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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.
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
wow, that's like what, 3 minutes interest on their $40 billion in the bank. that'll really set them back a ways.
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they're back.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
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
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
$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
This is the illogical consequence of a society too taken with "free capitalism" and without grounds in the reality of economic greed: people will do bad things to get money, if it is the most important thing in society. How quickly we forget the lessons of the "Robber Barons."
#define DRM chmod 000
"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."
Maybe we can use the vouchers to pay our $699.00 SCO licensing fee...
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
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