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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.
The ending paragraph of that article is disturbing to say the least. Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device. pshhhh... right. ;)
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
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.
To put this in perspective, consider the following math:
:-/
$8,072,000,000 net income for MSFT during the 9 months ended 3/31/03
divided by the (roughly) 270 days during the 9 months ended 3/31/03
...yields $29,000,000 net income per day for MSFT
so basically they destroyed Be, Inc., and it cost them roughly 18 *hours* of income.
just lovely
True, but you must understand that this is yet another chink in their armor. Once-invulnerable Microsoft has now had to settle a number of actions such as this. 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.
What's more, it's very telling that a company with Microsoft's resources would settle rather than fight and "clear our name."
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.
Microsoft calls it 'Freedom to Innovate', everybody else calls it 'Freedom to Violate'.
Now that Microsoft has settled with Be for $23 million dollars, they'll have to cut back to 12 towels a day to wipe down dancing monkeyboy Ballmer. He'll be significantly moister with everything that that entails. I feel truly sorry for the Microsoft employees working in his immediate proximity.
It's great that Be's shareholders get a few dollars back for their pains, but they still certainly didn't come out ahead. But the real tragedy isn't the way about the investors -- it's about the millions of people who could have benefited from Be's amazing and innovative software, had Be been allowed to compete on anything remotely resembling a level playing field.
Hopefully more and more of Be's innovations will end up in Mac OS X and Linux. Then Be's achievements won't have been for naught.
The only reason why MS could settle this case is that Be agreed to the terms of the settlement.
It's no more sad that MS could settle this case for a "paltry" $23 mil than it is that Be would actually accept that settlement.
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.
And when the smoke cleared in the dusty street outside the courthouse, Microsoft was left, a few bullets short, still smirking.
... formidible arsenal might not be enough to protect you someday. Dead men like these do say something about you, you know."
The old judge watched on and winced at the display of street "justice", knowing he had no role in this display. Still, he spoke: "You aught to be careful, Mr. Microsoft. Your...attitude may bring such antagonism that even your
"Bah", Microsoft said, turning. Soon, Mr. Microsoft's gun barrel wavered towards the judge's general direction, "Dead men tell no tales." Mr. Microsoft then promptly holstered his weapon, tipped his hat, and rode away, honor still officially intact.
Ryan Fenton
"Damnit! We should have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft instead of Big Blue!" -- Darl
Last I checked YellowTAB (http://www.yellowtab.com) is working on a new release of BeOS (which really is a nice OS), called zeta, and has collected most of the IP rights to the old BeOS. I wonder if/hope they see some of this.
Be has to get the deal approved by Judge Frederick Motz.. so things are not as dire as they seem. He has no real love for Microsoft.
As for 'not being able to afford going to court', well Be hired Susman/Godfrey on a contingency basis. So it looks like they went for the easy paycheck.
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.
Think about it:
1 people work too many hours, they live and breath 10,12, 16+ hour a day inside MS. Most employees are sleep deprived.
There diet is generally poor.
They listen to the MS propaganda all the time.
when they go out they almost exclusivly go out with MS employees.
The company expects that Wives and children are second to the company.
then within the company, you have 'cells' of people. If you interact 'inapproprietly' towards another cell, your leader can make your life hell, so you always smile.
OTOH, somedays I wish I was so completly blind, I could ignore the worlds problems.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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
Caldera did file an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft for $1.6 billion, and settled for $150 million (estimated).
It is the law, and it's unfair when Microsoft doesn't play by the same rules as others. Back when IBM was making OS/2, they considered giving it away for FREE to compete with Microsoft. They decided not to, though, because they were afraid they'd be found guilty of anti-competitive practices. Meanwhile, Microsoft was off violating the law...
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?
Whenever someone brings suit against Microsoft, they always try to settle. There is no court proceedings in which facts will become public record. There is no innocent or guilty verdict. It's all very quiet, subtle, and quickly brushed aside from peoples' view and memory.
Reading the Complaint, Be appears to have had a very strong case. I cannot believe they would actually lose in court again Microsoft. (Then again, Microsoft do have an army of lawyers and unlimited monetary resources at their disposal.) By accepting this settlement, they do not demonstrate Microsoft had engaged in any wrong-doing. By all accounts, a mere 23 million is nothing to Microsoft and they come out as the winners.
Shame on you, Be. Why doesn't anyone actually take a stand these days? Microsoft says: "here's a lollipop, now shut the fuck up." People, unfortunately, take it without any consideration for the public good in the long-term.
Join Tor today!
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
Essentially, first click downloads the install program. Second click confirms "Do you want to run this, and install Debian as an alternate OS?" Most of the program then downloads off the internet.
Then, the program (1) Loads all system information that it can, into a file
(2) Loads the basic program onto the hard drive, plus all required debs, and checks the hashes.
(3) Installs startup program in Windows that gives the user an option "Would you like to change your default bootup setting to Linux? (Y/N/Don't ask again)"
(4) runs ScanDisk to clean the disk
(5) runs Defrag to defrag it.
(6) rewrites the floppy with a boot disk, and boots into Linux
(7) Partitions a standard user configuration onto the HDD (or onto the alternate HDD, if you so select, thus removing the need for repartitioning)
(8) Installs the Debs
(9) Installs LILO, with 20-second timeout, and default option being Windows bootup (the polite option).
(10) Sets a waiting screen "Your Debian Linux System is Installed. Please hit any key to reboot to Windows, or 'L' to continue with Linux for now, and explore your new OS!."
Such a system should also have a kind of "new hardware" wizard which reports back any new hardware that Debian developers have never seen.
It should also have an "Error Reporting" wizard, such that if the installation process fails, then when you return to Windows you have the option, "Report Error?"
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
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.