Microsoft Drags Feet with Settlement Claims

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is holding up compensation claims from a quarter of million Californians in order to punish Lindows.com, and to coerce the class action plaintiffs 'into siding with Microsoft against its Lindows competitor,' according to a court filing seen by The Register. The document, filed on 21st November by Townsend and Townsend and Crew, lead counsel for the Californian class action consumers, points out that none of the claims being held up was actually filed via Lindows.com, yet Microsoft has held them 'hostage' for over two months."

Comments

A move for the books?

[NightWulf]

I'm not a professional accountant, but could this be a move for the stock? According to the article, they won't have to pay out all 1.1 billion but there will still be a good chunk of money paid out. If they can keep delaying this until after the end of the year, they wouldn't have to report it on this quarters accounting forms. It would seen to me, even for MS, a big cash payment like that will look serious on paper. I could be wrong in my facts though.

Re:A move for the books?

[abolith]

OR the could be paying out some of it now and delaying the rest, so as to spread out the total payout over 2 quarters thus making the damage seem smaller to the stock holders....well it an idea anyway.

Re:A move for the books?

[Registered Coward v2]

I'm not a CPA either, but IAR once you have a reasonable expectation of paying out the cash you take a charge for the full amouunt, which you can reduce if you discover you overestimated the actual payout.

Side note - this allows companies to control earnings by overestimating, for allowances for unpaid debts. Say you overestimate by 1 billion dollars (in a period where earnings are great) - you can discover your error in a period where earnings are poor, magically adding back earnings removed earlier.

Re:A move for the books?

[Billly Gates]

Well its possible MS did not anticipate losing the case and its not reflected in the current SEC paperwork.

My guess is they will factor in the 1 billion when doing guestimates on profits next year.

Or they are doing another dejavue from the DOJ vs MS case. They will refuse to pay and keep putting it off and getting the case appealed until a judge sides with Microsoft.

Re:A move for the books?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that fiasco with AOL's accounting practices near the start of the year? That's basically what they'd wound up doing to look profitable. They took the money they were loosing and kept finding new ways to defer it until the next quarter. So they kept loosing money, but it didn't show up on any accounting reports.

Re:A move for the books?

[TheTomcat]

Microsoft doesn't pay taxes anyway.

S

Interesting Thought.....

[Anonymous Coward]

How many other companies can afford to pay 1.1 billion and barely feel it....?????
ONE

Since the law doesn't apply to microsoft

[RLiegh]

why should they benefit from it? I don't see anything wrong with Microsoft being "exploited" any more than I did when I heard that Dahmer got offed in prison...

In both cases, my reaction is: "couldn't happen to a nicer fuck". And I dont' see any reason to feel bad about that.

Re:I don't feel sorry for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, if accounting and inventory control isn't your cup of tea, don't go into business.

Re:How was this going to work in the first place?

[evilviper]

Yikes... Where to start tearing apart your post?

From what I read, they don't require the proof that the settlement requires

I don't know what the hell you read, but the Microsoft standard claim form requires practically NOTHING. Name of product, where you got it, your own address, and signature... That's it. I have the form right in front of me as a matter of fact.

And what's stopping you from filing claims with both MS and Lindows?

The same thing that stops you from filing two claims with Microsoft... When Microsoft recieves the information, they see that they've already paid one, and refuse the other.

I doubt MS is going to share it's data with Lindows.

That's how Lindows gets their money. If Microsoft doesn't pay Lindows for your claim, then Lindows doesn't pay you. Simple.

Re:Battle of resources, not facts

[Maestro4k]

• Is anyone surprised?

  It doesn't matter whether we're talking about SCO, Microsoft, the DMCA, RIAA, or Michael Jackson. The new get-rich-quick or save-your-ass business model is now based on seeing who can legally travel the farthest on the gas they have in their tank.

Well, yes and no. I'm not surprised because I know Microsoft tends to behave this way, but at the same time, I'm a tad surprised at how flagrantly they're thumbing their nose at all the governments (states and federal) that these settlements effect. As for federal, things aren't looking perfectly hunky-dory for MS on that front, as thre seems to be a fair chance the holdout state may manage to get tougher sanctions placed on MS.

Yes, I know we all think Microsoft is the Evil Empire (tm), but even evil empires/villians generally know when it's time to shut the hell up and at least pretend to play by the rules for a while. Hasn't MS learned by now that further antagonization very well may cause them to end up in bigger trouble? If they start ticking off enough business and individuals, they may find not only public sentiment totally against them, but some seriously powerful lobbying interests pulling out the big guns to launch attacks on them. That could hurt a lot more than any of the current judicial cases/settlements would, and definitely would be far worse than the miniscule amount of money they'll be out by playing by the rules of the game in this case.

This isn't about MyFreePc folks!!!

[Maestro4k]

Ack, so many posts already, all saying that they agree that the MyFreePC site is probably plagued by cheats. Come on guys, that's not the main point in this article!!! It plainly says the following: "The document, filed on 21st November by Townsend and Townsend and Crew, lead counsel for the Californian class action consumers, points out that none of the claims being held up was actually filed via Lindows.com, yet Microsoft has held them 'hostage' for over two months."

This is about Microsoft wanting its way and screwing over innocents to try and get it. They're just being whiney crybabies here about MyFreePC. Sure, they may have some legit complaints about MyFreePC, but that shouldn't stop them from processing legitimate claims that have nothing at all to do with MyFreePC! This is truly just pathetic behaivor on MS's part.

It's just an accounting maneuver

[heironymouscoward]

The bulk of this money will return to Microsoft in the form of new income. So logically, they have no reason to block the settlement. I deduce therefore that it's a subtle way of pumping profits into 2004.

Or maybe Microsoft just hate Michael Robertson so much they would rather find themselves in breach of the settlement than pay one red cent... Nah, can't be.

Re:Battle of resources, not facts

[Trurl's Machine]

Yes, I know we all think Microsoft is the Evil Empire (tm), but even evil empires/villians generally know when it's time to shut the hell up and at least pretend to play by the rules for a while.

Sorry for straying offtopic, but this is generally not true. Actually most empires in history fall just because they went for yet another "easy prey" and bitterly discovered that it wasn't that easy after all. Would the Soviets keep away from Afghanistan, they could pretty well still be in Kremlin. Would Napoleon keep away from Kremlin, he could pretty well keep Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Rome and Madrid till the end of his days. And still this lesson didn't keep Hitler from repeating exatcly the same mistake. The same goes with the villains - Al Capone could live his days in luxury if he wouldn't be too greedy.

DISCLAIMER - no, I am not saying that Bill Gates is like Hitler or Capone; I'm just saying that history proves, that saying "Okay, I have gained enough, now is the time for peaceful consumption of what I've got" is actually the MORE difficult part than saying "Let's build an empire from scratch".

hmm, is this really that big of a shock?

[ShadowRage]

Microsoft is known for slowly backing out of punishments, or does pay people....such a politicians to look the other way.

and seriously, has microsoft ever done things the legal way? no, but they have done some legal things.. but based off illegal actions.
they dont like following federal law, but they sure like using federal law against its own consumers.
when I first heard M$ was supposed to send out money.. I laughed, because I knew they wouldnt do it. Also, if they did pay the settlement, they'd lose a massive chunk of cash,.. which they wish not to do.
so really, they are like "hmmm, no, dont wanna do it. we dont wanna lose money. and federal law doesnt apply to us"

also, they'd prolly jack up a licensing fee in the next windows release... and require you to pay like 700 bucks for the next windows release.. preinstalled or not.

Re:hmm, is this really that big of a shock?

[GoneGaryT]

While it certainly wasn't a perfect operating system, just imagine what the last decade of computing would've been like had OS/2 become the standard instead of Windows...

Don't pile on the torture, man. In 1994, I had OS/2 and early GNU/Linux running under OS/2 Boot Manager and, frankly, I was in non-MS-Windows heaven.(It was the install floppy reads that gave the game away. After about disk 5 on OS/2, it started multitasking and chomping data like Mr Creosote. Early Slack and terrific memory management did a similar trick there, as I recall.) I mean, technically, Microsoft and MS-DOS was so passe if not yet niche from there on. What the fuck went wrong?

I even started becoming a heavy REXX addict... there's nothing of the sort in any Microsoft product. Damn their eyes, Cap'n. I am bitter and resentful even now. Yes.

How future MS settlements should be handled

[shadow255]

Let this be a warning to any other states which have not yet completed class actions against Microsoft for anticompetitive pricing. Any settlement reached should require that Microsoft place the settlement amount, in cash, into an escrow account managed by an impartial third party with disbursements to be managed by said third party with strict guidelines and regular court oversight.

It's time to stop letting these things get turned into PR circuses benefiting the the defendant who chooses to settle out of court (and apparently giving no benefit to the plaintiffs, so far).

Standard disclaimer: IANAL, use this advice at your own peril, yada-yada-yada.

Nothing unethical about it

[Peaceful_Patriot]

I live and work in California and filed a claim through Lindows.com. I have purchased a great deal of MS products over the last 7-8 years for myself, my children and my employer.

The items I claimed on the Lindows form represented only a fraction of the $$ MS has gotten from me over the years.

Because MS is paying with vouchers, and those vouchers will not cover the cost of any new software, they are betting most of it will come back to MS along with some cash.

I filed that claim through Lindows because it gave me a chance to use my share of the settlement money to help a MS competitor and I felt assured the money would not wind up back in MS's pockets. This seems to be the intention of the portion of the settlement which states the settlement"cannot be used by Microsoft to complicate or discourage claims, and they must not discourage legitimate Microsoft competitors from promoting the settlement, distributing claim forms or otherwise participating in the settlement process as expressly contemplated by the Settlement Agreement."

I have no idea whether I will ever see my new free PC but I certainly don't consider myself a thief, nor do I blame Lindows for "promoting and participating in the settlement" as is their right.