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Microsoft and EU Talks End
Paul Longford writes "Microsoft talks with the EC have collapsed. The competition commisioner Mario Monti just made this statement in which he said: 'I'd just like to inform you that a settlement on the Microsoft case has not been possible. I therefore intend to propose to my colleagues in the Commission next Wednesday to adopt a decision, which has already received the unanimous backing of Member States.' This is bad news for Microsoft - it looking at a considerable fine and possibly being forced to open up Windows. It looks like it will be a harsh decision too. Monti says: 'In the end, I had to decide what was best for competition and consumers in Europe. I believe they will be better served with a decision that creates a strong precedent.'"
I'm glad to see that at least Europe still has some functioning antitrust laws, unlike the US where antitrust laws were effectively gutted by the judiciary.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
OK so they get fined and told how to distribute windows.
Who thinks this will REALLY change anything? That MS will go a little bit more restricted in how media stuff is installed from a start, but they'll keep on doing the same old crap in every other part of their dealings with the EU
How harsh? A fine and opening MS Windows to Real, Quicktime and the like?
This is next to nothing. Nothing short of breaking up MS and demanding published, open APIs, protocols and file formats will do.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
MS, enjoy paying the money
Yeah, I'm sure money is sooo scarce for Microsoft."A fine?!? This could ruin us!"
I wish it could make a bigger impact on their finances.
And now begins the lengthy foot-dragging and political manipulations to elect someone(s) who will direct the competition commission to decide MS has suffered enough and we should all go back to our Windows desktops.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
...how they will enforce this. What reason has Microsoft got to give in and pay up? It's not like the EU can ban sales of Windows, too many computer purchasers would be terrified of the alternatives. Even if Windows was banned in Europe, the people wouldn't buy computers with Linux on, they would buy Macs.
Sad but true.
A latent existence
I doubt this will take place w/out a long drawn out fight. Microsoft will drag this out as long as possible.
This guy is way out there
that's why they want the strong precident so they go after MS again and again until they play fair (or they go bankrupt wwhich lets face it is more likley than them playing fair)
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
So does this mean that Windows will eventually become a pure OS, with no usable applications? I mean, there are commercial "competitors" in every arena.
No Web Browser (Netscape)
No Media Player (Real)
No Word/Wordpad (Wordperfect)
No Imaging (ACDSee)
No Defrag (Notron Works)
No Zip support (WinZip)
No Solitaire (...)
Seems pretty useless to Joe Average, who just wants to turn on his new PC and play his MP3s and check his email.
Whats next is complete control of the internet. How if you don't think thats what .NET is aimed at is blind.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Like this is really going to do anything. People always whine about shit being inlcuded in windows. Face it, not everyone wants a choice in what they use. Dont like Media player? Use somthing else, Dont like windows use something else and shut up. Bunch of whiney linux zealots. I use Linux (and FreeBSD, no it *isnt* dead) and *gasp* even Windows. Get a life and go do something else besides living on online forums bitching about how evil Microsoft is, code software, make that killer alternative. Until then shut up.
The biggest penalty is not the fine but the "requirements", such as shipping non MS media players and opening up some proprietry standards to competitors.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
I have to say that much as I am anti-Microsoft and think they've got a monopoly that needs dealing with, I am rather worried about what this will mean.
Well, slightly worried, anyway.
If Windows is deemed anticompetitive in the media-stakes, well all that can really be done is to force MS to allow WIndows to come with alternatives installed. That's not really gonna affect them. It sure ain't gonna affect me, as should I ever buy another Windows PC then the first thing I'll do (like with my current one) is to repartition and reinstall to my tastes. So if Real & Quicktime are included, they won't be for long.
And there's no easy way they can force MS to include them on an installation disc, at least not wtihout clearing the licensing with Apple and Real.
And in all honesty, I can't see MS being forced to break up and open up any time soon. It just isn't going to happen.
TiggsTiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/18/news/international /microsoft_eu.reut/index.htm
"The company is certain to appeal against a Commission decision in the European courts. Litigation could take several years."
At which time any verdict will be pretty much irrelevant.
Wonder how this affects Longhorn planning. Anyone with insight on this?
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
The very last thing that Microsoft wants to do is to force a very large number of people and business to use alternative software.
I'd also rip support of all European languages unless you paid mucho..
:)
You are aware of english being a European language?
Not really chilling at all. Microsoft has the best hand no matter what any company, law firm, or government agency says. It can simply say it will stop supporting and releasing patches for its products and that it will close it's doors and go out of business before it releases it source. This would leave a huge number of users and admins scrambling to find another platform. This would effectively grind the IT sector to a halt.
For all you zealots who says we can use Linux instead, that is great in theory but imagine the economic impact of replacing 80% of the computer desktops and a smaller but significant number of the servers.
Not a troll! Interesting point! Should at least be modded up to 1 so people can decide for themselves! MODS ARE IDIOTS! Why not reply instead of modding down!?!
Is it just me or does this seem alot less of the "EU using anti-trust laws", and more of "EU removing USA trust from domiance in EU market." Why do have the feeling if MS was based in UK that suit wouldn't have been filed. (Of course if MS was based outside the US, the US would actually fine them in money and not software.) I feel the real reason Linux has been getting used in goverments has more to do with hiring of local contractors to keep it running than saving any money.
Remember it is about power, politics, and money. Not right or wrong.
If the Bush administration had been tougher on Microsoft, maybe they would have solved these problems before Europe stomped on them.
When Microsoft is forced to behave everywhere _except_ the United States, then they will end up having to behave in the USA as well.
Getting an easy sentence from the US Anti-Trust conviction may not have been as favorable as it looked originally.
The EU commision is composed by people suggested by the national governments, and approved as a whole by the EU parliament. Most of the national governments are elected by the national parliaments, which is mostly composed by people elected on party lists in a propertional system, rather than directly by the voters.
It is an extremely indirect form for democracy, at best, and it is easy to influence by lobbyism and somewhat prone to corruptions. And it is damn slow. However, it is much harder to influence by manipulating the elections. There is no "single point of failure" like with the US president.
They can't unilaterally revoke the licence. They could only refuse to support the software. This would be a great benefit to their competitors, and we would see a whole slew of competing operating systems, some open source, others proprietry, to fill in the hole.
Just to keep history straight: our judicial system (just about) worked, with the exception of the conservative appeals judges giving Judge Jackson a special hate-filled working over after he found against Microsoft.
The problem was the Bush Justice Department. Ashcroft simply refused to do anything, and let the decision be unenforced, thus snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The judicial system worked, after all those long years. Bush, who believes any regulation of business is socialistic if not outright communistic, according to an old Harvard business professor of his, finds the anti-monopoly laws distasteful in the extreme, and his cohorts are vetted to agree with such beliefs. When Bush was elected, the Microsoft case was effectively lost.
A government simply says, "We need this to do business so we're going to continue using it and pay you when you decide to try to bill us...maybe."
Right of way laws and such...
Ah, I love government.
Given the anti-american semtiment in europe
It's anti-Bush sentiment. Of course Bush supporters don't see any difference, but there is one.
"Who thinks this will REALLY change anything?"
It will change the consumers' perception of what Microsoft actually is: An anti-competitive monopolist with questionable business practices.
well, without getting caught up in the typical slashdot mentality of MS==bad here, lets take a look at the double standard the EU is imposing. Corporations like DuBeers are hands down an order of magnitude worse than microsoft in all sorts of ways. The EU is acting because Microsoft is an American company - not because they are sticking up for some greater ideal.
You are an idiot. Did I say Linux was hard? No. I said people wouldn't use it. I think Linux is fantastic. I use it everyday at home. That doesn't change the fact the normal, everyday people WILL NOT USE IT! They are wrong, but they are still scared of it.
A latent existence
I'd imagine they'll pull the same crap they did with their J++ dev studio: present an "option" to not install WMP, with a stern warning saying Windows may become unstable (hah!) if it's not installed.
They'll probably include a seedy reference to the Commission decision forcing them to do this too.
I'm generally in favour of Open Source software, but my attitude is that if Microsoft make an OS, they should be free to sell what they want with it, regardless of whether they have 5% or 90% of the market.
I know this attitude screwed Netscape over, but consider that the reverse side could be seen as SCOs; "the others have become more advanced, rendering our technology obselete, but we should be able to sit on our butts and get licensing fees"
I do not really feel that governments should interfere in the market, except that in recognition of the fact that they are the largest buyers, they should mandate as much open standards for all software that they purchase and use. Banning use of proprietary standards in all government dealings would be a much greater incentive to open source software and competition than all the market regulation and fines could ever achieve.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I'm expecting Microsoft to next try using their US politicians to cause problems for the EU over this.
Your points are valid, but I think the issue is escaping you. Yes MS beat the competition fair and square, on their merits, with superior products.
The issue is how they have have 'abused' the position of a monopoly having suceeded.
There is a perenial general problem of how to deal with monopolies. In the limit monopolies defeat free market capitalism as surely as socialism.
Ideally power should be asymptotic, ie very easy to get to 50% market dominance, harder to get to 60/70% and damn near impossible to go above 80/90% market dominance.
Unfortunately unchecked free markets have the opposite (positive) feedback effect. Having achieved 50% market dominance it becomes EASIER to go the next mile. That's why government intervention is a necessary evil.
I see two sides of it here in my office. I use Linux, as well as a few other staffers here. Other people use Windows. Each uses Linux or Windows by choice.
.DOC files. .DOC's aren't proprietary as far as they are concerned. They don't care about the licensing issues behind mp3's and other file formats. They don't care because they just don't know.
Why do they use Windows? Because it's default, it's the defacto, it's the "standard" that has been created. They send and receive Word
So I hear reports that Microsoft is patenting it's XML formats (or something along those lines) for the next version of Word. When OpenOffice can't read these files for legal reasons, is that going to be Microsoft's fault, or OpenOffice's fault? We know what the answer is, but these guys don't care. They aren't lawyers, and they just want to do their job without worrying about what license their computer is operating under.
Microsoft abused it's power. It's that simple. The fact that competition is starting to come out is a good thing, but you don't have to be the only one to violate anti-trust laws (or else Microsoft would never have gone to trial in the first place, as other OS's have always existed). However, I don't know the EU anti-trust laws at all, so I can only imagine they broke them there as well.
The point is, by forcing this on Microsoft, it will ensure competition. I don't want to see the end of Microsoft, but rather, I want to see the beginning of a standards based environment where competitors compete on the quality of their product.
Hopefully this decision will allow such an environment to prosper and grow.
Jason Lotito
Bush wasn't elected. He was appointed by the judicial system. If Bush's presidency marked the end of the Microsoft case, the judicial system did NOT work.
I think it's a different situation in Europe than in the USA.
Getting ripped off by MS in the USA is ok because the money just goes to Seattle. However, getting ripped off by MS in Europe is bad because the money doesn't stay in Europe.
I think Europeans will be more inclined to stick to their guns in this case. I suppose time will tell.
Punishing Microsoft for monopolistic behavior is hardly ... uhm ... post-Christian marxist-fascist-existentialist nihilist behaviour.
It's straight-forward execution of the state's obligation to enforce rules of fair play as defined by consensus and trial-and-error through the ages. One of those is to prevent manipulation of markets by parties powerful enough to take a monopoly position.
Monopolists distort the markets and supress free competition so as to extract maximum resources from consumers. This is bad for innovation, for economic performance and for society as a whole. There is only one organ that we grant the right to raise taxes, and that is the State itself.
The EU are doing their job. The US have failed to do this perhaps because the State and Business are too close together.
BTW, wtf does p-C m-f-e-n actually mean? I mean, wtfffff??
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Europe has been dealing with terrorism far longer than you could ever imagine. We've had our Wars on Terror and we know far more about terrorism than you apparently believe.
Some of Europe's terrorism has even been funded by Americans, but for some reason GW isn't bombing people in Boston for donating to NORAID/IRA. Terrorism's a funny old thing isn't it?
You are thinking Microsoft sells windows directly to the public, and it doesn't. The missing component in this vision are the OEMs. The real outcome here is not that MS will be forced to bundle these other apps with Windows, but that they will no longer be able to prevent (European) OEMs from doing so.
So think OEMs, these are the companies that actually distribute Windows, not Microsoft.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Too bad they are not going for the only sanction that would actually make a difference in promoting competition:
Stopping the force-feeding of Winodws with new PC:s.
There should be a law that would REQUIRE the OS to be a separate item in the bill for a new PC. If someone does not want it, the PC must be cheaper by exactly the normal retail price of the OS (no matter which OS). The OS could be pre-installed, no problem, but if the customer does not want it, the dealer must remove the OS and lower the price.
As I see it, THIS would be the only way to level the paying field for OS'es.
Are you kidding? If they did that, they would effectively kick themselves out of a market that is GDP- and population-wise larger than US. MS products would be replaced with other alternatives(*) and they would lose their monopoly grip on the market, as the alternatives would show themselves to be viable elsewhere too.
(*) I'm not saying that the alternatives (which would probably be Linux- and BSD-based desktop environments and office applications) would be completely ready tomorrow, but the instantly opened 400M+ person market would give them a bit of boost...
--
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with evil intentions lead to?
Lets take the analogy a bit further..
.. heck even your music system and the repair shops use Ford as the defacto standard. Of course, Ford has patents and strong arm tactics to maintain its position in the market.
Ford (Microsoft) has 90% of the market. Gas stations have pumps (hardware/drivers) that only work on Fords and virtually all dealers (dell, gateway, etc..) will only sell you a Ford. Parking spots, roadways
You could buy a Toyota (Red Hat). Unfortunately when you do, you realize that you end up having to find different pumps to get gas (which are few and far between), cannot buy a Toyota fully assembled (computer w/Red Hat installed) and end up having to buy a Ford (Wintel machine) and installing Toyota parts (Red Hat & software). Of course, even after you have your Toyota and you realize it is better (more fuel efficient, more reliable, more features, etc..), you find that Ford's dominance adversely affects the full potential of your Toyota. You no longer can use the local pumps down the street, you end up having to do maintenance by yourself (as very few if any of the shops will service your Toyota), and worse of all, your favorite parking spots, streets and music (software) is not supported full on the Toyota so you end up either having to find completely new music, new places to drive and new parking spots or end up simply being constrained on where you can go.
The bottom line is this -- cars don't work this way. I had a Honda and bought a Toyota. My CDs still worked in in, I could still get the same gas, drive the same roads, park in the same parking spots. The basic fundamental "user interface" is the same -- perhaps laid out slightly different. I can get it serviced at a wide variety of places, get the oil changed at the neighborhood gas station. No problems.
Unfortunately, when talking about computer system choice, this is obviously not as "drop in and go" as you make it out to be. The fact that Microsoft monopolized the market, coerced OEMs into supporting only MS products (bundling deals and the like), effectively dumps their product to get people hooked and does not follow industry standards to maintain a certain level of lock-in adversely affects everyone.
Remember when Microsoft first bundled a TCP/IP stack with Windows (I think it was Windows 95)? TCP/IP vendors complained bitterly, and suggested that Microsoft should be forced to sell Windows without TCP/IP. I wonder if that issue will be revisited. If Microsoft's right to control its own property is compromised, I don't see where the line can be drawn.
Come to think of it, there was a time when third parties sold memory managers for Windows . . .
I'm not an MS fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm curious as to what people here think is "fair" in a realistic sense.
Open Source is nice, for example, but does that mean proprietary software is "unfair?"
So we can come to the car analogy again, for example, if someone starts putting proprietary air filters or even a proprietary stereo (where you can't figure out the connections, for example - you'd have to rip out all the old speakers and everything and completely replace it to put a new one in). Those things would really suck, and make me not want to buy that car, but would it really be "unfair?" Should the government step in and say that car manufacturer can no longer install stock stereo systems?
I realize we can go around in circles about what consumers are "forced" to buy when they buy a new computer, but the fact is that now, more than there has been in the past 20 years, there is a choice. So we can rag on all the losers that don't know a bit from a byte or what an OS even is, but if they are the majority and they want their "free" media player/browser/whatever installed when they buy the computer, is it "fair" to tell them they can't have that? Isn't this just making things difficult for the vast majority of the people involved?
I suppose we can look at future rewards from current hardships, but we have to ask if it's really necessary.
For the record, I don't buy MS software, I won't even buy an X-Box even though I love games, I just can't bear the thought of giving my money to MS. However, I'm not such an idiot that I don't understand why other people do it, and they should be free to do it if they want. People should start taking personal responsibility, if they put up with that crap, the manufacturers will abuse them - the same as we are being abused by the RIAA and MPAA and keep going back for more. If enough people abandon MS, they will get the picture.
A subscription to Mandrake, for example, is a good start... so is not buying cheapbytes discs, but buying them from the actual distributers. Macinstosh, for many, is also a fine solution, although I have no doubt that given the market share they'd be just as bad, if not worse, than MS.
Let's assume there's 500,000 slashdot subscribers. Let's assume 80% are open source advocates who use Linux. Let's assume they all did the $60/year Mandrake subscription. That's 400,000 * 60 = $24,000,000 that goes to Mandrake Linux. Let's say Mandrake is supporting a number of OpenSource projects. All those projects improve (not necessarily) and create more demand. After two years, 800,000 people subscribe. That's how it's supposed to happen, not by crying to the government to impose restrictions on your competition so that everything is "fair" - that's like a Harrison Bergeron world.
I'm really beginning to hate the word "fair", because I don't think most people actually understand what it means.
BTW, cheers to the people in the EU who fought this fight and made it happen. I don't know about any of your constitutions as much as I'd certainly like to, but the U.S. constition has no provision that life will be "fair".
This is not to say I don't agree with laws banning some monopoly tactics (like dumping and tying), just that I think it's not as clear cut as a lot of people think (is MS dumping their product by giving it for free with the OS when other companies don't charge for their media players or browsers?) Even the tying claims are difficult because it does give better performance to integrate some things with the OS, even if we all disagree that the performance gains outweight the problems that can cause.
I guess my biggest problem with all this is that it is not going to make MS go away, or even lose marketshare. As such, it's not going to cause third party developers to support linux or open standards (which is what we really want, isn't it?). We can't rely on the government to do that.
MS cannot "beat" OpenSource software, but it can keep us b
Stupid sexy Flanders.
How many consumers are even aware of this case? How many care?
MS need to be given a disincentive to abuse their monopoly power again (IE, WMP, what's next?).
It's poorly phrased, but that's a very interesting question. In the fight for the desktop, Microsoft has two big guns, MS Windows and MS Office. These two products enable them to sell all sorts of server stuff to support them - things like Exchange Server and MS SQL Server and, to a lesser extent, other types of collaborative software. Open Source companies have correctly identified this situation, so you see a lot of development taking place in the OS/Desktop and office productivity realms. You also see a lot of activity in the backoffice support technologies.
This competition is not going to just go away. Microsoft's competitors have realized that competing on level ground with Microsoft is damn near impossible. Very few corporations are capable of it. In this climate open source technologies provide a way to compete that Microsoft cannot defend against effectively. In the past, Microsoft would simply buy out the competition or use their muscle to compete unfairly (embrace and extend). They can't do that any longer because part of the equation has been broken. Microsoft cannot buy it's competition without endangering it's own business model. Even if they were to buy an open source company, another one would spring up immediately with an identical product. Without that leverage, embrace and extend doesn't work because the number of competitors (who effectively can't be bought) is simply too great.
Faced with these pressures, Microsoft is doing all they can to increase customer lock-in so that customers are less likely to take advantage of open source alternatives. They are also doing all they can to undermine the open source movement without looking like an Ogre, or at least not like too much of one. One of the classic ways to increase customer lock-in is to bundle applications with the desktop that operate only on that desktop. Windows Media Player is an excellent example, as is MSN Messenger. They also offer cut rates on premium items like MS Money to computer retailers so that they will bundle the product. With all of these products bundled on the computer, customers are less likely to switch to alternatives because none of the applications they use on a regular basis will run. This means that they must re-learn all of their skills instead of just a couple new applications.
But now they are facing competition that is entrenched, nearly unassailable, and getting better every day. Microsoft's monopoly days are numbered and they know it. All they can do is try to forstall the inevitable for as long as possible, and they will do this by tightening customer lock-in more and more until there is a major sea-change in the market. Specifically, they will continue to bundle more applications. I think you can expect to see PhotoPaint (or whatever it's called) from the Office suite to soon be bundled with Windows. MS Money may be a good candidate. MS Word will certainly come in at some point, perhaps with reduced functionality. In they end, Microsoft will have to either bundle nearly everthing, as it's open source competitors do now, or start porting it's applications to alternative platforms in order to compete in it's competitors' space.
That, my friends, is capitalism in action. It doesn't necessarily mean death to Microsoft, but it does mean more diversity in the market, and that is a good thing.
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
Harm to the consumer...Well, let's see, in the last month or so about 20 new viruses or worms have been released focusing on vulnerabilities in Windows, in addition several known security problems exist in IE which propogate the problem of viruses, and as Windows/IE is packaged together and has more than 90% of the market share, the viruses are much more easily spread and cost companies billions of dollars each time.
Yeah, no harm to the consumer there.
Umm, Britain and France are nuclear powers....
I imagine, due to sheer size of her armed forces that America would be able to raze Europe to the ground in any significant conventional war, but any such war would almost certainly go nuclear after a certain stage which would end that very quickly.
Aside from that, don't underestimate the ability of European nations to protect themselves - I don't think America could launch a signficant surprise attack on Europe - giving Europe time to respond and arm itself. This isn't some nation that's been under sanctions for 10 years - Europe has some pretty advanced weaponary. Of course, there would be a natural disadvantage thanks to certain technologies being heavily concentrated in American hands (such as GPS), but this would only be a hindrance versus a home turf advantage.
I think that even Bush would have problems pushing such a war anyway...
the main problem is there abuse of being a monopoly not the actual monopoly it self.
Ok, I'm just ranting now. Cheers
There's nothing like a good old rant it helps keep the blood pressure down.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Jealous of what? People like you? An education system that apparently failed to teach you basic punctuation? Jealous that our economy is in wildly better shape than the U.S for the past four years? Jealous of the fact that you practice a form of Democracy which allows the guy who lost, to win? Jealous of a law system which allows draconian and downright wrong laws to be enacted without a whisper from the population, even though those laws fly directly in the face of the beloved Constitution people such as yourself like to tell us so much about? Jealous of the fact that you have a leader who violates and twists international law when it suits him, because the bad man did a bad thing and made him angry?
None of that, in fact, makes Europe jealous of you or the United States. It makes us pity you.
So we can come to the car analogy again, for example, if someone starts putting proprietary air filters or even a proprietary stereo (where you can't figure out the connections, for example - you'd have to rip out all the old speakers and everything and completely replace it to put a new one in). Those things would really suck, and make me not want to buy that car, but would it really be "unfair?" Should the government step in and say that car manufacturer can no longer install stock stereo systems?
If you couldn't get your car without the Stereo, the multiple cd changer. Sure, it's free, wink wink, nudge, nudge.
Do you remember that Netscape wanted and needed to change for their browser? And Bill Gates said in a public forum that MS still had OS revenue and they could "compete" in the "free" browser market while he didn't see how Netscape could.
After MS included the browser for free, loaded on the machine, and excluded any other browsers, Netscape was forced to enter the "Free" browser market and simply make money on server products. (They're not free, Netscape had to try to leverage it's server market products market-share to support the "free" browser.) I can't find quotes, as they're old but some of the statements by Gates are pretty damning.
It's been said many times before, but once you reach monopoly status, you can't use the same tactics to force people out of your markets. The power and ability to do so, the theory goes is too great and the results always ultimately hurt consumers.
So, no, I don't think this is unjustified. Sure, it's way late and probably will only serve to increase the rising tide against MS, rather than early on where it could have turned the tide. That's too bad, but we shouldn't give up on prosecuting the murderer simply because it was 20 years ago and he's in jail on bank fraud. (Not to mention, we don't know where things will go tomorrow and having a judgement in the bank will go a long ways to prevent abuse as much as possible as MS either reforms or dies.)
Anyway...
Cheers,
Greg
Suppose Microsoft is forced to provide the option of a version of Windows XP without the media player? Now that it's pretty well established a foothold in the marketplace, how many customers and OEMs are really going to exercise such an option? Plus, they already have XP Embedded waiting that could be easily adapted to this purpose.
Net effect on Microsoft's media strategy: minor speedbump.
Fines: I've heard talk of 2e8 Euros. Even with the depreciation of the dollar, MS has 6e10 dollars in cash. That's about, oh, 0.3 per cent. Like, hurt me.
Effect on Microsoft's cash flow: minor speedbump.
This may appear stringent compared with the US Justice Department's settlement, but it's still no big deal for Microsoft.
As usual, the wheels of justice have arrived too little, too late.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Well, you are missing one significant point :
...) are a very little part of the market.
...
there are many car producers (Honda, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota, BMW, Saab, Fiat, Peugeot, Renauld and many more) which are sharing that market...
But Microsoft is NOT sharing the computer market with anyone... Microsoft do use bad practices to grab more and more share market and alternative (MacOS, Linux,
On one side, we have a competitive market, on the other side, we have a quasi-monopolistic market...
That allowed Microsoft to put a "Microsoft tax" on computer (which is slowly being removed as more and more PC makers are selling PC without Windows), to push many other poduct while making their competitor's fail (as if Honda was also selling park-doors and was using his position in selling cars to push people to only uses his doors ),
Anti-monopoly laws are to prevent such misuse of a dominant position in one market...
While US supplies did help (of course they did) they were not be all end all in the war. For example, most of the tanks that were shipped to USSR were old and crappier than the ones Russians used. Native Russian production of war-material far outstripped the amount of goods that was shipped to them by the Allied. When it comes to tanks, Russia received about 12.000 of them, most being old and/or phased out by the western powers. In comparison, production of T-34-tank alone (A tank that was far superior to anything that was shipped to USSR by USA) numbered in the tens of thousands!
In the end, the war was decided by Russian soldiers who fought the Germans.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
The trial is actually about what Microsoft did, not what they are doing. There are various cases of them outright lying about competitors products and coding their own product (great to control the OS) to break the competition's products. They did use unfair influence to tie their prices not to the number of units bought, but the the number of competitor's units bought.
Currently they've only written about trying to embrace and extend certain necessary protocols to kill Linux, they've had close dealing with SCO, etc.
While at any one time there may not be enough to say MS should be shut down for, the company has had a history of outright criminal actions.
This isn't an MS thing, this is an accountability thing. If you harm your competitors though criminal actions you NEED to be punished. Otherwise we're simply saying to everyone that if you want to succeed you need to break the law, and that you won't be punished for doing so. Not if you break really big laws at any rate. Rob a 7-11 and go to jail for life. Steal billions and we'll let you keep your ill-gotten gains.
I couldn't care less if MS made a complete reversal and was now sponsoring needy children in Africa, they need to be smacked around for their past transgresions that put them where they are today. The fact they haven't stopped just makes it worse.
It's not really that MS have a duty to bundle other people's software, it's more that in a capitalist system they have a duty, or a requirement, to compete on a capitalist basis: in other words in a manner which produces the best deal for consumers by open competition - the so-called "American Way". The governmental view is that it's fair enough (although sadly not true) that they obtained their existing monopoly by being the best OS available but it's not okay for them to use that monopoly to prevent further competitive battles taking place. MS do not like the capitalist model (in fact, the reality is that they have never competed in the open market and won, having ridden to their current position on the back of IBM) and would much prefer a Stalinist system where the state mandates that all the people use the one approved system, enforced by DRM and controlled by one, unelected, man who is replaced only on his death. Basically, Microsoft is about as American in philosophy as as Fidel Castro.
Honda do not have a monopoly on car sales and so governments generally are not concerned about their arrangements for cd-players etc. If you don't like it then there's plenty of other car companies to choose from. Plus, of course, Honda are not as well known for bribing, lying and stealing and generally treating the law of their home country as an amusing joke as Microsoft is.
Finally, MS is a US company but they want to play hardball in the EU so that's the juristiction issue. MS don't have to sell their products in the EU, and I for one would be very happy if they didn't. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as we say.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Hi, thanks for the response. I realize there's nothing wrong with being a monopoly until you start abusing that position.
I'm still wondering what "fair" means as applied to Microsoft, as in "Microsoft is not playing fair". How are they not playing fair? Is bundling a media play with windows somehow unfair to the consumer?
I can see how you can say it's unfair to the competition, but again I ask if that's not ALWAYS the case? For example, most Hondas come with a rebranded Honda stereo. These days, you don't even have a choice - the car comes with a stereo. Find me one that doesn't. So is that "unfair" to JVC or Sony or other manufacturers? Seems to me the aftermarket stereo market is quite brisk.
And so the question is if you really think it is unfair, how do you make it fair?
If you require it to be a download, %99 of the people are going to download WMP. The only people who will download quicktime, for example, would have done it anyway.
If you require choice in installation (i.e. the Windows installation requires you to select none or more of WMP, QT, and Real) then what about OTHER mediaplayers? Do you have to be a big business in order to be included (mplayer, vlc, etc.)? Soon you will need several extra discs just to hold all the choices for browsers, word processers (hey! bundling word-pad is unfair!), mediaplayers, text editors... where does the line get drawn so that it's "fair" for all companies?
As far as the definition goes, I still see it being arguable that MS is not (in this case) being "unfair." If there was a contract about what consumers should get, and they weren't getting it, then they'd be unfair with respect to definition 7. Otherwise it's subjective (what's a fair profit for MS?).
In definition 8, MS is certainly consisten with the logic of increasing value (if only percieved value, which is valuable in its own right) of their products. I don't know that it's ethicly wrong to include a mediaplayer with an OS. If it is for one, it should be for all. I won't complain that mandrake includes mediaplayers. And that brings us to rules. These rules are too subjective... what makes MS a monopoly (I'm not arguing they're not)? What rules do they have to follow? Are those rules different from what everyone else has to follow? Is that, in itself, "fair?"
The reason I bring up the whole "fair" thing is because people throw that word around in a very selfish manner, which is totally against any meaning of "fair" there is. Most people here who whine that something isn't fair are complaining that they are not getting something they want, or some group they are associated with, or some company they support, are actually forced to play by the same rules everyone else plays by, and somehow that's not "fair".
It's like a very large number of people who believe rich people are not paying their "fair" share of income tax in the U.S. I don't want to get into a political argument, it's the idea of what people actually think is "fair". What is fair? Not a textbook definition, but what do you think would be fair and equitable for everyone?
Is there anything MS could do, while being a monopoly, that slashdotters would think is "fair?"
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The comment above is not a troll, but the moderators are clearly biased. Yes the poster is angry (and he has cause to be), but the real troll is the parent post, which reeks of a typical "f-you" 'blind patriotism over common sense' attitude that endears his nation so much to the rest of the world (and again shows how insular, uninformed and out of touch many of them are).
Remember, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player are not free products. They are given away freely by Microsoft provided that you run Windows by which MS assume that you have paid for the development of those products within the cost of purchasing your Windows OS or other MS products. After all, the developers of WMP and MS need to paid somehow... It just means that MS have to do a bit of work separating out the "application" from the "operating system", exactly the same as every other developer of Windows products has to do - in the EU, we call that "a level playing field".
It seems that the best solution, with the EU ruling in place, is for MS to cut the price of each Windows OS and drop the "extra" products from Windows onto a separate purchased CD, similar to what the "Plus Pack" was but maybe call it the "Desktop Pack". After all, why would anyone running Windows in a server environment necessarily need to install IE or WMP on that machine? On the other hand, Joe Sixpack can go buy a CDs with IE and WMP on if he wants them or have the freedom of choice to go buy other products of even use Open Source ones. (Yes, dear Windows users, it may shock you to learn that there are a very large number of Open Source apps for Windows also!)
Microsoft need to be made to realise that they cannot "have their cake and eat it". On one hand, they encourage developers to create applications for Windows and hand out developer tools but, on the other hand, they integrate IE and WMP so tightly into Windows that they make it difficult for developers to create integrated media and browser apps of their own.
Finally, I'm pretty certain that most of the Windows users on here probably make and play MP3s and DivX/MPEG movies. So how do those same people feel about DRM being brought in with WMP to ultimately stop them doing that in the future. How are those people going to feel in 2-3 years time when they're forced to go with WMA & WMV formats that have to be licensed from MS first?
Maybe the EU has been hard on MS but, let's face it, MS have been pretty damn hard on a lot of other companies over the years so I personally am not going to feel sorry for them.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The only difference is that MS is still trying to acquire Real and QuickTime's share. But forcing MS to offer a MS reader free version won't change the monopoly. Faced with a choice, Europeans will choose the "with" version of Windows over the "without" version, particularly if MS makes the latter more buggy.
For all their whining and rhetoric, it's easy to suspect that MS is secretly delighted by what the EU plans to do--a bit like the children's story where a rabbit, caught by a fox, desperately pleads, "Don't throw me in that briar patch."
In the end, there's no solution to the problems of a monopoly but the rise of genuine competition. Linux and open source offer just that. The EU would do better to fine MS $2 billion or so and invest that money in developing open source software.
ok, let's give it a shot ;-)
... it's funny to see their 'drea
Open Source is nice, for example, but does that mean proprietary software is "unfair?"
not open source - monopolies are unfair. There's nothing unfair about normal competition, but a monopoly has a lot of weight to throw around and that usually has the effect of sheer quantity squashing undiscriminately all competition, be it qualitatively superior or not. Think IE for instance. And no, it's not that 'monopolies aren't allowed to innovate' - it was bundling IE with the ubiquitous OS that achieved the effect, not merely producing it.
For the car analogy to work, it should read there's one hugely dominant car brand and things like roads, carwashes and so on are slowly getting 'optimized' to work with tht car first. Otherwise you can just buy a new car, no harm done. You have to do a little research beforehand, but that's unavoidable. And you have some freedom of choice in the car market, at least.
The problem with WMP for instance is that it only exists for Windows - then Windows being so widespread the move that's already happening is WMP-type formats are (about to become, anyway) just as widespread. Would you want wmv to be accepted as THE standard HDTV codec?. This in MS leveraging its Windows monopoly to dominate the media - a WMP monopoly underway and the two combined will have a tighter control on the consumer market. After all, one would want to be able to play all those wmv discs on the home computer and windows will be the only way to do it, if this happens. (disclaimer - I realise the codecs aren't tied to the player, but this is not the point - different players would come with different default codecs and they can compete on merit instead of on the default player. What if. And there's always the problem of new codecs - if MS does not provide support for ogg/ogm and sets WMP to fail to retrieve the codec everytime, will the average consumer even know where to look for them? a player monopoly cn turn into a codec monopoly quite easily.)
So we can rag on all the losers that don't know a bit from a byte or what an OS even is, but if they are the majority and they want their "free" media player/browser/whatever installed when they buy the computer, is it "fair" to tell them they can't have that? Isn't this just making things difficult for the vast majority of the people involved?
Again, you're missing the point here. no default Windows Media player != no default player! it means OEMs are free to install whatever player they want. Right now, it's quite hard (and expensive) for a oem to untie WMP from the OS - so why would they do it? MS is effectively forcing people to use their player. And no, installing a second/third additional player won't help here - WMP already has an unfair position here. Besides, doe to the competition being MS, few people would try to produce an alternative, player or codec. And that brings the other point in - opening the APIs. Would you consider making a Windows movie player when you know WMP will always work better because the OS has a special 'embrace' for it (read as 'API hooks')?
So here's fair - or rather unfair. Your Mandrake subscription won't help them play WMP formats. And if MS locks the home media in their formats, that will drive Mandrake out of business sooner than bad management, since they in particular sell a desktop-oriented distro. Right now, you can play dvds with decss/dvdread and windows files with windows codecs. That's not a 'level field' already. What will happen when the next format war is won by MS?
I guess my biggest problem with all this is that it is not going to make MS go away, or even lose marketshare.
again, this is targeted at 'future market share', mostly (and here's the hope that it has at least partial success). I for one don't want MS imposing its Windows-only formats everywhere. OS now, media already happening, mobile phones next
It will only really awake a lot of people and organisations for the first time, and make them see how insane it is to make themselves totally dependant on an entity they have nothing to say about.
Yes, it will buy MSFT 1 or 2 years, but in the meantime everyone will fevereshly work on MSFT escape plans.
Unfair in EU law generally includes things like
Overcharging for a monopoly product to fund goods sold under cost price into another market in order to destroy the competition in that market and become a monopoly there
Using your monopoly position to leverage other advantages (eg the if you ship windows you license us all your patents' type stuff)
The EU is generally happy for monopolies to exist providing they are not abusing their position too much and we have monopoly suppliers in various business areas that have existing as monopolies for a long time without being convicted in US courts, fined in EU courts, raided in Japan and so on.
The EU antitrust until now mainly hit european companies. You are just using blind "patriotism" to support a US company, which by the way is mainly damaging other US companies. Incredible and very disturbing that your port got modded to 5/insightful.
Well, yours is clearly on tight. Apparently you followed the 2000 election by way of Fox "News". I humbly submit a handy summary of what actually happened.
Yes, until the US Supreme Court stepped in.
Read: The Florida Supreme Court tried to enforce existing Florida election law, as it had been interpreted via precedent extending back more than a century; the US Supreme Court then unconstitutionally intervened, to ensure that Bush "won" the election.
Those are the ones the supposedly "liberal" mainstream media emphasized. There was also a full statewide recount (which, for reference, is what the Florida Supreme Court had ordered, and what would have happened if the Scalia Five had not intervened); Bush lost that one.
The Florida Supreme court did not change the rules of the election; the US Supreme Court even acknowledged as much. They then employed judicial activism at its worst by ruling that the FSC should have changed the election rules, to alleviate the supposed "equal protection" problems you dutifully parrot below --- except, of course, that if the FSC had done that, the USSC would have ruled against them because they had done so. Neat scam, huh?
Yes; specifically, such that votes whose intent was clear would weigh more heavily than votes whose intent was not clear. That's why they call it the "clear intent of the voter" standard, after all.
I think my above cite skewers that better than I could:
`Fraid they did. They imposed a deadline of December 12 for the recount, whereas under normal federal election law Florida would have had until January 6 to complete the recount. Note that the ruling in which they imposed this artificial deadline was issued at 10pm on December 12, giving Florida less than two hours to complete any recount before a deadline they wouldn't have had but for the USSC.
I don't expect you to acknowledge any of these inconvenient facts, of course; in fact, I suspect that by the second paragraph or so, you already had your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears and were loudly chanting, "La la la, George Bush was legitimately elected President, la la la, I can't heeeear you..."
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
By doing that they are making it significantly harder for the competition to stay viable, thereby removing consumer choice.
Yes, they would; clearly you didn't, because you don't. The reference I cited for the previous poster also neatly demolishes your "facts":
Nope. Bush's lawyers went to court to stop the recounts before Gore filed a single lawsuit, on the (justified) fear that Bush's miniscule apparent lead would evaporate and reverse if the recounts were completed.
The Gore campaign, and the Florida Supreme Court, wanted votes counted according to existing Florida election law, including the well-established "clear intent of the voter" standard.
The Supremes ruled that the Florida Supreme Court should have somehow changed Florida's election laws to correct this supposed "equal protection" problem --- except that the FSC doesn't have the authority to do that, and if they had tried to, the USSC would have ruled against them for doing so.
No, Gore won the electoral vote, too, because he won Florida. You can be forgiven for not knowing about this, because the supposedly "liberal" mainstream media quietly memory-holed the massive election fraud involved.
Funny, that's what we kept saying to Republicans during the Clinton years, but they wouldn't listen. Project much?
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
AFAIK, France never surrendered to Bush... And I guess you didn't hear what happened to Aznar.
Ok, there is still Blair and Berlusconi the clown...
I think that at present, Microsoft makes obscene margins on its flagship product, the operating system (I heard it was about 85% -- can't confirm, though). Even if MS cut their prices by half they would still make both a comfortable revenue and enough money to reinvest in research and development.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
AGAIN, even more slowly this time:
No, he didn't; Gore won the full statewide recount that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered. Again, you can be forgiven for not knowing this, since the supposedly "liberal" mainstream media tended to bury this important fact on page 37J.
Um, the standards already included the "clear intent of the voter" standard, as specified in Florida law, and as used in Florida without problem for more than a century.
Um, notice the case title is BUSH v. Gore? Bush was the plaintiff; therefore, by definition, Bush took it to court first.
Read: "I cannot refute any of the facts presented on that site, so instead I'll resort to ad hominem and demonize the site as liberally biased."
Yes, you keep repeating that over and over, like a mantra. Maybe if you say it often enough, it will come true.
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
No, its akin to the government telling an artist to keep painting but to stop bullying all other painters to use the same brands of paints, brushes and canvases that he uses.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
And we sold weapons to Osama Bin Laden.
With a government like ours who needs enemies.
now THAT would cause MS some pain way beyond the sub-billion euro level they are talking about for the fine itself.
Sorry boy, get your facts, read the analyses of the results in Spain: Aznar and the right were kicked in the ass rightfully for having outright lied TWICE in a year to the people that elected them happily in 2000. First time was about Iraq, second was calling all the press to swear they were sure it wasn't Al Qaeda but Basque independentists from ETA that organised the Madrid bombings.
Expect the same to happen to the guy sitting 10, Downing Street in London, even though he's from the left. The issue here is that people don't trust liars to govern them, especially if it's just to please the US warmongers. And lying about bombings and wars is much more serious than lying about blowjobs.
The fact is, and this is hard to deny, europe today is extremely dependent on the US for its security.
Believe it or not, I'll attempt just that.
Your point is interesting, because I think it gives a good insight of common geopolitical "easy ways".
First, I'd like to underline that we see "Europe" and "EU" described as a block, as homogenous geopolitically as the US. This is a fundamental error: the EU is basically a group of very divergent political entities. Of course, some european countries share "common roots" (being economically, strategically or politically). But even considering that, it is impossible to take the Europe - or even its reduced EU view - as a whole. Opposed opinions about terrorism in the EU alone is a good example of such strong local nuances. This is something which is unfortunately too often put aside, leading to oversimplification of the problems.
Now, keeping my previous point in mind, about the question of "defense".
It is indeed true that the current average line of politics in Europe goes more towards pacifist solutions. There are good historical reasons for that: Europe was the focal point of the two World Wars; Europe initiated colonial wars about 300 years ago; Europe ruled the world from the end of the XVth Century to the middle of the XXth. Past events showed that although war gave by itself impressive short and middle-term results, it wasn't very efficient to establish long-term objectives. All major conflicts of the XXth century confirmed this trend, being lead by Europe or other countries. Western European countries have a long colonialist past behind them, and that definitely plays a role on the way they perceive the current situation: military domination proved rather inefficient compared to economical control. This emphasis on the economical side rather than on the military side is definitely obvious in today's European diplomacy.
I'm rather curious to see what kind of massive military attacks Europe could expect from the outside. I see only a couple of options there:
- From the Middle-East or from the Northern Africa ? But those are economically dependent from Europe. They're also made of a puzzle of contradictory interests - there is no unity to expect on short or middle-term timeframe. Besides that, their military power is questionable (Israel being an exception);
- From Central Asia ? Caucasian republics are busy with their own anarchy. The two most important military forces there are Pakistan and India - but they are watching at each other, not at Europe, which is perceived as a neutral supplier, just like the USA;
- From the Far East ? But what would be the interest of China to attack and damage what is one of their most important trading partners ?
- From "the South" ? None of the countries of Central/Southern Africa or Southern America can oppose a realistic military answer to the EU;
This leaves only one possibility: Europe being endangered by Europe itself. There are very few possibilities there: most of the former "Eastern Block" is in the process of being integrated into the EU. The former Jugoslavia never attempted anything outside its borders - and doesn't present a threat to the rest of the continent. So where is that military threat above the head of Europe ? The question needs to be asked, and so far received no clear answer. Just as a side note, although the military power of Europe is inferior to the US one, it is very far from outdated or inexistent; and Europe has the financial capability to sustain large-scale, long-duration operations, something the USA cannot really afford anymore.
About the WWI, WWII and Yugoslavia: It is a common thought that "USA saved Europe". Some things to remember, though:
- The intervention of the USA during WWI was marginal and never decisive for the course of the war. If you study your history manuals, you'll see that Germans capitulated mostly because political and economical troubles starting to suffoca
Not when it comes to operating systems it isn't! What about if I want to go to a PC vendor and buy an empty PC because I want to run Linux or FreeBSD on it. How many vendors will sell me a blank PC and refund me the cost of the pre-installed Windows XP?
The answer is very few because of the way in which they have been "bullied" by Microsoft to sell pre-installed PCs. If they don't do that, MS comes down hard on them and charges them more per Windows XP license, thus cutting their profit margins which are already lean.
I agree that Joe Average probably doesn't give a damn about Linux or other alternative OSes but Windows is being turned into a platform to generate more income for Microsoft from every user's pocket and he should be made aware of that and protected from it.
The fact is that if you use recent MS software, be that Windows XP, WMP, MS Office, etc. you are, in effect, sanctioning and supporting closed proprietary data formats that you will have to end up paying to license from MS in the future - either because you are trapped in their planned "rental" model for their software or because media-related hardware you buy in the future will have an MS "tax" levied on it to use those licensed formats - and you will have no choice but to pay it.
Microsoft do not like open formats because it means they cannot make any money from incorporating those into their software. TCP/IP was forced upon them and, for the moment, they have to support formats like MP3, MPEG, TXT, JPG, etc. because of the widespread use of those. But you can see for yourself how DRM is now being pushed and you can be sure that formats like WMV, WMA, DOC, XLS, etc. are intrinsic to that push.
MS is not satisfied with just having its OS and apps on your desktop - it wants to control all of your data and charge you for the privelige.
You may want to hand over your personal freedoms to MS but I'd prefer it if you didn't hand over mine also.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
There was an excellent article about this very point in the Wall St. Journal a few weeks ago, the monday columnist (Col 1 sec B) is pretty with it. Anyway he questioned whether our monopoly is giving us enough to justify it's existance comparing MS with AT&T and IBM which both generated tons of useful inventions (PCs, UNIX, lasers, etc) and basic research (several nobel prizes each) while MS gives us buggy software.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Stopping monopolies is not what this is about. This lawsuit is about stopping the abuse of monopoly position to gain leverage in other markets.
The EU Commission regularly combats European companies, in fact Microsoft is the only non-European company to be sanctioned in 2004 (so far).
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
You people just hate Bush especially more because he's a conservative Republican.
Somehow I doubt that. A lot of us outside of the US wouldn't understand exactly what a US Conservative Republican is. An Australian Republican is different from an American Republican for instance.
I can't speak for anyone else but I hate him because he's a dangerous, obstinate, self-serving moron who fraudulently took office and tries to run the world through fear, uncertaintly and doubt. He could be a fucking democrat for all I care.
The good news is I think all us non-USians are calming down and not directing hatred towards Americans in general. We hate your leaders, we hate your corporation-focused infrastructure and seemingly blind US focus. We don't hate you.
To all republican voters: we feel sorry for you. You must live in a pretty narrowly-focused universe.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"