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Microsoft Not Out Of Anti-Trust Hot Water
tickticker writes "EWeek is reporting on the Anti-Trust follow up, and of course it sounds like a victory for Justice: 'The judges 'were encouraging in the sense that they went to the heart of the case,' Robert Bork, who represented the Computer and Communications Industry Association and the Software and Information Industry Association, said following the court arguments. Bork formerly was a judge on the appeals court.' Microsoft comments included the 'abundance of choice' defence. Which to me means that Microsoft wants the last of the hold-outs to choose Microsoft."
What will happen?
Wrist slap, a million in free software to schools, lawyers get money, MS expends monopoly even further, profit.
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After sifting and sorting through the myriad of posts pointing out that this site is running IIS 5 and how the govt. is so hypocritical for doing so, I've come to the conclusion that some if not most slashdotter's are too riled by minor details. It conveys a serious lack of intelligence on our part. But I digress...
While going through some of the PDF docs on the site, mostly pertaining to court judgements, I noticed that many of these documents reference the Sherman Anti-trust Act.
2 Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 2
Monopolizing trade a felony; penalty
Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court
For those that don't know, this is Section 2 of the Sherman act, which Microsoft was found in violation of. I see the fine of $10,000,000 as a maximum to be completely impotent against a company with a financial foundation such as microsoft's. There should be some sort of percentage of profits reaped from the anti-competitive behavior that should be taken away. $10,000,000 is a drop in the bucket for microsoft. The penalty should be stiffer.
I'd be interested in filing a complaint regarding their procedures regarding the computer sales market, how pretty much all PCs come with their product and their "tax" regardless of whether or not you want it. THAT is a complaint worth filing. I am being FORCED to pay for a PRODUCT that I NEVER asked for nor implied that I wanted.
and of course it sounds like a victory for Justice
Justice for whom?
Microsoft's competitors, who were the people who lobbied the government with huge donations to bring the case in the first place?
Netscape? A failed company who tried to create their own monopoly, but failed when Microsoft gave away their browser for free -- something that every single other browser manufacturer before Netscape was doing already?
Sun Microsystems? A company who created a virtual machine designed to best work on Sparc systems, who suddenly started to get cold feet when Microsoft managed to come up with a virtual machine that worked faster than anything they expected could be created? A company who also completely failed to sue Netscape for creating their own non-compliant Java libraries?
So I ask again... Justice for whom? Anti-microsoft zealots?
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I think "mildly warm water" would be more appropriate here. I don't recall this Anti-Trust thing being anything more then laughable and a symbolic victory, at best, anyways.
Hate me!
That's all well and good, but recall that the case is not about Microsoft being a monopoly, but abusing its monopolistic position.
When Microsoft abuses their dominant position (for instance, to prevent hardware vendors from preloading Linux on their machines), there is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Yeah, he's a real free market advocate. Despite his conservative views, he probably hates microsoft, or any monopoly for that matter, more than you do. He's also a very effective attorney and considered extremely intelligent by other attorneys that don't share his political philosophy. These guys choose well; it never hurts to have a former federal appellate court judge argue your case before a federal court of appeals. Judges give former judges a lot of deference when they argue a case before them. Also, he's now a lawyer. Lawyers argue all kinds of cases that they personally don't believe in; it's there job. In fact it's your sworn obligation to zealously represent and argue your client's interests even if you personally don't agree with him.