Slashdot Mirror
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."
Should we expect eminent post of the Japanese version of Windows XP source code now?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
BBC is also running the story here.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Wow.. what a crazy hemispere. Kazaa and now Microsoft?
Just shocking. Never saw that coming *at all*.
One of the benefits of the new trend towards global companies is that the set of rules one must play by becomes more and more restricted as you enter into new markets.
--- I do not moderate.
"IT Department of Japanese Government Raided by BSA"
Too bad Microsoft has bought enough politicians here in the US to keep the company from conforming to anti trust laws. *sigh* Good thing I am starting to make my transition to Linux now, though if the **AA's had there way, Linux would be made illegal cause it circumvents DRM. :-(
Call up the troops! It's Pearl Harbor all over again!
Wow i hope they make a Anime about the raid!... .. Giant Robots!!
Officer: Stop!
M$: no!
Officer: So, Be it.. we must Kungfoo Figh!...
Then out of no where
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.
and it seems to me that they are protecting Japanese companies from alleged abuse on my Microsoft's part in contracts.
nothing sissy about that.
IAALS.
What happened to the good old days when we had RIAA and SCO jokes to space out the Microsoft ones?
It is absolutely ridiculous that our rights (to free trade in this instance) in the United States are treated so lightly by our government.
At every opportunity it seems the president is reinforcing "his commitment to spreading freedom throughout the world" yet it takes a foreign power to ultimately prove how hollow that sentiment is.
When compared against Europe and Japan, the United States commitment to protecting its citizenry from overbearing coorperate powers is shown lacking time and again. I for one an tired of the hypocrisy.
Its shameful that I have to look to another country with hope that something will be done to curb the monopolistic amoral appetite of these coorperations.
For now I can only say "go Japan!". I'm embarrased by the entire predicament.
Did anyone even know they had any? Last I checked the Japanese government was all for large overreaching companies.
The United States couldn't finish the Microsoft case during the Clinton administration, but it may be the Japanese that cause Microsoft to adopt tactics conducive to competition.
They gave us anime, lots of neat consumer electronics, and Microsoft a slap upside the head. Japan gets two thumbs up from me.
May we never see th
On November 1998, Japan's Fair Trade Comission has alerted Microsoft to force bundling Word/Excel. It was just alert, but it's raid this time!
Matsushita, JVC, and Sony are Japanese corporations, which the Japanese government is probably very interested in protecting. The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings. It wouldn't surprise me if the raid was taken on in part to protect the interests of a Japanese firm or two.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Come on, sack up and go after someone who has persistently leveraged monopolistic control to promote inferior technology (Intel, Matsushita, JVC, Sony), rather than someone that your government can't currently do without.
The article doesn't really say, but I'm thinking it's just that Microsoft stepped on the wrong toes. It's not like Japan is banning Microsoft from doing business in Japan, but more like a little warning. This is less anoying than a flybite to the big MS.
Shouldn't it be:
....
In A.D. 2004
War was beginning.
NEC: What happen ?
Dell: Somebody set up us the contract.
Dell: We get signal.
NEC: What !
Dell: Main screen turn on.
NEC: It's You !!
Microsoft: How are you gentlemen !!
Microsoft: All your patent are belong to us.
Microsoft: You are on the way to bankruptcy.
NEC: What you say !!
Microsoft: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Microsoft: HA HA HA HA
Japan: Take off every 'cop' !!
Japan: You know what you doing.
Japan: Move 'cop'.
Japan: For great justice.
It might not have happened if MS were Japanese company?
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."
A deal "allowing infringement of one's patent" is more commonly referred to as a "patent license". I don't see anything improper about that
The problem is the monopoly itself, not the specific conditions that Microsoft can impose using that monopoly. Forcing manufacturers to license their patents is no more or less injurious than forcing consumers to pay $200 for Windows XP Home.
They don't have a problem with large overreaching Japanese companies, that's for sure. But Microsoft comes from America (or Satan-guys, don't post Slashdot after taking cough syrup).
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Microsoft Island.
A small island, in international waters, where Microsoft can conspir... err, schem... err, work... without fear of government raids.
C'mon. You just know they're thinking about it...
I hope they show a Japanese official on C-Span trying to pronounce "Ballmer"
In this case, they aren't recognizing patents held by foreign companies.
It's sort of like in WWII, where we seized Bayer's patents. Except Japan *always does this*.
Actually I'm the president of a company that has used open source profitably for over 5 years, and it does pay the bills. Very nicely in fact.
Thanks goes to the developers of Linux, Apache, MySQL (and other databases), PHP, and others.
And yes, I want my company to make money, which it does. But there are more important things than that, and there are plenty of profitable companies (open source or otherwise) to prove that money can be made hand over fist without resorting to Microsofts tactics.
It's high time Japan start addressing unfair American trade practices. Millions of Japanese jobs have been lost to American corporations taking advantage of lax trade laws while the xenophobic American populace refuses to buy anything built by the "gaijins".
Oh wait, I think I have that backwards.
Yup - that's the way it went for Al Capone too. They finally get Bill Gates for tax evasion and he'll have to move to Florida.
Sony has leveraged its positions in both media and consumer electronics to push an admittedly superior to DVD-Audio format (SACD). Phillips beat RAMBUS to the "standardize my patents, suckers" game with CD. JVC with VHS, etc...
Matsushita and Sony were both found to have scale monopolies (price-fixing) in Europe. Japanese business is famous not only for its oligopolistic practices (keiretsu), but also its strong influence over the decisions of the modern Japanese government.
Besides, the root comment is an obvious troll. Admit that governments shelter their domestic businesses and move along.
Are you kidding me? They're getting away with it because it's a foriegn company. Japanese corporations get away with things we'd never dream of in this country. They have no trouble with overreaching corporations as long as they're there own. Japanese trade policy has always seen Japanese Companies and government working hand in hand to pry open foreign markets by every means nessecary, and the nature of the complaints has Japanese coporate complaint all over them.
Why?
From my knowledge of Asian culture, I believe these are the most likely scenarios:
....never mind.
1) Microsoft had discovered an ancient form of super-Karate, and was training hordes of minions in the art, with plans to take over the world. But, a lone anti-trust agent, has discovered a long lost form of Karate that is even more powerful. He, a few trusty sidekicks with little fighting experience, and a girl with an unusual aptitude for fighting, raid Microsoft and defeat the faceless hordes. Finally Steve Ballmer himself leaps into the fray for a one-on-one fight to the death with the hero. Ballmer is defeated, and begs to be spared. The girl leaps in to finish him, but the hero holds her back, showing mercy to Ballmer. As the hero and heroine walk away, Ballmer leaps at them with a knife, and the hero sidesteps, and cuts Ballmer in half.
2) Microsoft is fashioning a set of super swords that, if combined, will have the power to
While I've worked for MS before and may again I always find their street address rather funny/ironic.
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings.
Fortunately, American companies don't influence our government.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Can you give a specific example or two? I'm not saying you're full of shit, but I'd like to look into this if it's true.
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.
While one legal ruling in one country may hold absolutely no weight in another, any company that assumes it won't entice other countries to look for similar laws is not only doing themselves a disservice but acting out of arrogance. While the rules ARE different from country to country, as a global organization, you have to be aware of all of them and make sure your corporation is covering all of its bases in each distinct zone but at the same time balance this against sets of created expectations.
Assuming one can just have very specific terms and rules for one country is dangerous... for example if in Croatia Microsoft relaxes desktop icon restriction and certain license requirements to fit in with local law, how do they then deny the same changes and benefits to Serbia?
--- I do not moderate.
Care to illustrate it a bit? Are you speaking from first hand experience, or hear-say?
Unless you have a first hand experience, I doubt your assertion that the Japanese judicative does not upheld the right of foreign companies (which they have, thanks WIPO and TRIPS).
Next, it seems a bit unlikely to me that someone from the US tries to enforce a patent in Japan by going through a Japanese law-suit instead of a US ligitation. US courts are more than willing to accept a case, when the there is any involvement with a US citizen, US company, or US subsidary.
Not to mention that one had the favour of a American jury.
The enforcement would also be no problem, unless it is a purely local company, which has no business, directly or indirectly, with the US. But I guess, such a company would be hard to find.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
The Japanese arm of the BSA was part of the RAID, and found many unlicensed copies MS Office and Windows XP. When the head BSA agent called in the offense to the MS Piracy hotline from one of the office phones, the receptionist looked at the caller ID and said, "you make the software, you can't turn yourself in, you idiot!", and hung up.
I can't afford a sig!
Misutah Gaytsu. nto ne...Yuu bulingingu eh-to disu-ohnah atto famili da yo. Heeya izu yoah katana ne. Sahbanto no Steebu Balumah wa soon helupingu wizu seppuku.
Yes, most Japanese people have little understanding of English Prepositions and Tenses, which is understandable as they are much more complicated than the Japanese ones...And many Japanese people who speak English usually use little Japanese interjections when they speak, and probably don't even realize they are doing it. At least here in Japan that is what I have seen...
Uhh...am I far enough off topic yet?
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Balmmer: Oh no. Japanese Government set us up the bomb...
You do the rest...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Japan has some of the must unfair practices when it comes to dealing with the American market,
I'd suggest you elaborate. A statement this vague and this broad sounds like Flamebait.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
This is good because we'll get to see what's really going on behind those closed doors of Microsoft. An American company gets inspected by a foreign country.
Summerizing this Japanese article, the issue is that the OEM contracts contain a clause disallowing the filing of complaints about against Microsoft software. The main part that seems to have rankled is that Microsoft is believed to have improperly included software developed by Japanese manufactures(Fujitsu, NEC, etc). By being forced to agree to the clause in the contract however, they are unable to file a complaint against Microsoft.
This is where the monopoly bit comes in. Because Microsoft has an OS monopoly the makers have no other choice than to include the OS on their machines, which in order to do so forces them into sign the contract. All of which rubs up against various Japansese antitrust and trade laws.
I don't have any link handy, but there has been a number of patent cases brought to a court by foregin (read: US) companies. One of my buddies, who used to work for a well-known Japanese electronics company beginning with "h," once told me that this Japanese company's newly established computer (desktop) devision knowingly copied DOS, and after it was discovered the company was tried, and ordered to pay hefty damage to MS, which lead the devision to shut down.
If Japan really is patent outlaw country, why do all the big companies (Sony, Panasonic, Toyota, Honda) own so many patents both in Japan and US? I'd appreciate it if you can explain to me, please.
I don't really have any link to back up my argument, but your knowledge in Japan's Patent laws and enforcement obviously is paper thin.
Remember The Madness of King George a few years back? The original title was The Madness of King George III but they thought that American audiences would want to know where parts I and II were playing at...
(ducks)
See it here.
Chances are the Japanese government warned them, but Microsoft thought the email with the attachment full of legalese was either spam or yet another trojan, and deleted it without opening. Seriously, who opens attachments you weren't expecting anyhow?
And America has some of the most unfair practices when dealing with the rest of the world. ( steel imports, third world aid packages that don't aid, blockades against entire countries )
Whats your point?
you don't understand... Japanese patents can be and are enforced in japan, it's just American patents that are not.
The American company Micro$hit cannot violate Japanese patents in Japan and expect that the police will not burn their office and publicly humiliate their imployees.
As to anti monopoly laws, "In Japan!?" LOL.
Again, only enforced if the company is American, and harms Japanese companies.
Less look fast, more go fast.
All your base are belong to Microsoftu, I mean us!
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
This is in referrence to raids on Kazaa in Australia.
Not a great post, but certainly not offtopic.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I'm sure a great deal of this legal action against Microsoft is partly "bandwagon" but I also think that perhaps now that folks are seeing that there actually *IS* and alternative to Microsoft, perhaps they can afford to fight back against the things Microsft has been getting away with all these years?
Why should businesses be able to do what they want? Why? For that matter, why not say that any /. user should have open access to the /. database?
Oh, wait, that's a really bad idea.
Law is basically a compromise between the perceived ideal and, more importantly, the pragmatic realities of life. If people could live in perfect accordance with the principles of honor, fairness, justice, mercy, &c then we wouldn't need to legislate things like this.
Unfortunately, human beings will tend to see potential advantages from a pragmatic point of view - i.e. what is the cost/benefit of a given action, what is the ROI, essentially (((probability of payoff) * (estimated payoff)) / ((probability of loss) * (estimated loss)))
basically, payoff/loss guides Microsoft - If they are more likely to make money than lose money by a given action, they will do it.
Recall the reason that we have police - people will break the law if they believe they can do so without getting caught. They will continue to break the law even if caught unless the consequences of breaking the law are sufficiently great as to serve as sufficient deterrent in the mind of the average citizen. This is why people get repeat traffic tickets - they don't believe that they will be caught often enough and fined enough for it to change their behavior.
As a citizen, I have the pragmatic concern that I do not desire that companies extort money from me. As this concern is pretty common, likeminded people have legislated against common methods of such. In the U.S., trusts and cartels have been and have been perceived to have been a significant problem in this area, and therefore we have laws to restrict this sort of behavior.
Japan, however, has a different view of how business should be organised. Japanese businesses are bound into keiretsu much more tightly that the trusts which U.S. law was formed to combat - unfortunately, there are a few downsides to this, such as difficulties in agreeing on a uniform DVD format, but as a whole it works pretty well. This binding, and the mindset behind it, should tell you something - namely, that Japanese law really doesn't have much in the way of anti-trust type laws. (The American occupational government broke up much of this after WWII, but the keiretsu recoalesced quite rapidly.) The organisation of businesses into keiretsu has historically been successful because of the ingrained code of honor that permeates the Japanese culture. If/as this changes, the keiretsu will either have to diminish or assume greater control of government, as has happened in the U.S.
Of course, one could argue along with people like Adam Smith that pragmatism is also the impetus for laissez-faire capitalism, but I think that a moderate position is most effective.
You are standing in an open server west of a blue house, with a boarded front door. There is an Exchange mailbox here.
...is *extremely* high, once the law decides to go after you. at least for individuals - we'll see what happens to a megacorp.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
If you want to really go after the Japanese on patents, at least get your facts straight.
Japan actually has one of the highest rates of corporate patenting ANYWHERE. This is caused largely by corporate guidelines that say "department x must have at least 3 patentable inventions per year."
As a result, Japan's books are filled with tens of thousands of patents for truly mediocre things.
That said this forms the basis of a series of "blocking patents" which are taken quite seriously.
Your claim that "... without such enforcement" is simply wrong.
the moderators who gave you "insightful" should be ashamed. I mean, you're 180 degrees wrong and were just speaking out of your ass out of some quixotic wishful thinking, not facts.
None of that "focusing on our core capabilities" crap. Japanese do everything. Look up what say a sony or hitachi or suzuki do. Now compare that to say even a philips. Let alone against american firms.
America has the x-box. Japan has nintendo and playstation AND the foreign devil X-box. Oversimplified example of course but you get the point.
Where in the west we shop at supermarkets wich are really controlled by a handfull of mega corps worldwide the japanese are only slowly shifting to this. Lots of small family owned shops still around.
So MS is in a unique position. Outside old incumbuments like telephone or utitlitie providers there isn't a company that has such a hold on its market. If you produce a pc then you cannot afford to not sell windows with it. And MS is accused of abusing this to force companies to agree to unreasonable terms.
Allegedly. A raid like this shows that either someone overreacted or that the japanese goverment is serious. Japan may have enough monster coorperations to ensure that each on its own is not a monopoly but if you come in from the outside they all band together with the goverment to make something far more difficult to overcome. Just look at the success of foreign companies in japan.
So to answer your question, yes they are but they don't want 1 single companie going out of control let alone a foreign company.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No. But I have helped prepare the paperwork for a successful patent filing in Japan. The difference between the US and Japan is that you cannot patent bollocks. In this particular case 8 patents for the US ended up being 4 patents in EU and only 1 in Japan.
First: their patent office has not yet degenerated into an approval stamp machine so the patents have to have merit.
Second: they charge an arm and a leg for a patent filing so even large corporations avoid defencive patenting and stuff that has no commercial value is not patented at all.
I usually get flamed by the idealists which still believe in the "small inventor", but I will say it again. This is the way a patent system is supposed to work. A patent is a government guarantee to the inventor that he/she will be capable to exploit the commercial merits of his/her invention. Note the words commercial. So with all due respect I do not see any merits in trying to patent an invention of no commercial merit.
The side effect of this is that the US method of IPR development is reversed. For Japan you first find financial backers for the idea and then patent it.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
if MS is under monopoly threat in just about every country due to their own actions, the local government needing money, or the local people/government wanting to start their own software industry and need to stop MS?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In Japanese, there's a distinction between "long" and "short" vowel sounds. It's not the same as in English, where the sound changes; in Japanese, long really means long; it's the same sound, just held longer.
They have short and long consonants, too--just like Italian, where "fato" (fate) isn't the same as "fatto" (done) and singing "a cappella" (like they do in chapel) isn't the same thing as singing "a capella" (like a little goat).
Anyway--you can embarrass the heck out of yourself if you don't keep your long and short consonants and vowels straight when speaking Japanese. Jack Seward, in his delightful book Japanese in Action, gives an example of a fellow who went to work for a Japanese firm after WWII. This unfortunate man made just that mistake, and thereby told a group of Japanese visiting the firm that he was his boss's, um, sphincter rather than his boss's assistant.
All the above, of course, is a distraction so that you won't notice that I don't remember just what vowel lengthening is involved with obasan...[pause for some Googling]...ah. There's "obasan" and "obaasan"; this message explains the difference (among other things).
This really isn't a suprising move, since monopolies are very common in Japan, and only problem is that they ''influence'' the government through the Zaibatsu.
This seems like ploy againt American monopoly in Japan. Perhaps on of the big vendors over there is going to try and push an alternative OS? I've heard that the Linux movement over there is pretty strong, so maybe corporate interests in Linux are playing a hand there?
Microsoft will attempt to justify that without looking like a monopoly doing market segmentation by declaring they are providing different products to different people, at different prices.
Observe this in Thailand, where after teh announcement that MS would provide XP + Office at a much reduced price (about 30 Euros as I recall) came an announcement that thre would be a special edition of XP + Office lacking some features (as yet unspecified AFAIK) - a Thai cheap edition.
Observe it in the UK with the National Health Service New programme IT suprremo Richard Granger muttering about the level of discount we get on (say) half a million copies (I feel ill) of Office on Windows OS and the placement of a contract for a trial of the SUN Java desktop/Linux/OpenOffice by SUN being followed by the suggestion that MS will customise a version for healthcare.
There are few more stupid ideas than that from a healthcare IT point of view, si it has to be a smokescreen for segmentation.
When I first saw the news from Thailand I thought this was a clear indication of another tipping point that MS has gone over in the infelction of its fortunes, but as the rise has been long, so will be the fall.
Okay MS, let's see how you like it!
"This is a bust. Step awaay from your keyboards. NOW!"
Japanese motto: Business is war.
You whiny little children need to stop clapping your hands as American companies take it on the chin in foreign countries. If only our government protected US this well.
The Japanese don't really have a strong awareness of "December 7th" the way people in the US do - It was December 8th for them, when the attack occurred, after all.
Funny story:
Back when I lived in the US, I had a Japanese housemate who was taking flying lessons at a small airfield nearby. Landing the plane one morning, he managed to bump into a couple of planes parked near the runway. It was nothing serious, but since it happened to be December 7th, he was known as "Kamikaze" from then on...
-- My Weblog.
You don't suppose this has anything to do with the new Linux-based joint effort among the Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese to create a kanji-friendly operating system? Just wondering. No paranoid conspiracy theory or anything. There *is* a certain element of "getting even" here, though, considering the US shot down a Japanese attempt to sell their own operating system with their computers sold in the US. I don't think we've seen the end of this titanic struggle, by any means.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Until Japan utters these famous words again?
"I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant"
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
I wonder what their poem would say
Would Truths finally come tumbling out
Like so much blood from just two cuts.
Their lives lost to a business illusion
Heartbeat by heartbeat
Never having seen the sunrise.
Their kishaku's blade hangs on the moment
Was that a tear he saw?
Has the light of Open Source manifested it's beauty?
The blade in motion, a slight turn of the head
The cut through and through
Shamed, the head bounces and rolls.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
In the past few years, look at what Microsoft's user base has suffered as a result of using their products:
1. Countless viruses - okay, not directly Microsoft's fault but nobody here would agree that MS have done all they could have done to make their products as secure as possible.
2. Licensing changes - costing businesses more.
Okay, so there's nothing new in either of the above except that both the above have had sometimes dramatic reductions on company profits through downtimes and extra IT costs. Add to that the shrinkage in the high-tech industry over the past few years and, all of a sudden, there are a heap of governments out there getting less income from taxation as a result.
On top of that, those same governments are being squeezed to spend less and less on public services and along comes Open Source that suddenly seems to offer a way of cutting down on a lot of the government's IT expenditure.
I know these discussions have been had on /. many times before but this issue in Japan just seems the latest in a long line of governments wanting to simply give, rightly or wrongly, Microsoft "a good kicking" - firstly the DOJ, then Europe, now Japan.
I don't think it matters whether or not MS is a "monopoly" but it is apparent that they could have done a lot more in the past to stop what's happening to them now.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
1) The Harley boom must be resposible for the recent pick up in in the US economy... 2) Yep, the mad cow ban on US beef had no impact on fast food beef bowl resturants in japan. Anyway, even if they had sold imported US beef, it was far too expensive for the average consumer at $3 a bowl, compared to the usual $6-$9 paid for a meal. Don't the Americans wonder if maybe they consumed a just a bit less of their inexpensive and quaility agricultural products, they wouldn't be such f*cking lard asses, by world standards? But really, WTF does any of this have to do with a very light on details article on an investigation of Microsoft, in Japan?
Yes, Microsoft is breaking your Anti-Trust laws. It doesn't matter what your laws are; MS is breaking them.
No, you won't do anything about it. It doesn't matter what you think or believe; there's too much riding on MS for you to seriously combat them. The revolution will not be mandated.
- The Amazina Llama
Anonymous sources have supplied an unconfirmed statement that the official's name is "Kilroy". This "Kilroy" is rumored to be the recipient of intelligence enhancing implants designed by IBM. This unsubstantiated report was lent minor credence when the official in question walked away from the podium chanting, "Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto" repeatedly.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If you choose to sue a code contributor for patent infringement, I believe you lose all right to use the software. Of course, Mozilla is not a monopoly, yet.