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Court Rejects msfreepc.com Settlement Claims
mr_tommy writes "Neowin has posted a link to a court ruling (pdf) on the controversial MSfreepc.com website. The court ruled that claims in the Microsoft antitrust settlement made via the site were not legitimate, and as such all submissions made through it would be rejected. The website, operated by Lindows.com, attempted to use the Californian settlement against Microsoft to its own benefit by getting users to signup and make a claim. Lindows saw an opportunity to capitalise on the ruling by getting Microsoft to pay for users to have Lindows software and hardware; undoubtedly too bitter a pill for Microsoft to take. Microsoft filed suit against the website Michael Robertson, owner of Lindows and a strong anti-Microsoft voice, will undoubtedly be disappointed with the ruling. The 'legitimate' site for claims is still available."
Umm, I tried googling around for "ConcentricHost-Ashurbanipal" and couldn't find evidence that it was actually an http daemon but more like it was jsut a service offered by concentric networks. Can you clarify?
Lindows doesn't really care much about this. Sure, they would have taken the money, but what they really wanted was to give MS a black eye by publicizing the court ruling, and also to expand the Lindows user base.
They accomplished a fair bit of each, and what they gave away were just copies of software that hardly cost them anything in the first place. This was another smart marketing move by their CEO, and inline with his other moves: not very classy, but shrewd nonetheless.
The market stopped being fair once Microsoft got into it. This is Microsofts *punishment*. They should not be allowed to weasel out of it by claiming they'll only give away the hardware if it is accompanied by $big-X (retail) of their own software that actually costs them small-x cents.
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E_NOSIG
Lindows is out a few linux distros which are really just debian distros prettied up a bit so they are out of no real money here.
Microsoft looks bad for shutting down a site to help consumers take advantage of the settlement, so they can be spun in the press to be trying to get out of their obligations.
To be honest you can't really blaim Robertson or Lindows.com for putting up the site becuase they win either way.
Now Microsoft... They eitehr Lose or have a Neutral outcome from shutting down this site. To be honest I don't know why they did it... unless they are still trying to claim that they won/were not found to have violated the law in the antitrust case.
Many companies do this. H&R block will give you a "loan" check when you fill out your taxes, based on what you will get back from the government. How is what this website does different? They are giving people products based on how much money Microsoft will owe them. What is the big deal? Nobody is forcing people to use that service.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Michael Robertson has a history of aggressive yet haphazard business models and this is not the first legal smackdown one of his companies has received.
When he was at MP3.com his "strategy" was to confront the music industry head-on, effectively trying to take the banana from the 800 pound gorilla. It wasn't until he launched the infamous myMP3.com service and the copyright violation lawsuits started pouring in that he attempted any sort of amicable agreement with the industry. Surely we haven't forgotten the massive legal smackdown MP3.com incurred as a result.
Robertson's strategy with the Microsoft rebate smacks of the same confrontational and haphazard business decisions that doomed his earlier business.
"Because of their anti-competitive tactics, consumers have paid billions of dollars more than they would have been likely to had Microsoft played fair."
How do you come to this conclusion? Microsoft Windows costs $99, $30 cheaper than MacOS. The so-called law MS broke is so vague, they didn't even know they broke it until they were convicted. There are no strict definitions of what constitutes a monopoly in the Sherman antitrust act. Given the existence of products such as MacOS, Linux, various flavors of unix, OS/2, etc., why should MS be called a monopoly? Anti-trust laws are unfairly written and give the govt. too much power to destroy companies they don't like. Just look at Standard Oil as an example of a so-called harmful monopoly that managed to decrease the price of oil by 70% to consumers. There was no evidence of predatory pricing, which was the standard up until then to prosecute monopolies, but they were attacked anyway, because of other comapnies who couldn't compete, not through any goal to improve things for consumers.
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