Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Settles Six Class-Action Suits
Bootsy Collins writes "Microsoft has
reached a settlement
in class-action lawsuits filed against them by five states and the District of Columbia. Two of the six settlements have already been approved by the relevant courts.
The settlements would provide $200 million in vouchers to past purchasers of Microsoft software.
The vouchers can be used to purchase hardware, software, or training; suprisingly (given plaintiffs' willingness to roll over on this issue in the past),
vouchers used for software need not be used to purchase Microsoft products. More on this story from the
Washington Post as well as
many other news sources."
I mean, it always comes down to vouchers.
They gave away some software.. OHH THE PAIN. HOW MUCH IT HURTS.
Keeps their marketshare up, doesn't really cost them any real capital, just a slight market dilution, and so on. Not like, say, 200 million in auto parts.
It should have been CASH.
Wonder what the chance is of me getting some $...
I mean, really. Even if it is for third party stuff. It was cash when the plantiff's were overcharged, shouldn't it be cash when it's returned?
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
I know others will point this out - but when will MS actually be punished for persistent illegalities rather than "giving away" stuff of "$$$" value that they claim a tax refund on?
What happened to three strikes? Where are the orange jumb suits and chains?
They are obviously serial offenders who see this sort of thing as a small cost of doing business.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
You know, if anyone wanted yet another take on things.
wow, that's like what, 3 minutes interest on their $40 billion in the bank. that'll really set them back a ways.
...
...
...
...
they're back.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
1) Use a voucher to buy a bunch of software from Wal-mart, or other retail chain with below-average intelligence Customer Service. 2) Return said software, unopened, for merchandise credit. 3) Profit?
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
http://www.redhat.com/training/
MS should be made to host a free, high bandwidth FTP site that mirrors all of the current distributions of Linux and similar free OS software. If nothing else, this would in part make up for all the money received by MS from their unfair "Microsoft tax" charged on nearly every commercial x86 PC; a tax paid for no services whatsoever by those who use only Linux, *BSD, or the like on said machine.
vouchers used for software need not be used to purchase Microsoft products.
But how much do you bet they will anyway?
Like: Hey, we've got all this money we can do whatever we want with : how about we go get new computers? guess what's installed on the computers that will be paid in the machines' price tag?
Unless people massively buy non-Intel boxes and/or Unix software, I'm willing to bet this will mean more money in the bank and more market penetration for Microsoft. Even if Linux, BSD or some other non-Windows OSes are actively promoted, you'll find a lot of Microsoft keyboards or mice in the hardware.
How could it be otherwise? Microsoft has the market so well cornered that sooner or later, a lot of the settlement money will come back to them.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
it prolly prints on the receipt some b.s. about the voucher.
Smart you are not.
Good day.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The lawyers who agreed to this settlement should be paid in vouchers. Let this happen a couple times and maybe some proper settlements would be reached.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Thank you very much for the business.
Sincerely,
Steve Jobs
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
It does print it on the receipt. Except that Wal-mart doesn't require a receipt for merchandise credit. show up with anything that a CS drone can scan with their little gun, and they will take it, and give you all the money you want on a Gift Card.
RTFC?
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
$200 million in exchange for which they get to rule the computer industry and do absolutely anything they like, and the government bodies that are supposed to periodically stop in and enforce anti-trust laws will look the other way, because Microsoft's already had its "punishment".
For $200 million? That sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me.
Especially when you have the amount of money in the bank MS does. I mean, hell, $200 million is what they spent on keeping the x-box disaster afloat in just the first quarter of this year alone.
Would you like a bag of ice for that wrist there, Microsoft?
Those were the last of the bits of the U.S. government holding out on actually holding MS accountable instead of just settling with them, right? Is the EU still going forward with anything?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That's what always gets me about these Microsoft suits. MSFT always says "we're guilty, but don't punish us because it'll hurt our business!" and somehow this is taken as a legitimate argument in every single case. "Willingness" to roll over indeed... that's why is called a fscking SENTENCE... you know, a PUNISHMENT!
Considering that only 2 of 3 people ever redeem vouchers from retail stores, what percentage will ever bother with this? I bet very few will ever know they have the opportunity, and even less will redeem the voucher.... sad way to do the settlement, imho.
I, for one, welcome our new class-action settlement overlords.
man, I should have been one of the unlucky ones who actually uses Windows then I could get some money out of the deal.
http://www.geocities.com/baddsectorr
In a country made For the People, By the People... DO THE CORPORATIONS ALWAYS WIN????? (Or at least... Never Lose??)
Giftcard? I thought you wanted cash?
stuff
Merchandise credit at a major retailer is nearly as good as cash. Use it at a Super Wal-mart, buy groceries.
"It was cash when the plantiff's were overcharged, shouldn't it be cash when it's returned?"
Uh, if you refund money from a monopoly, what's to prevent that money from going right back to the monopoly? At least, in this case, it gives people a chance to try out alternatives.
It's a little more complicated than that, though. According to the final ruling in the anti-trust case, Microsoft isn't guilty of creating a monopoly, they're guilty of maintaining it. The implication there is that at some point, people said "We want Microsoft" and found the price fair. If they agreed to pay the price, why should they get cash back? Let the buyer beware.
In any case, I'm not all that surprised that it turned out this way. Silver lining, folks. Non-Microsoft products get an audience they didn't have before, and schools benefit too.
"Derp de derp."
If I was Bill I would totally get on board with that. Just rip a play right out of Boeing's book. They sell a fair share of Airbus planes on the down low too.
There isn't any reason, Microsoft couldn't host such a cluster off one of their terraserver lines, offer space to all the common free distros. Spend time monkeying around in linux, and throw out an ms distro. That distro providing a few hooks, released under the GPL, to use an external MS product that provides superlative hardware detection and configuration, and even the option to use windows drivers, if no others exist, in a less than optimum manner. Which of course will be sold for $99 (per cpu, naturally).
They might even go so far as to provide versions of office, and even active directory tools for linux too, nickle and dime'ing people to death. Why by comparision, a large scale windows deployment might look like a steal, and a hell of a lot easier. Hell, they might well end up making more margin off the linux users than the windows peoples.
But really, if they got in there, they might be able to do a pretty good job of turning the suits against the linux faithful with the promis of perfect interoperability, and falling just short of that to really make it a pain in the ass.
Man, can you imagine the flames and MS bashing on Slashdot then?
Anyways, be careful what you wish for....
Bu it reminds me of this joke, well, it's actually a scam that someone supposedly pulled somewhere, sometime ago...
A company is established dealing with adult products
over the internet. The company has a fairly innocent name, nothing too vulgar. People buy their product and after a month of waiting they receive a cheque from "Newest Arse Penetration Techniques and Devices
Inc" with a full refund and a letter saying that the prodcut is no longer available, sorry.
How many people will cash that cheque ?
Is that $200 in today's software market, or what $200 could have bought you in a truly competitive market? That's what these class-action suits are supposed to be all about, right?
I signed up on the class action suit against MS (in CA) and still have not gotten anything (they were supposed to mail it). Some good winning a lawsuit against these guys does.
Well, the government basically does not see Microsoft as doing anything wrong, not really. Before the current administration took over, they telegraphed their desire to see antitrust actions against Microsoft done away with.
You and I can read the antitrust regulations and see obvious violations. Serial offenders? Absolutely they are. Not only that, but blatant serial offenders. They walk into a courtroom and blatantly try to pull falsehoods over on the judge. When they get caught, they just keep on going. When they get found judicially to be an illegal monopoly, they disagree and appeal. When the appeals court agrees they are an illegal monopoly, they release statements saying they are just "innovators" instead.
So instead of the orange jump suits and chains, they get tax credits and market share increases. When justice is measured out in terms of profit and loss, those who make the most profits are viewed as the most just. Business as usual today. Expect a lot more of the same.
Still...it is a fun vision to picture Billy G. and Monkey Boy Ballmer on a chain gang. :)
Gift Card? They're rather more lenient over here and give cash instead. Or, at least, they were the last time I needed to return something.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
...thats like, 10025062 units of Debian that the plaintiffs can use to give to family and friends.
but, it might have turned out differently, if lets say Gore was elected over Bush. Cliton/Gore Administration, were pushing for a break-up which should have happened, it did to Standard Oil, it should have happend to Microsoft. Ofcourse we got George Bush. A rich Repubican who would hate to loose the hefty amound of money that his party gets. Sure the Democrats may not be much better, but that mentality that voting for Green is a vote wasted has got to stop.
What good really has come out of Microsoft in lets say the past 5 - 10 years. Absolutly nothing. Not one good thing worth noteing exsists. I can't think of a single thing that Micrsoft has done that has benifited consumers. Now they need to protect their monopoly with DRM. I think we should rent billboard and put on them what Microsoft is doing, it's the only way people will find out before it's too late.
Please find enclosed $200 million dollars worth of vouchers redeemed on hardware purchases from Apple Computer. Please contact our Accounts Receivable department for accounts to wire the money to.
Thank you very much for the business.
Sincerely,
Steve Jobs
Maybe we can use the vouchers to pay our $699.00 SCO licensing fee...
Shut the FUCK UP with your stupid shit-fag letters.
Regards,
FUCK YOU.
Anyone ever heard of this site? It's run by the same people that make Lindows, and it's been around for a while. They make it nice and easy to (1)determine if you're eligable to recieve any vouchers, (2)redeem said vouchers. Also, it's possible to get an entire pc- probably one of those $199 lindows pc's, but hey it's free. Are you gonna complain?
-D
Is that what that was? WOW!
Just break the laws. Make sure you make lots of money while you are breaking the laws.And also make sure you are making enough money by breaking the law so that the fine is nothing compared to the amount of money you alread made by breaking laws.
Welcome to the justice of the 21st century.
Linux Training providers should get on this fast and start working to help train organizations on non-MSFT products.
Ermm... are you saying they shouldn't give out money, because people may spend it on Microsoft products?
The idea of being illegally overcharged, then given a refund of a "coupon" instead of money, seems unfair. If my gas utility manipulates the price of natural gas, I'll still heat my house. Just because they were found to be price gouging does not mean that either (1) I will not be using natural gas anymore or (2) that I will necessarily spend a refundon natural gas. Cash lets me make that choice.
If they agreed to pay the price
You may have not realized you were paying the price, had no choice (see Monopoly), or whatever. If I illegally put a charge to your credit card, and you overlook it and pay it, does that mean you agreed to pay it?
If I'm not making any sense, it's because it's way past my bedtime. Sorry.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
I wonder how much the largest voucher is worth. In the $202 million settlement here in Florida, the largest voucher is worth a whopping $12.
was slashdot down for a bit a minute ago?
To be fair, most people found the price to be right only because they didn't have to pay for it. I mean, who would go out of their way to fork over 200 dollars for a copy of Windows XP or 400(That was what it was costing the chain back when I was working retail) for a copy of Office, when they can go to their local computer geek, announce proudly, "Burn me a copy of Windows and Office, Geek!" and recieve both for the princely sum of 10 dollars for the media?
I bet that if Microsoft somehow found itself with a way to make people pay for their software, MS Office would magically find itself displaced by something like Sun Openoffice. I'd also be willing to bet that windows would remain as popular as ever. 200 dollars is a small price to pay for all your software to keep working.
It's been a long time.
The settlements would provide $200 million in vouchers to past purchasers of Microsoft software.
That's all well and good for the people who actually went out and spent money on M$ products. How about the rest of us who accumulated most of our Windows junk under the table?
It's a shame it would never make a story but this is the funniest thing I've seen in years :)
Accidentally posting your CC info on the net is not clever :D
Couldn't we start up a company that could make a very friendly linux distro based on lets say debian? 200 million would be a great starting point!
you interpret "class action" as "class KAction" and attempt to derive from it and put it on a toolbar.
That's it, I'm going to bed.
If this is anything like the california 'settlement' it's a fucking sham. The state of california filed the lawsuit on 'behaf of its constituents'... and here is what happened.
... that's $129 of COLD HARD CASH
The lawsuit result was for a couple billion dollars that microsoft had to 'give back' to its customers in california. So, much like the vouchers system in this one.. if you sent microsoft your license keys, they would give you a 'voucher' certificate. You could then purchase other hardware/software and mail in the receipt+voucher to get cash. Now here is where the scam is....
All the money that isn't redeemed goes to seperate places. 2/3 of it goes to the state of california to 'help fund schools' and the last 1/3 goes back to microsoft. Now we all know if they get money from microsoft that can only be used for schools that means they will offset funds for schools later...
So this is essentially payola for the state of california, fucking swine.
who is going to go through the effort to get back, oh $50 on their microsoft licenses so that they can just purchase more equipment. Not joe blow.
Compare this to the lawsuit filed by apple's customers about the G3's not being supported by macosX. The settlement says 'send in your copy of OSX and we will give you $129'
goverment for the people indeed.
- "Never let a computer tell me shit." - DelTron Zero
And that's why you run the tinfoil hat. The real conspiracies, aren't really agreements. They're people who understand the meta-game above the one you're playing. They've got the influence, and know how to use it. Your small time irrational theories that require malice, black helicoptors, or alien technology aren't just silly, they also distract you from the real "threat" (such as it is). Feel free, of course, I'm entertained, and there's something to be said for a little theater while you're stuck in an E-ticket handbasket ride.
Bill Gates doesn't get up in the morning, scratch his nuts and go, wow, what can I do to make those linux people flame away on slashdot today. No one in corporate america asks themselves that question. They get up, take a quick inventory of what they think they can and can't do (or get away with if you prefer), and then figure out how they get more, by doing the least with the minimum amount of risk over the shortest interval of time. And much like our interconnected power grid allows, and even creates the enviroment, for spectacular disasters and collapses, so does our interconnected society. The role of government is vastly more challenging, than it was. The system that is the sum of our interconnected lives is impossibly complicated. The mind of a single fruit fly, still holds suprising mysteries, let alone that of a man, and his decisions. The sum of, not just, all the people, but all of their connections, even the ones they themselves are unaware of, in even a country is a monsterous beast to of a puzzle. It's little surprise that our expertise in managing ourselves only allows us to tackle these problems with the broadest and vaguest notions, words, and remedies. The holes are vast, the consequences devestating to be sure. But there's no reason to turn to the new milleniums mysticism. That's just an excuse, and a poor one, to stop your examination of the problem.
Ultimately, it's never about the person we are, it is the person who we'd like to be. Even if there is nothing we can personally do, practicaly or otherwise, to set right the inequities we percieve, why write them off as this years supernatural?
how do I get my voucher??
and then how do I get Bush's tax refund?
Apple machines don't come with Windows. They don't even come with IE any more. Use an alternative to Office and you are MS Free, plus you have some great Apple apps _and_ all the UNIX software you can, er, eat. I hope Apple step up and take the vouchers.
We need to start the next class-action suit and this one is almost guaranteed to bankrupt even Microsoft!
Every day I examine the logs on my firewall (linux, of course, do you think I'm nuts enough to trust any MS box naked on the net?) and find hundereds of Slammer, Blaster, etc, etc,etc probes looking for vulnerable Windows boxes. I am sure that most of these are compromised Windows boxes looking for more vulnerable Windows machines to infect. The rest are script kiddies looking to start a new round of Windows takeovers.
Spammers are now advertising that they have large numbers of trojaned machines available for sending spam without anyone being able to trace who actually sent the spam. Does anyone want to wager how many of those are Windows machines?
Recent articles on slashdot reported that large companies spend as much as 50% of their Web traffic just updating their Windows machines.
How much Web traffic is due only to Microsoft's poor programming practices? How much faster would the Web be if Windows was written to be secure in the first place? How much productivity is wasted worldwide every day reading spam from compromised Windows machines, patching the latest vulnerability discovered in Windows and repairing those Windows machines that weren't patched fast enough?
50 billion dollars is only a down payent on the cost of these things. We need to figure out how to start collecting it!
Those who get a voucher from any of these deals should get together and donate all of their vouchers to an open source project. If you must, purchase a "license" to use that software. Put that money where it can be directly used against the Microsoft monopoly. Imagine Microsoft having to write 200 million dollars in checks to Redhat, MySQL, or Gnome. Hah! Oh, the irony.
Somebody mod that up more
All's true that is mistrusted
so where do i trade in my unopen copies of windows millenium for some wireless mice? no joke, heh.
7. John likes 400 but not 300; he likes 100 but not 99; he likes 2500 but not 2400.
Which does he like? 900 1000 1100 1200
I'm just drawing a blank on the relationship, I can't see it...
and get my refund!
Imagine how many copies of Office all those people would buy.
[ you and I are ugly ]
"Even if it is for third party stuff. It was cash when the plantiff's were overcharged, shouldn't it be cash when it's returned?"
They didn't seem to think they were being overcharged enough not to buy the software in the 1st place. Who the hell is the govt to point a gun at MS and say they were overcharging. This is a violation of freedom. Reminds me of the Standard Oil case where they broke up the company for monopoly practices even though they reduced consumer costs by 70% without predatory pricing.
These lawsuits are bs. Netscape had a lousy business plan and they lost. So they go crying to the govt and get 0.7 billion from MS, plus MS has to shell out to all the other looters now, and they complain their not getting cash. And you losers have the gall to complain the govt invading your privacy. You don't care about freedom, only your own freedom, and damn anyone else who you dislike.
200 dollars is a small price to pay for all your software to keep working.
Ahhh, the beauty of lock-in....
I don't know what it's for. This chick was asking me all these questions... I asked what for, she said "no reason". She was either taking a test herself, or was testing me.
I just blanked on this one, I was running through all sorts of patterns. I should've seen the square-roots. Oh, well...
Anyone else remember the class action suet that happend a year or so ago (maybe more, my memory is crap) and promised a 5-15 dollar check in the mail? I remember adding my name to it. Never got anything. I wonder if MS will actually give out vouchers....
"Ermm... are you saying they shouldn't give out money, because people may spend it on Microsoft products?"
Sort of. I meant that in a more general sense than just Microsoft. The thing is, when I picture a monopoly, Microsoft is not the first company that comes to mind. I think about the way phone companies used to be. Things that are part of your must have list that you end up paying for month to month. If I were to get a refund from AT&T, that money'd likely go towards paying my phone bill. Or maybe, it'd be used for stuffing my face. Either way, the chances of it being used to do buy a product from a competitor are very very low. That's not much of a punishment to a monopoly. Make competing products more attractive, and then the monopoly has something to worry about.
"The idea of being illegally overcharged, then given a refund of a "coupon" instead of money, seems unfair. If my gas utility manipulates the price of natural gas, I'll still heat my house. Just because they were found to be price gouging does not mean that either (1) I will not be using natural gas anymore or (2) that I will necessarily spend a refundon natural gas. Cash lets me make that choice."
You're right. However, the Microsoft monopoly is a little different from the case you've provided here. People need to heat their homes, that's where the gas company's monopoly comes into play. With Microsoft, though, the choice to use it is largely in part to it being the standard the market has chosen. "This is the cool thing to have." I'm having difficulty explaining my thoughts clearly here, and I apologize for that. What I'm trying to say is that the plaintiffs here contributed to their own damages.
" If I illegally put a charge to your credit card, and you overlook it and pay it, does that mean you agreed to pay it?"
That's not quite what I'm getting at, no. There's no overlooking here. The price tag is right there in front of their face. At some point they nodded their head and said okay. The information they're missing is that because Microsoft's the only game in town, they don't know the average cost of an OS. That's a fair complaint, in my opinion, but it is not one that Microsoft is entirely at fault for. They own some of that responsibility, particularly if they're squashing competition that could influence their pricing. But it is not their fault that the customers paid that price.
I hope that makes my thoughts a little clearer. I don't feel that Microsoft is being punished severely enough, but I do feel that the type of punishment is suitable. With any luck, it'll make the individual consumer think a little more carefully about their choices, as opposed as to doing what's fashionable in Wired magazine. Though I do attribute Microsoft's monopoly to the market saying "we want them here", I do feel that a lot of the people who made that happen were mindlessly following the hype.
"If I'm not making any sense, it's because it's way past my bedtime. Sorry."
Totally understandable. I'm kinda tired myself.
Cheers man
"Derp de derp."
Funny -- just today I threw out the application for my voucher from the CA class action lawsuit.
In 1998, I bought a ThinkPad with Win98 installed. Apparently, this makes me eligible for $16 of Microsoft vouchers redeemable at major chains. I just needed to fill out a big honkin' form ripe for targeted marketing / mailing lists / etc. Why would they need anything more than my name and address??
The small print? By submitting the voucher I agree that Microsoft has been totally cleared of any wrongdoing and I will never pursue any other claim related to this against Microsoft in the future. For $16. Why bother?
I should have been a lawyer -- these are the only guys getting any money out of this settlement.
"I bet that if Microsoft somehow found itself with a way to make people pay for their software, MS Office would magically find itself displaced by something like Sun Openoffice."
What's stopping people from using Sun or OpenOffice anyway?
Maybe I'm just tired here, but I'm baffled by why you were modded up as interesting. Microsoft's Office line is quite profitable. It also is quite useful. To be displaced by OpenOffice, it would have to be better and I mean significantly better than Office. (we call that competition over here.) It wouldn't hurt for Sun to advertise, either. Lots of complaining about Microsoft's monopoly in the Office market, but I have yet to see a commercial for OpenOffice or anything else.
Lots of whining, but not a whole lot of doing.
Simply put, Office will be displaced by an alternative when somebody steps up to the plate and competes with Microsoft. Sitting around endlessly twiddling your thumbs will not do well against Microsoft aggressively marketing and developing their product.
"Derp de derp."
Vote.
/. will not do it at all.
Register to vote, and DO it.
If you do not vote, they do not care.
Ask your (choose candidate for x office) about what you care about---DCMA, corporate/government buying of law, whatever.
Kick em out of office.
Things CAN change, but bitching here on
wow, talk about a lack of advertising, if an ubergeek like me has never heard of it. Had i know about it, i might not have had to burn office xp ...
wait, yes i would have, because it is better
if i had to pay for it though, i would definitely use something less expensive. I'm not paying 400 bucks to be harassed by a paperclip
~Chris Hammond
I bet that if Microsoft somehow found itself with a way to make people pay for their software, MS Office would magically find itself displaced by something like Sun Openoffice
Yes and no. MS would lose market share only to the point where they started reducing the price, or more likely, bundling other applications into it (and then removing any other method to buy them). MS is trying to secure your purchase as hard as they can, actually.
No, Microsoft came with peoples computers and people thought it was free, that is why they thought the price was fair. Even now how many average people realize that a large chunk of the cost of their new computer goes to MS?
Dave
I wish I was getting one of those vouchers - it'd give me so much pleasure to buy the latest SuSE distro, paid for by Bill Gates.
"vouchers used for software need not be used to purchase Microsoft products."
(Cluching chest) "Elizabeth, this is the big one!!"
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Is the FSF (or whoever) able to set up such a mechanism? If I could collect a voucher, then donate the funds directly to the FSF, I'd do it straight away. I mean, the amounts on each voucher are probably small enough that they're not worth much to anyone individually, but a large collection of vouchers would be worthwhile.
I'd prefer my donated funds didn't go directly to a project or FOSS company (sorry guys!), but to a group charged with ensuring FOSS' continued survival and/or prosperity.
If there's a way that the FSF (or whoever) can invoice me for "software", such that these vouchers can be cashed, it'd be potentially a huge win.
But MS had "fine print" that didn't allow a third party to file, or some silly thing about not being able to do it electronically...making any kind of mass-retialiation pointless...but at least someone tried!
$200,000,000 is a rounding error in their books. This is not a penalty.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Debian / Open Office and nice hardware for me, thank you. Hell, I'll take the same on cheap hardware too. M$ is just not woth the price and heartache of worms, popups and other junk. If they can't deal with the internet, what is it really worth?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They should combine lots of vouchers to consider it.
MSDOS: 20+ years without remote hole in the default install
To be fair, the majority of copies of Office being sold are being sold to medium & large businesses, who, in the name of standardization, have decreed that Office will be on every desktop.
Of course, they're also the worst offenders when it comes to having the largest number of unpatched Office installations. The average Fortune500 IS department is laughable when it comes to technical ability (when it comes to schmoozing and "networking" they're first-rate).
Individuals and small companies pretty much pirate Office because they don't know that OpenOffice exists. They just want to eek out a living, they don't give a rats ass about buzzwords. Unless they fancy themselves a techie and want to be cool - but most of those scmucks end up on the hot-poker side of the industry pretty quick.
When M$ pays with Software... It's like letting the drugmafia pay with Heroine or the tabac industry with cigarettes ;-)
Seems that this is limited by the state you live in. So I guess since I'm in Texas I'm screwed, as it wasn't meantioned in the article.
Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
I don't understand how the US courts can abandon the US and world consumers by handing M$ such a pitiful excuse for a fine... if you will.
Here is a company that has made BILLIONS, most of which it sits on to thwart competitors and invest in anti-open source companies like SCO, and the courts only see fit to fine them 0.44% of the profits they illegally gained.
I don't get it?!
Maybe its the Canadian in me eh! (:-
Free Software Foundation Online Order Form:
https://agia.fsf.org/
They aren't guilty of maintaining a monopoly. According to the appeals court ruling, they only were established as a monopoly. Monopolies aren't illegal. What is illegal is to either 1) create barriers of entry to competitors that might take away your monopoly or 2) leverage your monopoly to create monopolies in other areas.
Because MS settled with the DOJ after the case went back to the trial court level, the court never got to determine whether MS did anything illegal from their monopoly. Hopefully, the judge last week saw that MS is still up to the same old shit in putting a lot of conditions on the licensing of Windows source code. Probably not, though. History with MS has taught us they get away with a lot of crap.
Microsoft starts printing their own cash with pictures of Bill Gates on the front.
You do realize how much Office costs, right?
If it wasn't stolen so often, no home users would use it at all. It's only profitable because of business markets, who have no choice but to buy it, lest they get BSA'd. I was talking about home users.
It's been a long time.
It's really hard to give a better price than free.
Miicrosoft has learned this lesson well in it's battle against Netscape.
It's been a long time.
Good comment! I totally agree. I run a leagal purchased copy of Win 2K on 1 of my home computers. I'm not upset at the prices I paid, because I knew it, i decided that for the things I needed to run (which required windows) it was worth the price tag. On other of my computers I have decided that WinXP is too expensive and since I have 1 machine running 2K which can still run the programs that I had to have running in windows, i'm not spending money on it. Think about this in terms of buying a house....if I find a house I really like, and it's worth $250K, but there are two other interested parties in the house and I end up deciding to pay $270K for the house to out-bid other people, yes I would be overpaying, but it would have been my choice! I would have known the value/price when I signed the papers......If someone can swee the price tag and chose to buy, they know what they are getting, it's their right to chose not to buy it. Another example: I recently bought a computer for my father from Dell. It came with WindowsXP home, which he doesn't want and intends to format off day 1. Now I know that I paid for the software, and am therefor getting "ripped-off" but I also knew what came on the system at the advertised price.....It was a good value, even if he dosn't use the software. I would prefer if Dell/Intel/nvidia/sound blaster got the $$$ because those are the parts I wanted, but i see them as loseing money because dell wouldn't see the PC with-out windows....I would have paid the same $$$ for the system if it didn't have windows (because it was a good deal).
Is there a site that lists all of the class actions against Microsoft, and the states that filed them? I want to make sure to take advantage of this when my state files.
"Uh, if you refund money from a monopoly, what's to prevent that money from going right back to the monopoly? At least, in this case, it gives people a chance to try out alternatives."
I live in California, and I recently got some settlement info in the mail. It seems that I get vouchers whose value depends on how many Microsoft products I purchased.
I'm thinking of using them to buy a copy of Mandrake Linux. I rather enjoy the though of using Microsoft money to fund Linux. I wonder if Mandrake will be accepting these.
One would think Slashdot readers would have
bought their computer at the PC/Computer show.
You buy it in pieces... starting with a nice
bare bones kit.
But no, you spend your money on something with
windows on it. Fuck you for supporting them.
If you want to sue someone, how about the idiots that bother to open the attachments, or scream at Microsoft for putting in the best anti-virus software they could make into Outlook 2K - the inability to open executables in e-mail? Or who scream at the admins who install the updates?
t tp://www.vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=376&page=4
http://www.vmyths.com/rant.cfm?id=321&page=4
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Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
They didn't seem to think they were being overcharged enough not to buy the software in the 1st place.
They probably did, but they had no choice. Want to share documents with your clients who use MS Office? Well, you have to have it too or you lose the client. Sheer banditry.
There's no overlooking here. The price tag is right there in front of their face.
Not on an OEM copy on a new box, it's not.
What's stopping people from using Sun or OpenOffice anyway?
He's saying that much of MS Office's popular use comes from PIRATED copies. If those pirates were actually forced to pay or stop using MS Office, usage of alternative suites would spike considerably.
You seem to do a lot of selective reading, NG.
" If those pirates were actually forced to pay or stop using MS Office, usage of alternative suites would spike "
Hmm.
Okay, I see his point a little more clearly than i did when I originally refuted it. I'm still not convinced it would happen that way because I don't think the alternatives are quite ready to replace Office. Even if they were, their name simply isn't out there. (Psst, Sun, advertising would really help!) If the alternatives out there were more wide spread, I'd have an easier time believing that.
If he were to say "people pirating Office are a speedbump in OpenOffice's popularity", I'd be more willing to agree. But to say that OpenOffice would suddenly be more popular if Microsoft were to completely thwart piracy is not something I'm inclined to believe. I can picture a handful of people meeting that reason, but not massive amounts of people.
"You seem to do a lot of selective reading, NG."
I see why you'd say that, but I'd attribute that more to fatique and writing/reading in a hurry. Yes, I'm guilty of it, but please don't think it's out of bias. I'd rather learn and lose a debate than win a debate and be ignorant.
"Derp de derp."
MANHAM you have CANNED!
For home users, $150 US retail list for the three seat, uncrippled, no-questions-asked, Student-Teacher edition. This is not a budget-buster. One big name local retailer will throw in a midline HP color inkjet printer if you spring for the commercial SOHO Office bundle.
$30-$50 US for an OEM XP Home install? Big Whoop.
In three monthes you'll have spent more on replacement cartridges for your ink jet printer.