario Monti, the EU competition comissioner is a real ball-buster. MS will have more trouble "buying" the trust of the Eurocrats than they did in the US. It will just be interesting to see what they end up doing.
BTW, when I say "US", I refer, of course, to the administration, not the citizens.
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
I'm sure it's partly due to the fact that Microsoft is a US company, and is a large money spinner for you guys.
./ ?
Over here, slowing down the torrent of money that floods out of Europe into the US can't be a bad thing for us.
It's another reason why Open Source is good for non-US countries - money doesn't go to Microsoft, Sun, IBM etc - it stays in the local country (consultants, etc)
PS. I'm posting this over 3G - is it a first for
Get your own free personal location tracker
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
As you well know by now, the **AA has convinced a California Court to claim jurisdiction of Sharman Networks (Kazaa) of Australia.
Now that this Slammer worm hit South Korea, can they now claim jurisdiction of an American company seeking damages, now that precedent has been set by the Americans that it is OK to indict entities outside their country?
Emphasis added.
Does anyone think this is the most hillarious thing ever, or what? I'm pretty sure Sun is dying to clone IIS or the
Yeh they really blew it with that Opera attack.
Where exactly was the anti-trust officer when Microsoft's websites were sending Opera bad style sheets? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing he was appointed to prevent?
So they proved to the world that the enforcement officer was just a sham concession.
Also another question. If MS can't see anything morally wrong between throwing a bad style sheet to disadvantage a competitor, how do we know that Microsoft doesn't also make the cache a little slower for Oracle, or the sockets a little slower when connecting to Sun?
I mean if they did that to code that we can see, what the hell are they doing with the code we can't see in Windows?
EU should require that file formats being used in software sold in Europe are publically documented in full to prevent the twisted (and existing) situation where customers are required to unnecessary buy upgrades for their software when other parts of the whole environment are made obsolete. Users should never be forced to pay just to continue accessing their own data. That would go a long way towards solving the root of the problem, instead of only chasing the ever-changing symptoms. Such requirement would also be totally fair since the real innovation lies in developing new features and ideas on manipulating the data and not in intentionally obscured ways of putting strings of data on a file.
Also, Microsoft's anti-competitive power and their ability to use it is not just about Windows and its ever-mutating versions. Having some government geeks take a peek at the OS "shared source" does nothing to guarantee a competitive marketplace. It's about the apps. Requiring standards compliance allows the all suitable, competitively priced and well-supported software to succeed yet without locking anyone out of the market.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
> 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.
Maybe I'm being too cynical but I seriously doubt anything will change.
The worst that will happen from MS's POV is that they'll waste a bunch of money on lawyers and maybe pay a big fine...and *possibly* have to publish documentation for some stuff they don't currently publish.
I'm pretty sure it will be a harder punishment than the US gave them but it won't be enough to hurt.
Nothing will change, just like nothing has changed since the US anti-trust stuff.
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.
Tierce
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
Although the EU and Continental governments tend to be considerably more corrupt than their Anglo-American counterparts, attempting to bribe officials regulating monopolies would be incredibly stupid.
What matters is ideology. Bush and his appointees tend to be very pro-market, and sceptical of state intervention, preferring light regulation to sweeping diktats. The EU, on the other hand, tends to like regulating everything from the sugar content of jam to the shape of bananas. The Eurocrats would instinctively love the chance to regulate one of the most important American firms.
In contrast to the instinctive desire of the EU to regulate everything under the sun, however, is the fact that the euro-zone economy has been stagnant for years, and is only getting worse. If Monti et al. think severe regulation of Microsoft could do any damage to the EU economy or competitiveness, you can bet they won't do it.
I'm 100% Italian blood. Believe me when I tell you that if you think the US government is screwed up, it's nothing compared to the Italian government. The Italian government is a mess of political parties with all kinds of special interests, including a fascist faction that still has some clout in government, although luckily not as much as earlier periods, and is kept in check by others who strongly revile them.
You need to do a little research before you make such statements.
I don't know if it is still true, it probably is: If you are an Italian citizen up to a certain age and are male, you'll have to serve in the Italian Army. I know relatives who live in the US who almost made the mistake of visiting their home country while a young adult, and would have been forced to serve in the military because they made the mistake of visiting relatives at their age. This is for Italian citizens, but if you emigrate there, it's possible you'd also be obliged to serve.
btw, if you want to publish a web site in Italy, you need a permit from the government first. The leader of Italy made his fortune, and still is an international publisher. Think about that for a while.
(Note: I'm German. We've got problems of our own, but nevertheless:) Agreed, the state of affairs in Italy is pretty terrible. I'm always horrified when I see a TV report on Berlusconi's latest madness, I can't believe stuff like this is happening in 21st century's Europe. I wish some European politicians would speak up (as they did in the case of Austria's Haider - this seems more serious and thus far worse to me), but I assume they can't afford more open internal distress at the moment. Or something. ;) But I think we're getting there, too.
Of course, your laws on marijuana are apparently a bit more advanced than ours.
Oh and I know this is off-topic. I don't care - this is important enough to burn some karma on.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
All the anti-MS cases so far have focused upon the fact that Microsoft bundles software with its OS. There is another, more serious matter going on though: Try to buy an A-brand laptop these days without Windows. It is virtually impossible.
Microsoft's OEM license differs from the normal Windows XP license in that it shifts the refund burden upon the manufacturer. If, by chance or design, the manufacturer does not want to give you a refund for Windows, you are stuck with a top-dollar license for an OS you are never going to use. Microsoft cannot be blamed, because it is apparently the free choice of the manufacturers to ship whatever they want with their laptops.
In Europe, there are laws against bundled sales. Basically, they say that you can't force a consumer to buy a product A when buying a product B. While these laws would certainly inhibit Microsoft from bundling their software with their OS, it does _not_ stop laptop manufacturers from bundling the OS with the hardware. Why not? Well, let's do the math:
An exception to this bundled sales law states that, if a retailer has less than 30% of both markets (in this case the retailer is, say, Sony and the markets are the OS- and laptop-markets) then, the retailer _can_ bundle products. So, if all the laptop manufacturers ship Windows with their product, that is perfectly legal, as long as no single manufacturer grabs more than 30% of the laptop market. Divide and conquer.
Of course, since nearly all laptop sales are from said big manufacturers, somewhere along this line, the consumer is screwed. It boils down to the choice of buying either a B-brand laptop without Windows or an A-brand laptop, at the cost of a voluntary 260 euro donation to Microsoft. This is immoral. It is however not illegal. Shouldn't it be?
If they are successful, where are all of the U.S.'s future programmers going to come from? They won't be allowed to tinker with computers in any way not sanctioned by MS, enforced by U.S. law, so either the pool of programmers will shrink to the point of disappearing, or they will come from outside the U.S.
But what about security profressionals? While we will still have some programmers, because MS will allow people to learn the MS way of doing things in schools, security professionals depend on researching how to break systems, hack into them, how the system works on the lowest level, etc.. Are we going to hire foreign security experts to work on things our national security depends on? It will become literally impossible to legally become a security expert in the U.S., and in fact that is already starting to happen.
We're really shooting ourselves in the head, over here in the land of the "free".
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
According to the transparency index, many (but not all) of the EU member states are perceived less corrupt than the US.
The EU has issued a recommendation for official government websites, and they encourage W3C compliance and such things. Pretty good stuff. The link above is a good starting point for more information.
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.
Not a chance. Consider what was said earlier about 1/4 of Microsoft's money being made in the EU. That's quite a staggering amount. Even with a huge fine it'd still be preferable than leaving the region and loosing all that business.
I hope that the EU does adopt some pretty severe structural remedies, but I have to say that it is pretty unlikely for political reasons.
For the most part the US and EU have had a practice of letting each other determine anti-trust policies with respect to their own corporations. In other words if two US companies want to merge, and US anti-trust regulators think its OK, then EU regulators give it a pass as well. This doesn't always happen - the EU did sink a big US merger a while back - but it usually happens for one very good reason. The US and the EU do not want to get involved in any kind of tit-for-tat trade war over this kind of stuff.
That does not mean that the EU will let MS off the hook. It just means that whatever remedies are handed down are likely to be on the less severe side (pay some fines, promise not to do it again) rather than the more severe side (break up etc).
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
I mean what authority will the EU have over MS if MS decideds to pull out of Europe?
And, umm, why would they do that? A simple analysis would show that pulling out of the EU market would cost them more than a company break up.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
Microsoft declined to issue any new public comment at such a sensitive moment.
But we all know what that comment would have been: We are confident that Microsoft will prevail in this case.
If we look at it from one side, then yes, TCPA can bring us more security to general computing.
But if we look at it from another side, then well there is a saying: If you want to boil the frog, do it slowly - that wat it does not notice its being boiled. So maybe that's what MS wants - to "boil" us slowly. Because in TCPA there are (IMO) quite a lot of things which may go wrong if used ... say ... improperly.
hany
Many people (including me) like the ideas put forward by the trusted computing concept because they allow for much finer granularity in controlling what the software we run is allowed to do.
100% propaganda. I'm a programmer. I've read the TCPA specs. I understand how it works. I understand what it can do and what it can't do. The ONLY thing TCPA does is take away your control over your own machine. The central design feature is that the owner of the machine is not allowed access to his own encryption keys.
Unless you consider losing control of your own machine to be a "benefit" there isn't a single benefit of TCPA actually requires TCPA.
If they redesigned the system to give the owner of the machine access to the encryption keys you could get all of the claimed benefits and none of the negatives. They will never allow the owner to get his own keys because the system is not designed for the owners benefit - the negatives ARE the design goal. Every single "positive" is pure smokescreen.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
yes, TCPA can bring us more security to general computing.
No it can't, not if you define "security" as the security of the owner of the machine.
TCPA can only increase the "security" of other people - meaning it is a DRM system. It isn't going to prevent viruses either.
See my other post for a little more info.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.