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New Antitrust Complaint Filed Against Microsoft
jimboid and others wrote in about a new antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in the European Union, concerning Windows XP (all previous litigation has concerned earlier versions of Windows). The BBC and Sydney Morning Herald have articles about the complaint.
All this litigation and chest beating costs millions of dollars/pounds/euros. Why don't the respective governments make a proactive move by mandating that free software be used rather than MS stuff. I don't doubt for a moment that all the harshly written criticisms of MS by these people are done on MS-Word.
Oh, the irony.
Trolling is a art,
I wonder if the EU were to find MS guilty, and specify a bunch of things they have to do to windows, if that would stretch world-wide or just in the jurisdiction of the EU. Since MS is a US company, I always assumed a lawsuit against them in the US would be world-wide, but now I wonder.
I also wonder about the civil suits. Sun sued microsoft to get java included in a US court. Does it apply everywhere, just in the US, just where MS and Sun do business, just where some trade treaty says?
I am having trouble gathering my thoughts on this, so bare with me...
First off, let me state I have not come to praise Bill, and that I concur with those who are pushing for this in their decision to press this forward. But I must say this action worries me as an American. With our current economic climate, the stance of those in charge, and how America currently looks on the global scale to our friends and neighbors, this could be the final straw in a tension build-up of global scale between America and the World.
What do I mean? Well, if this action accomplishes what should have happened when it was handled internally (severe punishment, break-up even), what will Microsoft do? Comply? Or use their new-found leverage with congress and their friendly Pro-Business government to complain? I think we both know the answer. So let's say they complain to the American government. After all, Microsoft is the crowning achievement in Free Market Capitalism, it makes money hand-over-fist, at any cost, and is a shining example of American industry (HA! I'm so funny). The government for those reasons will back them up. So then the American government widens the rift between our allies (former allies?) in the EU as much, if not more so, than our current actions regarding Iraq are concerned. The EU want Microsoft to play ball by the rules, which is to say they are in the right on this matter. America will say it's their field and they can make the rules up and if the EU doesn't like it, tough beans.
What will this do for our international relations? What will happen to the American business sector? How much will it harm our country and economy when the world (rightly) turns their back on us for our double-standards in the matters of state and business? I worry that it would be something nigh-repairable. Hopefully someone here will listen to what the world is saying and decide to make things a bit better. Maybe I just worry too much...
Zech Harvey, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
Let's see, the repeated instances of gross fraud come to mind. They lie as part of their standard business practice. From selling ISVs dev kits that claim to be the same as those used internally in MS (they aren't, MS app programmers have access to a few extra tools), to purposefully sabotaging interoperability with competitors (DR-DOS, Lotus, Java, numerous others) in such a way as to put the blame on the competitor, Microsoft has proven itself to be a company who doesn't mind lying and destroying economic value as long as its complicated and is only found out years to late to save the competitor's viability.
Fraud is something that is inimical to the free enterprise system, nobody short of outright anarchists defends it. Stopping fraud is a basic, core mission of government. When fraud is used as a core element of a business plan people should start going to jail until fraud ceases to be part of the business plan. If that's taking too long, the business should be shut down entirely.
MS is a pathologic case, genius combined with immoral disregard for the truth. Anti-trust is just an indirect way to get at the results of this problem.