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Japanese Government Raids Microsoft Offices
Nakito writes "According to an article at the financial news site Bloomberg, Microsoft's Tokyo office was raided by Japan's Fair Trade Commission, which is investigating whether the world's largest software maker violated the country's anti-monopoly law." Other readers note a AP/Yahoo story claiming: "A commission official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said Microsoft Japan is suspected of attaching improper restrictive conditions when signing software deals with Japanese personal computer manufacturers, such as requiring that Japanese companies allow infringement of their patents."
When will the governments of the world learn that Microsoft WILL do absolutely anything it can to achieve and maintain market dominance.
Microsoft's objective hasn't changed since day 1: control.
Microsoft would much rather control a broken protocol than use or contribute to an open one.
Microsoft would rather squash or buy out competitors instead of compete on a level playing field.
The only 2 things that can change this behavior are Open Source and government restrictions, in that order. (Increased public awareness and understanding is considered part of Open Source.)
Long live Open Source!
As covered in a previous story here , why couldn't the FBI do that on MS's home turf?
I'm willing to bet the anti-trust trial would have made more headway.
You imply that just because one country has restrictive (or just different) laws and regulations, that a company must play by these same rules in all other markets. This is just simply not true.
I'm sure MS has enough lawyers to sort out the regulations from one country to the next and is completely capable of playing by more than one set of rules!
I've made up my mind and now I've got to lie in it.
Perhaps the problem is with large overreaching foreign companies?
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. --Dan Kaminsky
Then how come they routinely do? Every encounter I've seen or heard of with the BSA has seemed more X-Filesish than like an inquiry by a buisness orginzation. They come in, hold up some important looking papers, and say "Let us audit and then sue you or else we'll sue you, then audit you, then sue you again". I've heard of them taking liscence documents to audit them, then having never have seen them when asked to give them back in the court case. The BSA is Bad News. They're out to make money, the same way Tony Soprano is. At my name not to be disclosed School, yes, school, they required that computer clases be cancled for days at a time while the liscence investigation was going on.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
As a former resident of Japan, I think this whole issue is being framed the wrong way. Monopolies are part & parcel of Japanese business practices. It's more likely, they didn't pay off the right officials, plus they happen to be a foreign company.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Let's not forget that Microsoft made a huge blunder with the Xbox in Japan.
.... NOPE ....... NOPE ....... NOPE
....that and the Xbox green colour looks like radiation.
Did they get the hardware wrong?
Did they get the marketing wrong?.... NOPE
Did they get the games wrong?
Did they get the price wrong?
So what did they get wrong?
The freakin NAME of the machine.
The letter X in Japan is synonymous with BAD, like an incorrect answer or a cross on a mistake....
and hence the X-box earned it's name as the BATSU-BOX (or the No-Way-BOX)
And THAT was just asking for trouble coming from an American company.
Funny, for a company with loads of cash... Microsoft couldn't even get the cultural sensitivity thing right.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
However my point is that as a company you have to pay attention to more and more rules. If you don't then you end up in a situation like the present one Microsoft finds themselves in.
Except that a company is not an individual. MS Japan is more than likely a separate corporate entity from (and with strong contractual ties to) MS Redmond.
MS India, same thing. It's a different legal entity, with its own charter, etc. with the only stipulation being heavy contractual obligations to the parent company.
If 50 people in Japan can come up with a clear legal strategy in Japan, why couldn't 50 people in Japan come up with a clear legal strategy in Japan with strong contractual ties to Redmond?
This will have zero effect on MS Redmond, but does smear the name of MS even more.
Microsoft is in 200x what IBM was in 197x. In 30 years, maybe MS will be the good guy again, too!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Except they normally show up accompanied by armed federal marshals.
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http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.ph
http://global.bsa.org/southafrica/press/newsrel
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/colum
http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.