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Microsoft Settles Be Antitrust Suit for $23.25M
ewhac writes "Without admitting wrongdoing, Microsoft today agreed to pay $23,250,000 to Be, Inc., to settle anti-trust claims against the software giant. The payout is anticipated to be used to complete the orderly dissolution of the company. Shortly after announcing sale of key assets to Palm, Be, Inc., filed suit against Microsoft in February 2002, alleging destruction of its business via illegal exclusionary and anti-competitive business practices."
How does one willingly pay $25,250,000, without trial, and not admit to wrong doing? An admittance of guilt is suggested under such circumstances.
While $23 million is peanuts to MS, it makes you wonder why they would even bother settling this, it's not like Be had the resources to fight them in court.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
23 million well spent. probably cost less than an Ad campaitgn on the major networks.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
The suit was about MS pressuring OEMs to not install other OSes on hard drives of machines they shipped. They did NOT want to see a dual-boot situation.
One of the big issues is getting end-users to install another OS. Since most people never have to install an OS, it is a daunting concept no matter how easy it is.
The whole effort in making Linux so easy to install derived from this.
Now, with the settlement, MS doesn't have to defend this practice in court. They don't admit guilt and can keep on pressuring OEMs to not install alternatives to Windows on new machines.
$23+ million is chump change if it avoids getting dragged into court and having this practice under scrutiny.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The essence of the "voluntary" dissolution of Be means that this money will not go to a sudden resurrection of the BeOS, as some have thought (foolishly hoped, perhaps).
Be Inc wisely (I think) dissolved "voluntarily" and did its best to ensure that investors did not get the short end of the stick. Be sold off all their intellectual property to Palm, and passed the cash amongst stock owners, minus costs. Be then had a single purpose - pursue the MS lawsuit. This money will be passed about, minus expences, to stock holders.
Then all Be will be is a trademarked logo.
I wonder what the morale must be like among the programmers/technicians employed by MS? Every day they must be reading about MS security holes, crashing MS apps, or the latest MS abuse of market power. Their karma must but so low when they shuffle off to pick up their pay cheque.
The ending paragraph of that article
It would be disturbing if it were an article, but it's a press release, not an article. Press releases frequently carry such garbage.
Uhmmm, if you don't know shit about what happened, shut the fuck up. Sorry for the strong language, but that is precisely what Microsoft did. Not only were vendors prohibited from shipping dual boot machines, but if they tried to ship machines with only BeOS on them, Microsoft would have
Be offered their BeOS for FREE to any OEM who would install it on their machines. The end result was not a single top-20 pc manufacturer shipped any machines loaded with BeOS or dual booted with BeOS. A few manufacturers shipped with BeOS on hidden partitions requiring an arcane complex series to steps to activate.
$23.5 million? Chump change. They should have gotten at least $235 million if not $2.35 billion. There is no justice.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Once-invulnerable Microsoft has now had to settle a number of actions such as this.
Yeah, but here's the problem: a one-time fee penalty can't really remedy never really compensate for the permanent elimination of a market competitor. By eliminating Netscape, Microsoft secured a permanent (and quite effective) internet browser monopoly.
Look at it a different way: Microsoft can continue to own that market and cannot get sued over this incident again. So instead of thinking about the fee as a legal penalty, you can think of it as Microsoft buying a (very expensive) license to monopolize the market. It works out the same way.
Eventually, the legal system will have to come to grips with the fact that its current M.O. of penalizing corporations isn't deterring anyone. They smile, pay it, and move on to bigger and better market exploits.
What they really didn't want was a full-dress jury trial where all of what Microsoft did to them would have been fleshed out for all to see.
Eh? Why would they care? They've had several incidents of antitrust very publicly resolved against them. (Netscape; Lotus 1-2-3; that DoubleSpace case... and a hundred small cases of patent theft or breaches of contracts with small companies that were decimated in the struggle.) The public knows they're monopolists - it's been a consistent business method for much of their existence. What's one more suit?
Nah, the real reason is that it's just the cheapest way of resolving this claim. They have no hope of winning or swaying public opinion; they don't even care any more. Just cut bait at bottom dollar and move on.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
What Be tried to do is to get computer manufacturers offer a dual-boot system with Windows and Be. If you think about it, that's about the only way you can get ordinary computer users to try alternative operating systems voluntarily and without hassle. They might even think that the pre-installed alternative adds value to the computer, worth the small extra price (say 10 to 20 bucks). But Microsoft would have none of that.
The reason these kinds of practices are probably illegal for Microsoft is that they are in a monopoly position, and the law tries to keep down monopoly power in order to increase competition. I hope I don't need to explain why competition is the basic feature of capitalism that makes it good for society.
It's too bad that companies don't stand for principals. They can't. Their raison d'etre is to enhance shareholder value, and that means cutting a favorable deal when it's practical to do so. The reason I lament this is that MS once again gets away scott free while admitting no wrongdoing . A person - an individual - might stay the course and see a case like this through to its end provided they had the resources to pay their legal bills (which of course, almost no one has). That end would ideally involve their adversary admitting to wrongdoing, and then paying. Such an admission could be useful to others who find themselves in the same boat. Unfortunately, it IS all about the money.
> Be offered their BeOS for FREE to any OEM who would install it on their machines
Nothing's for free.
Putting BeOS on a system would increase support costs -- Everytime someone calls because they chose the wrong item on the boot menu, there goes pretty much the entire profit on the machine.
Not to mention that it had about zero appeal to the end user because of the lack of any compelling applications.
>$23.5 million? Chump change
IIRC, that's more than Be's "IP" was worth. It's not like you can accuse JL Gassee of a lack of anti-Microsoft zeal. He's probably shitting his pants that he got anything.
Let me tell you a story. I once worked for a company that was able to charge a lot of money for an adequate product. There was no competition, so we could pretty much name our price. We had to keep quality at a tolerable level, but not the level the customer really wanted. We tended to use processes and equipment that was quite old.
These factors caused many economic problems. The company had money, but was not developing or consuming new technology at a rate comparable to the amount of cash on hand. This probably resulted in few overall jobs, but richer principles in the company. Also, the companies customers had to spend time working on our quality issues rather than creating better products for the end user. Also, the companies customers had to pay our 'inflated' prices rather that using that money to upgrade their facilities.
Eventually competition came in the form of Asian manufacturers with modern equipment and processes. The company spent money trying to quickly upgrade equipment and procedures. The competition produced products of equivalent quality at about half the price. Things were no longer great for the company, but times were much better for the companies vendors and customers. Quality increased and jobs were created in the US as the company was forced to modernize the facility.
Which is to say that the free market and capitalism depends on active competitions. While there may be nothing wrong with MS maintaining a monopoly on x86 systems, it does not help the American economy. Manufacturing jobs are being lost at an alarming rate, programming jobs are being lost at an alarming rate, and MS sits there with billions of dollars in the bank and an OS that desperately needs improvement in quality. They could do it.
But there is no competition. There is no other OS that threatens their market share. The vendors are in trouble because MS had no need to upgrade their facilities. The customers are in trouble because MS does not have to charge true market value. There has been no significant feature changes in Windows or Office for at least 5 years. Yet there has also been no retail price change. Admittedly Office now contains VPC, but still we are paying $200 for VPC and $250 for a five year old office suite.
I would suggest that if competition did exist the customer would pay a lower true market price. I suggest that MS would have to hire programmer and buy equipment. I suggest that the previously unemployed programmer would have money to buy durable goods. The manufactures of the durable goods would then hire workers to create the goods. And so on.
This is certainly a simplistic economic view, but the point is that we allow companies to create monopolies and these monopolies cause nothing but problems in the free market . Money collects in unproductive spaces. Technology and process stagnate. And China and India create better cheaper products while American CEO claim ignorance and disbelief at the unfairness of it all and demand that congress enact dangerous protectionist measure to help keep American jobs. They could have just spent some of thier cash reserves on implemeting the new technology, but that never occurs to the CEO.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
23 million? 2 people in car accident get more than that in cival litigation; how many people has MS hurt? This whole thing is just fucked up, and I give up on the legal structure of things because the one with the most money at the end of the day wins. MONEY='Get to do what you want". Wow, what an alogarithm....we should have thought about that during the writing of the Constitution
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
The saddest part for me is the fact that a great company with so much potential is basically reduced to a pittance (23 Mil for a company that Apple almost purchased for big bucks) and all the magic of the BeOS is gone...
Hey Microsoft! No matter how much money you have or how many companies you copy, mimic, or destroy... you will never, and I repeat NEVER, develop anything remotely as cool a as BeBox with BeOS running on it!
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
So MS says dont bundle our product with this other one, we dont want to be taking support calls for them, we dont want their shit shipping with us. It's like Pantera saying they dont want a Britney Spears track on their next CD. Big deal.
I have a closer analogy: the RIAA tells Best Buy not to sell CDs from independent artists, or RIAA member labels will discontinue selling CDs to Best Buy stores.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Well, Be were holding out for more money - trying to be a little bit gready. Apple ended up using NeXT. I'm sure Steve Job's involvment in the NeXT project had nothing to do with it!
Though that said, there are some guys from Be working at Apple now - last rumored to be putting some of the magic that was Be's filesystem into a future OSX.
23 Mil? Fuck you, Bill Gates.
You bitch. You know exactly what you deprived the world with your 'smart business'. You'll go on being the richest man in the world, then sell off your stock to your sweatiest idiot. You'll go and live your carefree life.
Fuck you, Bill Gates.
23 million. Nothing. Not even a fucking bug bite to Microsoft. And then to admit to no wrongdoing. Are you fucking kidding? I don't know when you sold your soul to the devil, but you've been engaged in 'wrongdoing' since I can remember.
Fuck you Bill Gates.
BeOS was magic. BeOS could do shit that you can't even get your shit OS to attempt without blue screening. Sure, it was rough around the edges, didn't support a ton of hardware, but neither could any other commercial OS with you locking them out. Pulling your licensing shit on OEMs, you closed them out of the market. You did this because Be could have ate your lunch.
Fuck you Bill Gates.
23 million. There are 23 million reasons why you should be slowly roasted over discarded Windows 95 manuals.
You fucking coward. You little fucking prick. 23 million. Another day at the races. Fuck you Bill Gates. Fuck you.
Uh yeah and Microsoft originally *GOT* that monopoly how... a gift from God? Saying that Microsoft is only successful because of their monopoly status is a dumb chicken and egg statement -- if they weren't wildly successful to begin with, the monopoly wouldn't ever have become an issue.
They were successful through a stroke of luck (well, two actually). First, IBM gave them the contract to supply the OS for their little project called the "PC" (with an expected product lifespan of a few thousand models) and second, Bill Gates duped Tim Paterson into selling him QDOS for nothing (had Paterson known it was going to be integrated into IBM's product he would have undoubtedly asked for an ongoing piece of the action).
The third stroke of luck, which had nothing to do with Microsoft, was that IBM opened up the specs for the PC which allowed multiple vendors to create competing products to enhance the capabilities of the system. This high availability of off-the-shelf items at the competetive prices required led many to choose the PC platform over the Mac platform which was more expensive to upgrade.
Once the market share of the PC grew, Microsoft went along for the ride. No one gave a rats ass about DOS, other than it was the OS which came with the computer.
We could go into the "theft" of the windows idea from Apple, but that would take pages.
Basically, Microsoft got a monopoly by forces outside its control. That's really fine and dandy; good for them. What's a big problem though is how that monopoly was MAINTAINED.
THAT is a big issue, and an ongoing one at that.
Microsoft is the chicken which grew up first and started kicking all the other eggs out of the nest.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Really, really a lot less than 1%.
$22.5 x 10 = $225m
x 10 = $2.25bn
x 10 = $22.5bn
x 2 = $45bn
i.e. 1/2000 (or 0.05%)
(ehich is *still* less than MSFT cash at hand...)
But I digress. This looks like a pretty fair settlement to me. If you look at who Be's was really compeating with, it was probably Apple, and to a lesser extent SGI. I really don't think there were many BeBox buyers that thought... hmmm.. I really want a Pentium 66 running Windows 95.
This is like Dugati extracting a settlement from Ford, as it's predatory pricing on cars was affecting Ducati's motorbike sales. There are many, many people who can claim to have been harshly affected by Miscrosoft's unfair competitive practices: Be is probably pushing it. Which is why it picked up just 0.05% of MSFT's cash balances...
Just my 2c.
--- My dad's political betting
>Microsoft originally *GOT* that monopoly how... a gift from God?
A gift of IBM actually, but I suppose that you could call IBM the "gods of computer" at that time..
The PC vendors asked Microsoft out on a date... After dating for a while, a new girl shows up (Be), and some PC vendors ask her to dinner... decide they prefer Microsoft, so they leave Be to go patch things up with MSFT.
You have it about right, except for the fact that Microsoft violated at least a half dozen laws in the process. Microsoft is that psychotic girlfriend who makes making illegal threats to anyone Be works with, illegally sabotages the strip-mall where Be gets a job, and who illegally interferes with Be's bank affairs.
Try reading the legal complaint. Hell, Microsoft has already been convicted on most of these charges. It's more like the movie Fatal attraction with the added bonus that Glenn Close is a prison babe on parole and Michael Duglass decides to marry the psycho bitch to avoid getting killed by her.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's not that you can't do it; it's that most people won't do it that is the problem.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
to avoid the risk of being found guilty in court
Civil and criminal court are very, very, very different places and the results of a victory or defeat are very different, indeed.