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EU Fines Microsoft $613 Million, Officially
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported by CNN.com, the European Union has hit Microsoft with a record US$613 million fine after a five-year investigation, finding the company guilty of abusing the 'near-monopoly' of the Windows operating system. Microsoft has been given 90 days to make a European version of Windows available without a media player and 120 days to give programming codes to rivals in the server market to allow 'full interoperability' with desktops running Windows. Microsoft plans to appeal the decision." Other readers point to coverage at
the BBC, ZDNet, Reuters (here carried by Yahoo!), and abc.au.net.
I hope that the EU actually sticks by its guns. That is one thing the US has not done. I hope the EU sticks to a punishment because M$ gets away with it they will only cross that line a little further if they end up getting off.
Evolution or ID?
I hate to tell the news.. but $613 Million is pennies compared to Micro$oft pocket book, still its a good step in the right direction.
Media player being bundled costs the consumer money even if they don't want it. It also allows Microsoft to further leverage its market position once WMP is ubiqitous!
As for the 'orders' on API documentation? Woohoo.
Microsoft is the perfect example of how capitalism needs a tight rein for it to work to the benefit of people, not big corporations!
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
poor SCO lawyers might have to take a pay cut now. :(
It will not hurt them, Microsoft has about $53bn of cash lying around.
How can the punishment serve a deterent, if the fine does not hurt??
Hey, that's my password you are typing
Right. Of course they didn't know. They just set up shop in a different country and assumed that US law would prevail. What's wrong with that ? (Hint: lots!)
Another quote:
Well, no wonder they're going to appeal, that removes 90% of their business practice!
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Give the lame Bill Gates can pay the fine with pocket change cracks a rest.
The restrictions on FUTURE MS actions is why MS is pissing in their pants over this ruling.
$613m is a lot of money, but will Microsoft try to use cupons, or "donate" software to schools, thus locking in more Microsoft users from a young age?
If the EU is smart it will force Microsoft to donate to CASH to open source, or educational groups, thus allowing people to break the Monoply by their own choice.
Does anyone else consider it a bit weird that they're using Windows Media Player as bait ? That's a division where there's at least some competition from Quicktime and Realplayer. The browser war was a far more dirty one IMO, and microsoft is STILL making it practically impossible for competitors to integrate their browser properly over IE.
And what about the java fuckups ? The Samba debacle ? The OEM backmailing ?
I don't get it....
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Microsoft has been given 90 days to make a European version of Windows available without a media player and 120 days to give programming codes to rivals in the server market to allow 'full interoperability' with desktops running Windows.
What about other Os'es ?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Windows. Microsoft plans to appeal the decision.
/work at 5am rules
Really?
This is the most obvious comment by a submitter that I've seen in a while.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Before you all start moaning that EU is anti-American, note that the complaint was made by Sun & Real (both american companies) which resulted in this ruling.
"Great, now the EU's mom can get that opperation"
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Microsoft will appeal, and the EU courts estimate it will take 5 years until a decision is made.
fining corps for taking advantage of people, but it would help if the fine was damaging for the shareholders. Otherwise Billy boy will just say, "is that cash,chque or credit card?"
And they also have to make a version of windows without the media player.
You're old school? I beta tested the motherf***ing abacus!
Being an EU citicizen that positevely despice the bureaucracy in Brusssels it feels good that at least something appears to work there. On the other hand, I have no high hopes that they'll actually go all the way with this. It will will probably turn to water and be nothing more than a "We in the EU work very hard with ensuring that no single company can monpolize .... bla bla ... "
Too bad for MS that the dollar is financially weak at the moment.
I mean, it's "only" +/- 507293667 euro's at this moment.
Is it possible for MS to wait with the payment until the $ and the euro are about 1:1 again ??
This is the sig that says NI (again)
A couple of thoughts/questions this brings up -
Has it been released _what_ portion (or all?) of code will Microsoft be forced to disclose?
What will this mean for software in the US (Will Linux finally be able to interface safely with NTFS, will Microsoft attempt region-basesd distributions...., etc, etc)?
The real fine isn't the money for microsoft but the unbundling that was imposed. It is not only an inconvienance but it won't make it as easy to push their format of files. This is becoming more difficult for them in other ways too.
Evolution or ID?
While the fine amount is what is grabbing the headlines, the Windows Media Player removal is where the meat is. The fine is a "cost of doing business" to Microsoft. The WMP/free OS is hitting MS where it hurts.
The "new" OS will have greater impact than the fine ever will. It is ashame the headlines will probably fixate on the dollar (euro) figure.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
What stopping Microsoft complying with the order to release a striped down European version sans Media Player and then just charging 10% more for it as a specialty product? (Reflecting the hard work and research required to remove such integral features from Windows)
"Look we've done what you asked but the consumers just don't want it"
It may not hurt MS to shell out that much cash but assuming the fine stands, that's a big wad of cash being handed over. Who's it going to go to? The EU trade commission? MS competitors damaged by their behaviour? Does anyone know? The CNN article doesn't appear to say....
Rumor has it MS are forcasting quite a tidy profit if anyone new can ever pool enough cash to afford the source license they made available as part of the settlement. That worked out well for MS too. Really, this whole being-found-guilty thing was a wonderful experience for MS, and they were looking forward to it happening again.
$613 Million? Shouldn't that be 496,796,042 euro?
Where does the fine go? Spending it on Real player/Quicktime development might be poetic justice?
Omnis amans amens
Sadly the appeals and whinging are likely to drag on for many years.
Hopefully the EU will be able to make the ruling stick in the end. The fine may not be all that much to MS, but being forced to unbundle Media Player, etc could have quite an effect on their future strategies.
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
Tha is the bitch avout business, only the strong survive,
Aren't the time lines for these things rediculous? From the time an investigation starts, trail is held, conviction is appealed and re-tried, it takes about a decade to exact "justice" on an international corporation.
In the meantime, the victims such as smaller competing firms and consumers have long since picked up the pieces and moved on. The companies at the amepx of it all aren't even relevant anylonger (Netscape?).
Until the law can put some spring in their step, a $600 Million fine 10 years after putting awa your competition is paultry.
Break up Microsoft - THAT is the solution!
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I hear they have Weapons of Mass Distribution at Microsoft and they must be stopped
What does this mean they'll have to tell people about? I'm not au fait in any way with desktop/server interaction so Samba is the only thing that springs to mind, which I thought was interoperable just fine.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
$613 million? Oooh, not. That's pocket change to Microsoft, who has a war chest of billions of dollars -- but of course this won't stop it from passing the cost along to its customers, and blaming the EU for increasing the price of Microsoft products.
In the end, this court decision isn't going to amount to anything. Competition has already been hurt. Customers aren't going to want to pay the same price for a version of Windows without WiMP. Competitors won't be given access to Microsoft's API's; MS will appeal and drag this out for a very long time. And in the end it will ignore the court orders, just like it did in the US, knowing that its punishment will be yet another lengthy court process which it can drag out and then ignore again, all the while telling its customers that government is trying to raise prices and stifle innovation. Maybe it'll even try to settle by again offering to install Microsoft software in schools for free (until the license has to be renewed in a few years, that is).
This sounds like the most important part to me. What does this mean? The CNN article is incredibly vague. Is MS allowed to place restrictions on the licensing of this "program code"-- i.e. forcing anyone who looks at code to sign an NDA saying, say, they won't use the information in a GPLed product? What do they define by "in the server market"? Is this just saying MS has to make its WMA code available, or is this Windows in general?
If the latter, that's absolutely fantastic. That means we could start seeing 100% compatible versions of Wine, freed from the difficulty and endless trial=and-error of duplicating an API where so much is undocumented and "bug compatibility" is so crucial.
If the former, that this means MS has to divulge the necessary information for third parties to be fully compatible with WMP serving, that's not quite so interesting.
Incidentally, I want to nominate this as the most bullshit argument MS apologists have ever put forth, ever.
Analysts say by forcing Microsoft to offer a version of Windows XP without Media Player, consumers could pay higher costs.
"If it were to be obliged to offer versions both with and without Media Player, then that would mean we would probably have double the number of consumer PC configuration in our shops. Of course this is product that is built before it is sold," says Brian Gammage from computer consultancy Gartner.
Wow. So Microsoft using Windows revenues to subsidize a hugely complex and unnecessary movie player and set of movie codecs doesn't increase costs to consumers, but Microsoft having to print up two differing sets of cheap cardboard to sell in stores does. Amazing.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
According to Working Lunch, thats nearly 2.5 weeks profits, bet Bills shaking in his diamond encrusted T-Rex skin boots.
Does anyone know how much it took to prosecute MS for 5 YEARS???. The EU ought to make them pay for the cost of that, too!
While the rest of the world reports the $613M fine against Microsoft as a standalone, the LinuxWorld report juxtaposes it with HP's confirmation - being reported by Reuters - that HP is wavering in its support for Windows on the desktop. Its notebooks and laptops will now support SUSE Linux. An HP'er concedes: "Does Microsoft like the fact that we do Linux stuff? Absolutely not." Is this the end of the beginning now in the Windows vs Linux desktop battle?"
The point is that the EU is trying to make MS less anticompetitive. That would set an excellent precedent, and is what Ballmer & Co. object to so strongly.
This is something that should have been done here in the US long ago, but unfortunately our government is for sale to the highest bidder.
The reason it won't hurt them long-term is the fine has nothing to do with getting IE and Windows Media Player out.
IE was designed to destroy Netscape. Windows Media Player was designed to destroy MPs, Real Player and Apple's Movie Player. The fine doesn't mention anything about taking away their monopoly position. It's a mere suggestion that they should do something about their Windows Media Player being bundled with the OS, but doesn't enforce anything. My 2 cents say the whole thing is weak. They ought to force Microsoft to sell their OS w/o IE and WMP in the EU states, period, and if you want those products, you have to download them, just like you have to download Netscape, Mozilla, Real Player, etc. Let's leverage the playing field. This is bullshit.
I'd make the stripped down version, and only sell it direct via snail mail order. </EVIL>
Maybe if people quit buying Microsoft's software, they wouldn't have a monopoly.
Maybe if another company could produce a desktop friendly OS for a reasonable price, Microsoft wouldn't have the deathgrip on the end user OS market.
Fun to live in an era where a company is punished for making something too good.
We are borg.... yadda yadda yadda. It doesnt mean a damn thing. MS is a cancer and there is no stoping it. I think this will just strenghen windows market share more.
The EU Population in 2003 is 378,988,100 (estimate).
So it is about 1.311 EUR per EU inhabitant.
Not even a single trip bus fare.
Hey, that's my password you are typing
Who will be receiving the $$? How was this specific amount decided?
Switch to Linux today!!! You'll still get lots of extra free stuff you don't want or need, so switch NOW!!!
...and so on.
Read the EU press release from their own site (in your own language): http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p _action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/382|0|RAPID&lg=EN&disp lay=
Sure, a loser that's offered a job by a big company during bad financial times.
In my eyes he's a winner because he is willing to work for a company like Microsoft to put bread on the table for his partner and maybe even kids.
Yup, if he's a loser, then so am I.
I'll take care of my family too
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Where does the money go after Microsoft pays? To charity? To the gov't?
-Colin
One of the most misunderstood legal cases around. The woman who sued McDonalds got third degree burns from the cup of coffee.
What happened to the notion of freedom, so rarely espoused or valued on Slashdot, of freedom from government intervention?
How can you believe that Linux is a viable competetor to Microsoft some of the time, yet support government intervention against Microsoft intended to make other competetors viable?
This position, held by most Slashdotters who have commented on this issue, is highly contradictory.
You can easily buy a PC without Windows on it... and if you don't like Microsoft you can use one of the many alternatives. If you are a business owner and want to stream media content, you can choose from one of the many alternatives.
1) People don't choose Microsoft because they have to.
2) People don't choose Microsoft because they're stupid.
People choose Microsoft because it offers benefits that they consider worthwhile, and as Microsoft's success as a business shows, people are willing to pay for these benefits.
So instead of supporting state action to help Microsoft's would be competetors, why not support alternatives that really stand a chance at success? Does anyone really think Sun Microsystems is part of the future?
Amazing magic tricks
This is completely offtopic, but dont mod me down because it is in some way related (at least in the UK)
I tried to post this article but for some reason it was rejected in favor a completely pointless article about firewire and video cameras!
Anyhow it is important and should have been accepted!
to briefly put it;
Anyone here interested in Open Source, and supporting it in UK
government should digest this document and send your support/comments/insight
heres the link with downloads and stuff.
Its an important document and those here interested should read it and post related comments/ suggestions to the email address on that page.
What they are seeking to do is support evaluate both Open Source and Proprietary solutions; whilst doing their utmost to avoid vendor lock-in ; as is the case with Microsoft bundling IE & WMP (etc) with windows.
The document is an Open Draft, that means that right now it is not set in stone, and liable for change. If anyone here reads it and thinks it should be changed in anyway I would advise letting them know.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
in a front-page article a couple days ago that it has not yet been decided whether the remedy will be put on hold during the appeal and MS has to lose the appeal for the remedy to go into effect, or whether the remedy goes into effect now and MS has to win the appeal for the remedy to be redacted.
They said a judge had a forthcoming ruling on that issue. It seems quite possible to me the ruling would go in favor of the government, since it is quite clear that a remedy that begins in five years would be as good as no remedy at all-- it is quite easy to look at how quickly the tech market moves and how quickly MS has been able to take over previous previous tech markets once they start putting the veritcal-monopoly moves on, and argue that if the remedy waits for the end of the appeals process, it will be too late to do anything to help the competitors the remedy is meant to address.
Whether this has changed since then I do not know.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Sorry, but why do people have to copy-and-paste from big sites? I think all of the sites linked to in this story have more than enough server capacity to cope with Slashdot, so why do it?
People winge about intellectual property theft and copyright all the time, but isn't this the same thing?
If it was copied-and-pasted from a small, crushed-by-Slashdot site, complete with full attributions as to WHERE IT CAME FROM, etc, then it wouldn't be so bad. But for a larger site, there's no need. So please, don't do it, okay?
"Steve Balmer commented, that the fine imposed by the EU is completely unreasonble, considering that you can buy a president in the US with much less.".
"There is a terrorist behind every bush"
...cue the temper tantrums from the microsofties about how this story shouldn't be posted on slashdot...in 3...2...1...
We all know how much foward thinking is in the EU. Now lets see how long it takes before we can get our hands on the source code. Although it will probably be released much like the FBI documents (with half of the important and interesting stuff blacked out).
Sig removed by order of FBI Patriot ACT
what war was that?
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
If I had a family, I'd steal bread to put on the table, but even *I* have my limits.
Most important is whether MS has to take the imposed actions during appeals. i.e. will they have to sell windows w/o Media Player during the appeals process (which could take years to complete).
Coffee is hot, every one knows that if you are stupid enough to put it between your legs and squeeze, I have not sympathy for you, she should have requested the coffee cold if she did not want it hot. Now if the cup melted that is a different story, the cup manufactures not MD. We should stop giving money to Stupid people and stop passing laws to pertect them.
And trust-busting is part of government regulation of capitalism. Get over it.
This will have a huge effect on the long term and will cause Microsoft to think twice before monopolizing the market. If there is another time I wonder how much it will be $5bn? 10? who knows.
500 Million here, 500 Million there, before you know it you're talkin' about some real money.
This is the key element of the decision and outweighs the impact of the fine since the fine only represents about 1% of their cash reserves.
I hope the appeals court does not put a temporary stay on that aspect of the decision even if they do let MS hang on the cash until settled.
I RTFA, and I didn't see: what happens if they don't comply, or comply 1/2 and it's found that it doesn't cut it?
And this will be a bigger story if/when the sanctions immediately apply, instead of being enjoined until the end of the appeals process. Could go either way, I guess; but the first wouldn't allow Microsoft to play a waiting game.
--
$tar -xvf
Governments sometimes restrict or break up Monopolies. Fucking get over it.
Think about it, drug marketing teciniques are the same as microsofts. Pushers say this to kids all the time:
"Everyone else does it."
"Just try it once for free (a donation)."
"It lets you do things you could not do before."
Plz plz plz let there be a market in justice importing?
The most important interfaces that need to be well documented are being able to interoperate between exchange (and outlook client) and to both serve office functions as a server and to keep open source office products totally compatible. This is what permits users to truly interoperte.
... it needs to be at the user or application level--that is where the practical rubber hits the road.
It is critically important the such interface documentation be available to all, not just big server vendors or closed source vendors that can sign license agreements--open source cannot sign agreements! The most important compatibility is not talking to Windows clients at the network level, but at the user/application level, both for platforms that support windows users as a server or as alternative systems that must interoperate properly.
Compatibility as a windows platform is overrated
I hardly think making them remove Media Player will help competition. That seems like a very specific solution to a broader problem. Also, sharing code doesn't make sense. Microsoft is being anticompetitive by doing things like strongarming OEMs and spreading FUD around. Bundling a media player and browser isn't exactly evil, IMHO.
Well, they have fined European companies in the past (Volkswagen for example), so your "theory" does not hold water.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
However, I've converted people to Mozilla Firefox - once they see the popup blocking, tabbed browsing and the nice search engine selector. The problem is that lots of people don't see these things. There's no-one much in the mainstream media suggesting alternatives to users, so they keep on using IE/Office/WMP.
And that's crucial. The tech press can wow about Linux, OpenOffice and Mozilla all it likes. A lot of small businesses don't read the tech press, so keep on using the MS products.
Bill Gates: "Smithers...errr I mean Ballmer... My wallet is in my right back pocket!"
Yeah but MS isn't a trust....
If Europe wants to see a real abuse of monopoly power, wait until MS just decides to stop offering their products on the European market.
It isn't the government's place to tell a company what they can or cannot sell.
In Europe, are the damages computed in a similar method? Also 497M Euros sounds small, but was this computed based on Microsoft's profits/revenues and anticompetitive practices only in the EU?
Microsoft will undoubtedly appeal . . . and this could take years. The market and the product mix could change a lot by then . . .
Exactly. She was actually very seriously injured by coffee that McDonald's was serving at over 180F--not anywhere close to a temperature safe for human consumption.
Everytime I see some idiot try to use this case as an example of a frivolous lawsuit it makes me cringe. There are plenty of frivolous suits to use as examples--people should choose one of those so they don't make their otherwise intelligent posts sound completely stupid to those that actually know about the case.
My grandmother.
Unless Linux makes inroads faster than what I've seen, offers complete emulation for windows products (perhaps with crashes every few days), and generally more intuitive (which sadly means looking 'more' like MS software), I'm not putting it on her desktop.
When it comes to stability I've had my desktop up for 1 month running W2K. The only two 'crashes' before then were memory failures (red checksum LED was lit) and an overheat caused by a fan failure.
Check Yahoo Finance for the last 5 days. The US markets open in 1 hour so it'll be interesting to see how they react.
actually, if you compare with other fines from the EU for anti competitive action, this is indeed the biggest, but not much bigger than the second.
and they did bash european companies too...
here is the top 5
1 Microsoft Corp (USA) in 2004
497 ME
2 Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Switzerland) 2001
462 ME
3 BASF AG (Germany) 2001
296.16 ME
4 Lafarge (France) 2002
249.60 ME
5 Arjo Wiggins (international) 2001
184.27 ME
6 Nintendo (Japan) 2002
149.13 ME
And this was modded Interesting???
0 ,1 129,603206,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicalscience/story/
In 2001 the same comission fined Hoffman-La Roche (Swiss) for 462m, and BASF (German) to the extent of 296m, for vitamin price fixing.
You may go back to your freedom fries now.
PS: One can only hope that an appeal will not be granted. It does not have to be, you know.
that feels so good! i'm proud to be European! :-)
As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant products.
Nice. This isn't the Holy Grail that would allow for full Wine compatibility, but this should do absolutely wonderful things for Samba...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Is there any information on how they have to release that code? I recall them being forced to release documentation of APIs in the US for a reasonable license, which they set at around a hundred grand, fifty if you decided to not use it after a look.
Will the EU allow that crap too, or will it realize that Microsoft's largest competitors are likely to be OSS developers and a hundred-grand license would be about the same as not actually releasing it to their competitors?
Guess you missed all the info posteed before the judgement, showing how many EU companies had been taken to court then? What, you mean you just made a rediculous comment, without even the briefest amount of time spent looking to see if your position was tenable?
You americans surprise me
Justin.
[Hey, this could be modded insightful, funny, or troll!]
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Lets turn things the other way around. Hypotheticaly, do you think an American court would hesitate to fine a European company a big amount? As big as it might be?
Why did the Bush administration raised taxes on steel imports from outside the US?
Pure economical protectionalism, my friend.
A friend of mine (in the UK) got a speeding fine. He found an old local by-law that said he could pay the fine in live chickens, to the equivalent value.
Hilarity ensued, of course.
So does this mean Apple will stop bundling Quicktime with OSX? After all, it is a mediaplayer that comes with the machine, made by the manufacturer and it pretty much plays everything.
Totally monopolised IMHO - they really should stop the bundling of all function applications with operating systems if they want to give everyone a level playing field.
Come to think of it, Real should start writing their own OS. To bitch that your mediaplayer is up against one manufactured by the platform mnufacturer you make your money off is not particularly fair. Apple and MS both make an OS and bundled mediaplyer, so why can't Real make an OS? No-one would use it though, it'd be crap. And that's why no-one uses Real player.
A: It's 1700 GMT. That means all the Brits have finally given up pretending to work and gone home for the day. According to statistics, post quality soars over 30% on average.
Especially in a world where the most popular portable music player (iPod) doesn't even support the format!
And I would guess that an analysis of numbers of media servers out there could well find that there is a reasonably even split between QuickTime, Windows Media and Real (Couldn't Google any stats on this, so feel free to correct me!)
I know that Real's complaint was actually about the fact that they felt people would prefer their product given a level playing field (erm ... yeah), but a lot of people I know that run Windows still have all 3 main players installed, just for access to media-based web sites if nothing else, so I guess having just one of them pre-installed didn't make that much difference to their habits. BTW, I don't know of anyone who has actually PAID for a media player for a long time now.
By allowing Microsoft to charge royalties on implementing interoperability interfaces when they are covered by patents ot other titles, it makes it impossible for a free software project to implement interoperability. The Commission once again shows that it cares only for competition ... among multinationals. ..." :-)
For the Europeans: this is one more reason to reject software patents. "Encore un effort
Curiously the French version of the press release says "reasonable and non-discriminatory" while the English only says only "reasonable". I guess that's meant to please the French and Microsoft at the same time
...that in a time when incredible shortcomings of Microsoft's OS are found, some of you actually talk about 'American/European (skewed) relationships' and how 'unfair this is to an American company'.
For once look at the big picture, and forget that Microsoft is an American company, and the EU filed a European verdict:
Microsoft is a major global player in an international market ruled mainly by European and American companies together.
In this playing field it is only fair that a referree - no matter if US or EU - rules when a player crosses the legal line.
It is to the benefit of both the Europeans as the Americans in the long term, and we will pick the fruits of this decision in time.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
...but the only reason this is a "record" fine is because our own government CAVED IN and let them off the hook after a decade-long trial. After spending a *huge* amount of money in court, the US government sternly told MS they had to promise to release a service pack.
If our government had stuck to its guns from the first time of many that MS was taken to court, the tech landscape here would be vastly different, I think. Hey, BeOS might even be alive, and Linux and Macs would CERTAINLY have more momentum than they do!
Even if MS pays this in cash rather than software, it's still pocket change, currently sitting happily in the MS account and earning them interest. So they won't earn as much interest this year. Big deal. This won't change anything. At best it's less money for MS to pay SCO with.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
The correct question would be "name one european molopolist". There are tons. DeBeers is one obvious choice. Slavery and otherhuman rights also come into play. Some are protected. A few off the top of my head include Unisource and Atlas in the telecom industry. Also look at the aerospace industry.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
In proportinal terms they have hit harder, and the EU has been under much critiscism for letting big US corps do things that EU companies cannot.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
If Microsoft removes WMP, they are going to remove the media codecs with it.
Any company that wants to compete will have to license and/or create media codecs for themselves.
There is obviously a lot of functionality available by default to any app developer in Windows.
No they wouldn't. Did the US gov't do all they could do to stop Microsoft? No. It was a joke. If Microsoft was European and had the anti-trust brought against them in the US I think you'd have seen a far stiffer ruling. And I don't know that I agree with you that they were come down on hard. If Microsoft made what *I* make a year, it'd be a bitch. That fine is laughable at best to them. As for the rest of the decision, it's well deserved.
We will soon see a new set of installation dependancies for .NET framework, MSXML, etc.:
"Requires Microsoft Media Player 9.0, greater to run".
Well, it worked the last time!
If releasing the full Windows APIs is part of the deal, it should be possible to provide a Mozilla based DLL to replace the IE one. Ditto Opera and others. If enough functionality is released to allow WindowsUpdate to work, any browser war will be formally over.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
NPR this morning was stating that Microsoft will appeal (Wow that is a suprise). They said that an Appeal could last up to seven years. In that time, longhorn v2 will be out and support for XP will be cut off. This will make the case a moot point. Even if they loose the appeal, Microsoft won't pay.
:-)
Swift justice, it seems, works just as fast in Europe as it does here.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
from http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p _action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/382|0|RAPID&lg=EN&disp lay=
DN: IP/04/382 Date: 24/03/2004
TXT: FR EN DE DA ES PT NL IT SW FI EL
PDF: FR EN DE DA ES PT NL IT SW FI EL
DOC: FR EN DE DA ES PT NL IT SW FI EL
IP/04/382
Brussels, 24 March 2004
Commission concludes on Microsoft investigation, imposes conduct remedies and a fine
The European Commission has concluded, after a five-year investigation, that Microsoft Corporation broke European Union competition law by leveraging its near monopoly in the market for PC operating systems (OS) onto the markets for work group server operating systems(1) and for media players(2). Because the illegal behaviour is still ongoing, the Commission has ordered Microsoft to disclose to competitors, within 120 days, the interfaces(3) required for their products to be able to 'talk' with the ubiquitous Windows OS. Microsoft is also required, within 90 days, to offer a version of its Windows OS without Windows Media Player to PC manufacturers (or when selling directly to end users). In addition, Microsoft is fined 497 million for abusing its market power in the EU.
"Dominant companies have a special responsibility to ensure that the way they do business doesn't prevent competition on the merits and does not harm consumers and innovation " said European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti. "Today's decision restores the conditions for fair competition in the markets concerned and establish clear principles for the future conduct of a company with such a strong dominant position," he added.
After an exhaustive and extensive investigation of more than five years and three statements of objections(4), the Commission has today taken a decision finding that US software company Microsoft Corporation has violated the EU Treaty's competition rules by abusing its near monopoly(5) (Article 82) in the PC operating system.
Microsoft abused its market power by deliberately restricting interoperability between Windows PCs and non-Microsoft work group servers, and by tying its Windows Media Player (WMP), a product where it faced competition, with its ubiquitous Windows operating system.
This illegal conduct has enabled Microsoft to acquire a dominant position in the market for work group server operating systems, which are at the heart of corporate IT networks, and risks eliminating competition altogether in that market. In addition, Microsoft's conduct has significantly weakened competition on the media player market.
The ongoing abuses act as a brake on innovation and harm the competitive process and consumers, who ultimately end up with less choice and facing higher prices.
For these very serious abuses, which have been ongoing for five and a half years, the Commission has imposed a fine of 497.2 million.
Remedies
In order to restore the conditions of fair competition, the Commission has imposed the following remedies:
As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant products.
To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area(6), Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration. The disclosure order concerns the interface documentation only, and not the Windows source code, as this is not necessary to achieve the development of interoperable products.
As regards tying, Microsoft is required, within 90 days, to offer to PC manufacturers a v
120 days to give programming codes to rivals in the server market to allow 'full interoperability' with desktops running Windows.
What exactly does this mean? Release the code so Samba can join an AD domain correctly?
The concept that we use laws arbitrarily to get justice for unrelated evils (as opposed to applying laws universally for the issue at hand) will generally favor large corporations, which cannot possibly be evil in the mind of the best government money can buy.
I posted this link of New Scotsman to slashdot.
Quote: 'The company also argued it could not have known its behaviour would infringe EU law and therefore it should not be fined at all.'
Microsoft's chief European lawyer, Horacio Gutierrez said according to New Scotsman(quote2):'We believe it's unprecedented and inappropriate for the commission to impose a fine on a company's US operations when those operations are already regulated by the US government,'
Why don't they just offer Windows WITHOUT Media Player to everybody, and let anyone who wants it simply download it from their website?!? That's what people do when they want Real Player or any other player. Is that too hard for MS to do?
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
I've had that dream, too. After Microsoft stops all its sales in europe at first nothing will happen.
Most people who need windows already have it. If someone is in serious need for another version they just copy it.
The software vacuum is filled by miriads of small companies having a nice real competition about who sells the best linux / offers the best linux support. And everyone lives happily after.
while (!asleep()) sheep++
DeBeers operates a worldwide cartel which sells product in the EU. Why doesn't the EU impose the same kind of fines against DeBeers for it's monoply on Diamonds???? Where's the outrageous fines and pumped up retoric for this obivous abuse of monopoly power?
$613 million? Oooh, not. That's pocket change to Microsoft, who has a war chest of billions of dollars
That is not pocket change. Supposedly, they have $50 billion. So $613m is 1.2% of their cash. 1.2% may not sound like a lot, but it certainly isn't pocket change.
I may have only $35,000 in savings, but $420 is much more than pocket change for me.
If that excuse worked for Microsoft with regard to OEM bundling Netscape with new systems, it should be true of Media Player.
I've tried every open source alternative I can find, and they're all slower by a lot. I'm using Mozilla FireWhatever now, but I had to turn it off as it took seconds to load. Whereas IE, part of the OS itself (providing many HTML-based services), loads instantly.
I'm going to assume you refer to the time it takes to load up a webpage and not the time the browser itself takes to load... I've found, on my computers, that Opera displays the pages way faster than IE or Netscape. Loads the executable faster too, but as I said, it's on my machines, YMMV.
Granted, it's not open source, but it's fast, it's free and it has a minimum footprint. Oh, and you can get it for Mac, Linux and other operating systems too.
Give it a spin - I would say it's close to the perfect browser, at least for me.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
So where will Microsoft/the EU draw the line, and how can one of Microsofts core businesses survive this? Easy: Currently all of these apps and products are bundled 'free' with windows. The litigation is the result of customers not having a choice about the bundles apps. So what is to stop them from simply undercutting all of thier competitors the same as they are today while simultaneously offering a crippleware version of windows along side the main product?
Imagine Windows Longhorn Core(tm) on the shelf right beside Windows Longhorn Deluxe(tm) priced 5 euros higher. In the box on the left you get -just- the OS with a stripped down explorer. In the box to the right, for just a smidgen more, you get a windows install which is the functionally the same as the one you get today, with the bundled apps in all thier glory. Legally the customer has full choice, internally MS need only support a version of explorer which holds itself to the most minimal API use (ie lowest support costs possible), and *presto* thier main OS offering is safe from any further litigation. Meanwhile anyone with half a brain buys the Deluxe version because "why would I want to miss out on 500+ apps and utilities for just $4.99 more?", and we're right back to 'business as usual'.
Illegal monopolies stifle competition (and thus capatalism), and competition is the only sure cure for them. MS should have broken up into seperate OS and software companies to force those divisions to compete, and to restore the 'invisible hand' of the market.
Congratulations on getting a well paid job. However, learning how to be humble and modest would go a long way. Did you really need to throw the actual number in? That's boasting and showing off, and not an admirable trait. Now go to MSFT and have a good time. I know many good people there who are very smart... you'll soon learn to lose the attitude ;)
That makes my life hard. When I buy a car (I'm sure this has been used before) I want a stero in it already. I want it to have tires, I want it to have windshield wipers. I want oil in the engine. When I buy a car I want it to be functional, when I buy an OS I want it to be functional. When I install XP on someone's computer, it is going to be a pain to have an additional CD to fill in the Missing components, plus my time. Normally, the XP install finished, the machine works, my mother is happy. Now i'll have to spend another hour installing a media player (and making sure it has the proper file associations and codecs) and installing a browser, and eventually will I have to install a mail client? A text editor?
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
First of all, WMP isn't that bad! Real Player is much worse! WMP doesn't flood your screen with spam. I like having it there because if I don't have another program installed, it's there to play my files. Next thing you know, they'll want a stripped down OS and you'll have to choose from a hundred different boxes because of cases like this. I think it would be better to have an option when you're installing (Like Linux!). Second of all, what's with the huge lawsuit? Is suing Microsoft for that much really going to do any good, or is it just going to give the EU money? It's one thing to force the company to change something to comply with law or whatever, because they should... but fining them seems to be just an attempt to get more money.
And it's not even a given that the fine will even be imposed in the short to medium term. Microsoft is obviously going to appeal and engage in all sorts of delaying tactics, hoping for a change in the political winds. They have the cash reserves, the legal team and patience to outlast pretty much all competitors and governments. This worked for them before in the US.
Microsoft has shown multiples time that it is unwilling to do business on a level playing field. So how about instead of a fine, immediately imposing an injunction on Microsoft making it illegal to sell their products in Europe until they comply with the EU's terms. This will negate Microsoft's delaying tactics and is more likely to get them to change their corporate behavior.
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
Telling MS that they cannot bundle WMP with their OS is absolutely absurd. Come on people, drop your hate for a freakin' second. That's like telling Linux distros they can no longer bundle Apache. It's their OS, they can bundle whatever the fuck they want. This monopoloy bullshit is stupid too. If you don't like Windows, get Linux or a Mac. MS didn't force anyone to ever buy Windows. All of these businesses and governments that are bitching & moaning could have bought Macs for the past 20 years instead of windows boxes. If that would have happened, they would now be bitching to Steve jobs about bundling Safari with OS X. The real issue is that when someone or a company gets their hands on large sums of money, the rest of the scumbags will try every way in hell to get a piece of the pie. Bastards.
The EU fine is $613 Million.
$613 Million / $30 Billion = 0.024
So ... they fined Microsoft roughly 2% of one year's sales. This "proportionate" and "balanced" ruling was because the "near-monopoly" tried for several years to "shut competitors out of the market". (quotes are from the EU Commission)
This is how losing 2% of my gross income would impact me on a weekly basis.
(myGrossIncome * 0.02) / 52 = myWeeklyImpactIfFined
So what do you casually spend more than 2% of your gross income on? Lunch? State sales (or VAT) tax? Gasoline? Porn?
The fine is neither harsh nor effective. Anyone want to take a guess at how much the competitors have lost every year?
You know, I never understood why people had a problem with WMP. If you don't like it, don't use it. Divx player installs and works great. As far as WMP, it's an "ok" generic player, so really what is the big deal? It is, after all, free.
Everybody, REJOICE!
I hope that they have to disclose the API under a non encumbered license, otherwise it is pretty pointless for Wine or other open source projects...
TODO: 753) write sig.
In a working market economy, profits will be minimal. If anyone is selling a product with a high margin, some competitor will take makretshare by selling the same product with a lower margin. Either way, profits will be small.
/., is that the Libertarians are very visible here. Libetarianism is an ideology founded on the axiom that goivernment is evil, and nothing good can come from it. Thus, libertarians will never be able to understand how a market works.
Since the players in the market are motivated by maximizing profits, they will always try to circumvent the market forces, mostly by obstructing their competitors. For a company that holds a monopoly in one area, one way to do this is to bundle products from other areas. This is basically how Microsoft works.
Ensuring a working market is, in my view, the primary responsibility of a government.
The reason you hear otherwise often on
What's next? Is Ford going to be sued because I can only order the car with the sound systems they approve from the factory? It's the same thing. If you don't like windows media player, install something else. If I don't like the stereo in my car, I can install something else. This is crap. This is the EU trying to show the world that they can be stronger than the US.
Even if you believe that MS is a monopoly (I don't, but that's another discussion for another day), they got to be as big as they are because, drum roll please, the market chose them. In the early years of DOS and windows, consumers used these operating systems and not competitors. Sun, Linux and Apple aren't held down by Microsoft, they lost early on in the OS wars.
It's akin to me starting up a company that builds computers, then complaining that Dell is holding me down. Dell isn't, Dell won out long ago, capitalized on the position, and that's the way it is.
Government control, that's what we need, because surely it's worked in the past. Anybody who thinks that the EU taking on MS is any better than the US gov't taking them on will soon see, it doesn't matter, it's not going to change anything, it's just another set of politicians trying to mark their territory.
If you want your OS to succeed, then build a better one. Build one that is as user-friendly for somebody who doesn't know computers, build one that works with the majority of hardware on the market in an easy way, build one that looks pretty, because, as much as you hate to admit it, that's something that the market looks for.
This ruling should not stand. And only by overturning this on appeal will the EU really show that they are not a bunch of greedy politicians.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
Says here that "Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said the European Commission's decision amounted to a "compulsory licence" of the firm's intellectual property rights within Europe."
Ok, enough laughing. Back to the bash-fest.
The right in Europe want their own monopolies to succeed, not an American monopoly.
According to NZHerald and independent.co.uk, some members of parliament are not happy with the EU's decisions.
...another rexample of EU assaulting another a poor defendless honest american corporation? awww ..pfft!. it seems more like an example of how much control MS and any other big corp has over the American government.
"This ruling is yet another example of the EU assaulting a successful American industry and policies that support our economic growth," said US Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Microsoft's home state of Washington. She called on President George Bush to "engage" with Brussels on the case.
[alk]
You know America acts more like old Europe (by that i meen medieval and napoleonic europe) than the supposedly old europe. It sadens me that the leader of my Country the UK was dumb enough to coned into war by bush and has taken a step back to the past and not the future. but there will be elections soon and no more blair.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
If MS has to disclose their API's *now*, it won't help them much if they win the case in five years, and get told that they don't need to disclose them anyway.
The EU court chose to look at this crime not because they picked WMP out as the worst or only abuse of Microsoft's monopoly, but simply because makers of competing products (Sun & Real) brought a valid complaint against Microsoft.
All other crimes are still open for discussion (and one assumes the defendant's existing criminal record will be taken into account when sentence is passed).
If you want to see Microsoft fined over the (much bigger) browser issue as well as the (small) media player issue, you would need to build and sell your own wondows compatible browser, and then file suit.
Useful links:
Sourcecode for browser - http://www.mozilla.org/source.html
Website of EU court - http://curia.eu.int
Let us know how you get on - http://slashdot.org/submit.pl
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
The story here is how much power the EU has gained. The fine on Microsoft is extremely high (over 10% of cash reserves.)
This appears to be an Anti-American fine.
The EU could still enforce all of the other restrictions without the confiscatory fine.
What "media player market?" Is there a version of Windows Media Player that costs money? All they're doing is giving stuff away. They bundled IE not to get us hooked and jack up the prices, but because an OS should come with a browser. IE is free (as in beer). MediaPlayer is free.
Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of people who want to have their cake and eat it too. If Microsoft sold a stripped-down, bare-bones OS, people would rip on them for being such tightwads. "Richest software company on the planet, and won't even give us a friggin' media player." So instead, they bundle stuff. Stuff that should come with an OS. And we still rip on them.
I read an article the other day that blamed Microsoft for all these virus attacks. The author was incensed, and fumed that Microsoft "should include built-in antivirus software with the OS, with automatically-updating virus definitions. That would fix all these virus problems." I thought to myself, "Sure, and at the same time, they'd be sued into oblivion by Norton, Symantec, and anyone else in the anti-virus business."
To be honest, I think an OS should include anti-virus software. Also, all of the following:
And probably a bunch more I can't think of off the top of my head. I expect to be able to install an OS and actually do something with the computer. Am I alone here?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Ok, Microsoft has to offer a version of Windows without WMP in it. Let's say WMP accounts for a few percent of the total cost of Windows, so a version of Windows without WMP would cost, perhaps, about a Euro or two less than the version with WMP. What manufacturer is going to go for this? Microsoft will be forced to spend the time and money to produce a Windows without WMP, and then nobody will buy it. What does this change?
I don't want MPEG-4. It sucks. Lost the codec war showdown they posted about on slashdot. Sounds like it sucks.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The problem is when you get cigarettes that have been "improved" to be more addictive, and ingredients added that are obviously detrimental to health. Then you go after these companies, quite rightly, and fine them savagely (I recommend jail sentences for the execs too).
But never forget that people want to smoke, and as long as they respect non-smokers, and don't litter (why is the majority of trash on the street from cigarettes?), then let them.
Here's a piece of info - the tax generated on cigarettes in the UK, is more than the total cost of the national health service!
US$613 million. Petty cash for M$. According to the Canada Globe and Mail, the market capitalization of Microsoft is approximately $260-billion
We can look to the past as a guide, though. For the past year and a half, Microsoft has produced about $4-billion a quarter in cash flow from operations, on average. It doesn't have to reinvest much -- say, 10 per cent of that amount. To be conservative, we'll say capital expenses are about $500-million, leaving the investor with $3.5-billion a quarter, or $14-billion a year in free cash flow.
The market capitalization of the company, at yesterday's close, is about $260-billion, but that number doesn't reflect the oodles of stock options held by employees, which some day may dilute the existing shareholders. To be on the safe side, you could build in a cushion; say it would take $300-billion to buy the whole company.
It wouldn't really cost that much because Microsoft has a laughably conservative balance sheet, with $53-billion in cash and short-term investments and no debt. But ignore that cash hoard and ask yourself: would you pay $300-billion for a $14-billion annual stream of cash? If you think of it like a bond, it's a free-cash-flow yield of about 4.7 per cent, a nice premium on U.S. Treasuries (the 10-year note currently yields 3.7 per cent). And that assumes the company doesn't grow again, ever. [source]
~ If you want to leave your footprints on the sands of time, do not drag your feet ~
...and the guy graduated from my high school and undergrad Economics school too! (He went on to Yale and glory, I went on to MIT and lots of strange, lowly and sometimes slightly dangerous things.)
At the beginning of his tenure as commissioner, his office was an ineffective mess, and he was much derided for that.
But he's a systematic, low key guy who quietly bites. The announcement ("we need to set a precedent") after 5 years of tug of war is in charachter.
I was attending his Macroeconomics lectures when he realized that he had fewer students in class that marks on the attendance sheet. In my 300-student program we had complusory attendance, but we were the only ones out of perhaps 20,000 in that school who could just tick off a rollsheet instead of showing an ID and signing in front of a proctor.
He was offended by the breach of trust, and proceeded to READ ALOUD three pages from a textbook, saying we deserved no more.
Attendance got back to an acceptable level right from the next class.
What is this "Open Source" entity that would collect the money? And what "educational groups" would be eligible, only those that preach (and yes, I do mean preach) the values of OSS?
One of the successful components of OSS is it's distributed, decentralized nature. The downside, of course, is that it makes it impossible for OSS developers to collect on damages paid by companies like Microsoft.
My guess is that this money will go directly to the EU coffers.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Bill Gates was quoted as saying "Well, there goes my pocket change. Gotta hit an ATM sometime today."
I thought the whole point of capitalism was to make money, not to "work to the benefit of the people". ..
.. Oh yeah, Soviet Russia.
Hmm, where have I heard that phrase before?
As soon as the DeBeers cartel uses its diamond monopoly to control grain distribution, heads will roll.
Ever thought some of the people who ended up with Media Player might have liked it? Hm?
I'm no legal expert, so I can't be sure how far Mr. Monti can go with his punitive measures, but I don't think he's gone far enough. In my estimation, only Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson had the right idea: split up the company. It's too bad he didn't have his way.
Mr. Monti points out that Microsoft's business practice of bundling is generally abusive, but his solution -- the creation of a new, slightly cheaper Windows version sans MediaPlayer -- is not going to make much of difference to the average consumer: for only $10 to $15 more, who in their right mind would pass up the chance to buy something as exciting as "Windows XP Media Plus"? As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Monti should have demanded an end to Microsoft's evil bundling practices (at least in Europe). Period.
As for the 500m Euro fine, I suppose it's more symbolic than anything else, since it amounts to about 1% of their cash reserves. However, it does create an unwelcome precedent that Microsoft are keen to avoid and which could lead to a lot more trouble for them in the future. I sincerely hope so.
why governments and busineses keep attacking this company. True they monopolize the OS market, yet through it all, it seems that companies are simply unwilling to make something better and push it. Sure MS's system may be buggy and somewhat insecure (I say somewhat because the most popular software of the day is always the most hacked), but what can you expect from over 50 million lines of code?
To be honest, I think they earned the monopoly. Linux is a great system. Been using it for years. But unless your a real serious expert with a lot of patience to learn Unix, it's just not viable for the home user. Everyday people are not going to care to compile their own software, deal with incompatible libraries and shell scripts. On the other hand, Mac OS-X is a great Unix based system. But they prefer to keep it running on expensive, proprietary hardware that most people are not willing to pay for. You can't blame Microsoft for that.
I'm hoping somebody can clear this up. Does this mean that Microsoft has to help out projects like Samba so that Linux can communicate with Windows over SMB? Or does it extend all the way to helping Wine run Windows apps on Linux?
Personally, I hope it extends all the way. Imagine the Wine team not only having access to the Windows source (They sort of do now due to the leak, but they can't do anything with it), but being given legal permission by the government to use it, with Microsoft's help!
So, can somebody clear up how far this extends?
Since forcing them out of business seems to be unfortulately out of the question. The only realistic control is to force them to do full disclosure on all file formats, protocols and api's. This will give other platforms a chance to try to compete at some level.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
What could hurt it even more is the opening up of interoperability with other servers. This would, in a longer term, cause competition and then M$ will have to innovate to stay market leader rather than destroy competition. If they can't compete, then they will have to leave the market...
I am sure M$ will find another way to stay in its position, or use US government pressure on the EU to alleviate this ruling...I just hope the EU has the bottle at long last to tell the US to go take a long walk of a short pier...
What should Linux take as direction now? Concentrate on server technology that runs M$ Winblows Desktop nicely. Then, once M$ dominance is battered a little, create a Desktop version (2-3 yrs time) that runs nicely with the server...
One thing to note, though, is that Windows Desktop will always be closed source...What stops M$ creating a function that reduces connection speed by 50% when the server returns that it is not Windows2003?
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
-L
Don't Panic.
It doesnt matter whether the EU sticks by its guns, because Microsoft will never comply with this ruling. This is their line in the sand. If they lose now, they will lose the ability to define what goes in their future products. They would rather not sell in Europe at all, and let European organizations get their software from distributers in the US. Will the EU fine companies for using Microsoft products? I dont think so. All they have to do is appeal, appeal and appeal some more. In the end, the EU will buckle and seek a settlement to save face. It may be 2-3 years out, but dont kid yourself. Microsoft will never let governments decide what goes in their future products. Atlas will shrug before Microsoft loses this one. Time and money trump anything the EU has on their side.
Score: +2, stiff-assed Brit
This is the crux of the whole suit. The unfair OEM deals are what is keeping competition down, IMHO. If DELL offered only two browers, but Gateway offered four, which offer seems like the better deal (all else being equal)?
Microsoft is leveraging their "what are you gonna do? Not offer Windows to your customers? Nice knowin' ya!" monopoly to keep the alternatives down. And that's what's illegal.
As to the "what media player market?" thing: Imagine there was effectively only one media format, and the only player for this format required your operating system? Can you say "more OS lock-in, more OS sales"? There's your media player market.
Then there's that pesky "trade secret law" thing to deal with.
Also, though I'm not sure about this, I think the leaked WinNT code was not ALL of the codebase.
Maybe it's a little Ann Raynd of me, but This seems a little unfiar. When we first started fighting this particular fight I prayed and hoped for government intervention, but not anymore. I've really enjoyed the fact that we are starting to kick their asses without getting a single handout from the man. I like knowing that we are gaining ground through our own skills and effort. It gives me a since of pride. This is like telling a sprinter that he has to remove a couple of spikes from one of his shoes because he has won too many competitions in the past. It's just enough to be irritating and give the other runners an advantage. There is nothing I want more than to see MS fall, but I want it to be a fair fight. Not MS forced to take a dive. Where's the fun in that.
What would Pinky and the Brain have done each night if someone would have just given them the world to control.
I have to agree. I'm not biased towards one OS over another, they all have their strengths and weaknesses.
Maybe I am missing something, but what is so wrong with Windows coming with whatever amount of software that Microsoft wrote? So what if MS decided to block all versions of Windows from running anything but an MS product? So what if they give it away for free trying to gain all the market share? We can all refuse to use Windows at any time.
I think we can all agree that *nix, *BSD, and even MacOS are more than capable of filling the gaps.
I've GOT to be missing the real reasoning behind this... I just don't see how Microsoft doing whatever it wants with its product is a bad thing.
Monopoly? How? There is an alternative to every aspect of every Microsoft product out there (thanks mostly the free software / open source community).
If *I* can be MS free, what the hell is the rest of the world's problem? I mean, should MS be responsible for the world's ignorance or stupidity?
I think I've read so many bad reports on all of the MS antitrust saga that I am just baffled as to what is really being put into question. What am I missing here, folks?
Personally, I would rather see all this time, effort, and money (TEM!) spent on the more greasy companies/organizations - like The Canopy Group to start with!
I feel like I'm always repeating myself saying this, but I feel it's a good enough idea to rant about:
Windows distributions - THAT is the solution!
Take away the right for Microsoft to sell Windows with any additional software, but let a select band of 'distributors' piece together a Windows distribution made up a bare-bones Windows and whatever additional apps they like.
You could have a Windows distro which comes with IE, Firebird and Opera, or without IE at all... *cough* if you'd like that extra security.
The distributors could be overseen by legal authorities to ensure that fair play is achieved with any Windows distro.
This would not detract from the user experience in any way.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
MS is getting fined because they bundled WMP with windows? Is that correct?
Please tell me there is something more.
Are linux distributions not allowed to do this? OS X? Other os's?
Personally when my mother opens her new XP box, I want WMP installed along with a whole bunch of another apps(some zip type program comes to mind)
Help me out here.
... the MSFT share price appears to be climbing on the back of this news.
Let's all chip in for a humanitarian donation! I'll kick off with 5 karma points.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Any blow against Micro$$oft is a win for open source!
YAY YAY YAY YAY, I am dancing around in circles, drinking champaigne!
What is often forgotten is that most competitors of MSFT are also US companies, so to limit MSFT's monopoly would harm one US company, but benefit a lot of others many of which are also US companies.
So, the economic balance does not explain the US failure to correct this economically damaging condition, there must have been another reason. Probably plain old bribes, or just stupidity from the part of the Bush government to see the economic benefit to have sound markets with sound competition.
My beef is they have leveraged the Instant Message mind share. Too many people think MSN is the only IM system. (Jabber is the best open system.)
I can again sleep. Justice has been served in the post-moral world.
I find it highly amusing that WMP must be unbundled because it is monopolistic for MS to bundle this with Windows, when the software required to view streaming content is dependent upon what the provider makes available (except in those cases where multiple formats are available). I use WMP, Quicktime, and Real (ugh) depending on what format the video or audio I am interested in is using.
The fortune at the bottom of this story seemed appropriate...
Between grand theft and a legal fee, there only stands a law degree.
So what if Microsoft included a Media player. How lame can someone be to say this is wrong? So what if IE is included! How lame can someone be to say this is wrong? This is completely illogical. Windows users should stand up and rally with Microsoft for doing such a great job. Innovating and pleasing every aspect of PC use for the mere $299 it costs to install Windows. What the hell is wrong with people?
EU ruling quote :
:)
Microsoft abused its market power by deliberately restricting interoperability between Windows PCs and non-Microsoft work group servers
work group servers are not restricted to file servers and user authentication. This will most probably have connections to exchange server, calendar sharing and the like.
Maybe soon will evolution be eventually able to talk to exchange without a proprietary connector
Parmalat, anyone?
And who was that cutting the ribbon on the Osirik reactor along with Saddam Hussein?
I'm guessing you mean the Brits (me? why thankyou) make a *positive contribution*.
I gather a lot of people post *while at work* and then you might be implying it's a relief Brits stop posting while "pretending to work" and go home and offline.
A well crafted troll?
GrimRC
Do you think that there are no anti-American people in America? We have one running for president. He says he's getting support from foreign leaders.
Ignorance of the law is not seen as a valid excuse for breaking it.
So tell us, exactly which Euro law did Microsoft break? I saw an interesting discussion last night on CNBC during which it was pointed out that there was no Euro law broken by Microsoft. Bundling the media player for FREE doesn't exactly harm the consumer. Microsoft isn't stopping anyone from running another one. Essentially the EU hopped on the US anti-trust law, and decided to pursue some fines and penalties. Evidently they had received complaints from a competitor - Sun Microsystems. Imagine that. One can imagine the discussion at in Monti's office. "We should jump on this, think of the money we can get and how we can feel good about ourselves for protecting the 'consumer'. Oh, Sun you say? Who cares, there's $650M in it for us."
Anyone want to venture why European economies are in such bad shape?
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
I support Microsoft. There is no suitable replacement for Windows. Linux is not it. Not yet. But maybe soon. Windows has a monopoly because people choose to use their products. If you want to use Exchange, that's your choice. If not, switch to some other alternative.
only in europe is "near monopoly" a bad thing...
gimme a break. Not very far from "we don't like you" so you have to pay us 1 biiiilion dollars. er... euros.
monopolistic practices are bad, but this has turned into a money grab.
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
"Abuse of dominant position" is a serious crime
against capitalism. Next is you tell us to release
those '"murderers"'. Can it get more subjective
than implying that placing this knife between the
rips caused death? (And when is it death anyway?)
BTW I think it was a much to low fine. They could be fined for 10% for their year's buisines volume
in Europe, and this is a neglegible part of that.
never read Ayn Rand's stuff, but heard about it...
GrimRC
It's what DrSbaitso said, upthread.
Microsoft is dumping free Mediaplayers on the market so that rival companies don't grow bigger and develop into competitive threats to Microsoft.
They are using their monopoly power as an unfair competitive advantage in this effort.
The last thing that Microsoft is interested in is a rich, competitive market for innovative new technologies that succeed on their own merits. What they are interested in is control and domination, and using their monopoly power to compensate for their own lack of creativity.
if Ronald McDonald really did buy crappy cups and sold one to you and you got injured, you'd pursue Ronald and Ronald would presumably pursue the crappy cup manufacturer, right?
GrimRC
Business is about risk...people taking chances on potentially good opportunities for great ideas.
:), do not belong.
The EU has a goal to be the #1 knowledge economy by 2010, passing the US, who is currently #1.
Unfortunately, bureaucrats don't understand either freedom or business, and they want to act in place of legislatures to do what is best for the people. How very nice and paternalistic of them!
Punishing a company for some very reasonable activity will only make Europe an EVEN MORE UNATTRACTIVE place to operate. There is a limit to how much established wealth will keep Europe in the spotlight. Eventually, something new has to come along. Too bad that something new is in China and India.
Also, this fine is twice what it should have been, if you are looking at precedent. Are you telling me that MS is twice as bad as the worst trust in EU history?
My favorite example of the defunct EU comes from their tome of a constitution. There are dozens of examples of how this document does things beyond the role of a constitution. Sure, there are provisions for balancing powers, but extra-governmental action contained in the constitution, like a limit on the hours in a work-week (another big plus for the economy
I am 100% for economic merging, standard account practices, a common currency, etc. I think countries should unilaterally drop trade barriers and immigration restrictions.
I am 100% against political merging of desperate groups where unelected bureaucrats will determine policy. A government must be limited, or it will grow to tyranny. I GUARANTEE this is where the EU is going unless they reform now. Tyranny is the logical extension of paternalistic government opportunistically expanding its own powers.
You heard it here first! ( maybe )
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
I think there is a bigger story here than simply the fine imposed by the EU. More significantly, will governments compete to regulate corporations? Who's corporate laws will dominate how we govern multi-nationals multi-nationals?
It would not be surprising to see Microsoft lobby the US state department, congress and the president to attempt to pass trade law or ask for "protection" them from "unforseen" trade laws in other countries.
Tie this in with outsourcing...
Will US Multi-National Corporations ask the US government for the same protection from globalization that is does not want for US employees?
Yep, and realize that right after you take this job and get released, your career will be FUCKED.
:)
Don't think you won't get let go, either. You talk as if it's HARD to get a 90k/yr offer from MS. They shell those positions out like crazy, but the catch is... they let 99% of them go once they realize who they want/don't want.
Not to mention when you get hired, you need to sign loads of legal documents stating that you won't work for anyone in a similar related situation. That's where you get fucked, because Microsoft does it all. There isn't a single company you could go work for in a position that won't immediately compete against what you were hired for in Microsoft.
So, congrats, you've just fucked your life up
While it is great to feel that the 10,000 pound gorrilla has been pricked, you have to begin to worry about the larger implications this issue has. Foreign governments will begin to weild the power to force companies to do things that fit within their specific way of life.
Remember Yahoo and the case of Nazi memorabilia?
Imagine if countries with more stringent beliefs the Middle East or South East Asia for instance became huge financial juggernauts, they could arm twist companies that want to do business with them to remove materials they find offensive e.g. eBay's adult section.
BTW, if you think this is pointless paranoia, search for what Google did to appease the chinese government in searching about rights abuse.
IMHO, Quicktime is more of a pain in Windows than Media Player which I never use either. Divx player, Vidomi, & GDivx & Winamp run ALL my media files without issue.
Imagine splitting $613 million across Linux Distros, Kernel Developers, and other Open Source fronts.
$613 million is just chump change to MS. They won't learn. The only way to hit hard, and to get your point across, is to directly donate and support the competition.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Microsoft will hold this up on appeal for DECADES while they spend money getting sympathetic politicians elected in Europe... what's funny is that they'll probably spend more money greasing political palms and buying elections than they would spent if they simply paid the fine... but they'd never want to admit being wrong...
"without a media player and 120 days to give programming codes to rivals in the server market"
If your worried about what media player you have on your servers, you shouldn't be in charge of these servers in the first place.
TruePunk | Games
dollars, euros, rupees, bytes? k = kilo or kibi? and while I'm at it, what's that y variable?
GrimRC
Who gets the money in the end? If MS shills out 497 million euros, whose coffers does it fill?
Perhaps a better way to look at the EU's decision is to ask: Does the EU's decision correct the wrongs that Microsoft has perpetrated on the EU's citizens?
To me, the $613 million fine is retribution/revenge for some past wrong. Fines don't stop a person or a corp. from doing bad things, they only make it more expensive.
For instance, fining a Corp for releasing radioactive waste into a school swimming pool doesn't clean up the pool nor help the sick kids. It may provide resources to help clean up the pool or help the kids, if the Gov chooses to spend the money on such an endeavor, but unless bundled with some other remedy does not it ensure that tomorrow the corp will stop dumping its waste in the pool.
Requiring MS to offer a version of Windows free of the media player seems to be a way of ensuring that in the future, MS won't be able to abuse its current monopoly on OS's to prevent people from using Quicktime, RealPlayer, or some other media player. However, the EU will still allow MS to sell Windows bundle with the Media Player. Since most people will want a Windows that has the player, all this provision will do in the short term is ensure that will be a very dusty box of the striped down Windows in every software store in the EU.
Requiring MS to release some of their API's also ensures that in the future, MS will play nice with its rivals. Of all the remedies in the EU's decision I think this was the most appropriate given MS's past acts.
On balance, I think the EU made some good decisions and we will all be better off for it. However, seeing that there are numerous choices in the Media Player market, most of them free, I don't think the large fine was appropriate.
Living standards in most of the EU are not much short of the US, and in places much higher (e.g. Luxemburg). We pay higher taxes, but we get a lot for it: Free, Universal Healthcare, near-free higher education.
Add healthcare and education costs costs (including insurance and lawyers) to your US tax bill, and you get a higher bill than in a typical EU country. Basically, US citizens are getting bad value, and a lot of ideological brainwashing to make 'em think they are doing well.
Sad, really. I thoroughly recommend a trip over to Europe to any American. Trailer parks do not exist. Homelessness is rare. In many parts, police are not armed.
so if I payed for a license I should be entitled to the souce code right? That's exactly what Microsoft did with the SCO so the could use the source code for SCO's version of UNIX. But I guess you believe that the whole "license" should only apply for code that M$ want's.
Sig removed by order of FBI Patriot ACT
One option MS must consider in light of the requirement to make public it's source code is to leave the EU. This legal requirement would allow MS to legally require Europeans to stop using the software they have purchased. Would this put EU citizens at a disadvantage? What about the loss of investment in software?
- wasca -
The "trust" is Microsoft + Exclusive PC OEM contracts.
cd /devel/windows/EU_version ./configure --without-wmp-shown-icon --without-ie-shown-icon && make && make install ;)
MICROS~1 (damn I love that one) have had a *tremendous*, almost entirely negative, impact on all of our lives (directly or indirectly). They've kept computing and civilisation back decades.
On a sidenote, they neatly represent the entire proprietry software world (and beyond, into proprietry hardware world etc.). Bill Gates "Open Letter to Hobbyists" clearly shows his myopic vision.
I think that is the most damaging thing about MICROS~1, but in today's world, being a proprietor and locking products and services together (customer has no rights; even legally a customer has no rights, and a good example is reverse engineering) is no crime. Still, MICROS~1 has commited very real crimes, as recognised in today's world and its legal system.
GrimRC
Sorry guys I have to side with Microsoft on this one. I like my media player (i prefer to run this over programs like Power DVD which I installed and do not like its functionality), i hate .net and microsoft messenger (i use trillian).
Maybe make all these features an option that by default is set to off and then someone would have to go to the advanced settings during the install? I wouldn't mind getting rid of some of the windows features that I do not use (and save hard drive space).
However, I think the ruling stinks to high heaven of "lets make a statement."
It would be nice to see microsoft pull their product "You want to buy it, buy it from the US." But we know that won't happen.
-A
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
That !Windows media player == !DRM? Microsift tied all it's DRM to WMP, that is why it will never comply with the EC on this. This i expect to be a extremely interesting battle, that is if Bolkestein won't be resend to Europe as commisioner by my country. He is a clasic "give all our rights away to the large companies" case.
Yeah, right.
EU Fines Microsoft $613 Million, Officially
... and with the way the USD has fallen the last two years, MS better pay up fast before it gets closer to 700m USD.
No Slashdot, the fine is not 613m USD, it is 497.2m EUR.
Since they're required to give their 'competitors' the code necessary to impliment Windows network services, would this mean that things such as samba would be handed source for the Windows implimentation of SMB/CIFS? (well, those not yet already implimented)
I shiver in delight, but two things: 1) wouldn't MS simply release a patch that addresses a 'security issue' several days later which breaks all previous installations, and 2) wouldn't MS require anyone that looks at it to sign an NDA which essentially says something along the lines of, "I will not use this code to compete or hurt MS"? I suspect so.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
What if MS decided to jump ship and stop selling software where the EU reigns? How many family members would start whinning when they couldn't figure out how to recompile the new linux kernel or install the latest version of AOL using RPM?
Yes, Apple, with it's 3 or so percent of the computer market, obviously has a monopoly. They are allowed to do what they do because they aren't a monopoly. The rules are different for them.
"But I'm still right here, giving blood and keeping faith. And I'm still right here."
That must mean that Ford, GM, BMW, etc. are all monopolies, right?
There are a number of different Linux distros that have Mac versions available, you know. How about one of those?
And this makes Apple a monopoly how?
You must be using a different definition of monopoly than the rest of us are.
You still don't get it do you?
The difference between Microsoft and Hoffman-La Roche (Swiss) and all those companies you Europeans keep dragging up is that Microsoft makes by far more money in the United States than it does in Europe, whereas Hoffman-La Roche at al make more money in Europe than the United States.
What is highly objectionable here (and shows the normal visceral anti-American European political agenda) is that these Europena Union creeps are fining Microsoft an amount that overwehlmingly is based on Microsoft's sales and profits in the United States and not just Europe.
That is extra-territorial and simply cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
Microsoft will appeal, all the way to 2009 if neccessary.
I don't own a Mac, so I don't know this for sure. But doesn't OSX come with QuickTime? Isn't this the same thing as what Microsoft does with media player?
What about the next release of OSX when it has Itunes preinstalled, won't that be an unfair advantage against companies that might be in competition with Itunes?
Yeah Microsoft is a monopoly, but still, that doesn't make it right that their competitors can do something and they can't.
TruePunk | Games
I'm by far no M$ supporter..I cross platforms daily..I'd like nothing better than to see M$ pull all of it's products from Europe, throw Linux down on the table and say, "Here, let's see you do something with that!"...
Here you go. Also note that these data are for 2002. US economic growth is even better, now.
Free, Universal Healthcare,
Wait lists?
near-free higher education
If one can get in.
Sad, really. I thoroughly recommend a trip over to Europe to any American
Glad to hear it. I'm planning to travel to Europe again this summer, to visit family and friends. Wouldn't want to feel unwelcome this time.
Homelessness is rare
Are you sure?
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Even in windowsXP you can choose to install it or not install it, then if you install media play you can allways uninstall it.
I just bought a new dell, and it had media player, real player and a few other media players that I removed within 5 minutes of my machine starting.
Why? Because I don't need a media player for my work machine, but people do have options.
TruePunk | Games
You know how baseball and football stadiums are being renamed to that of their biggest sponcer?
Chicago has "United Stadium" (Bulls) and "U.S. Cellular Field" (White Sox). I wonder if the EU would sell out if MS agrees to pay them 50 times the fine over 5 years.
Microsoft: So we're in agreement? 20 billion over the next 5 years?
European Union: Sounds good.
Microsoft: Please sign here.
European Union: Lets see, where's that 'X'. Ahh, there it is. *signs*
Microsoft: Pleasure doing business with you!
The European Union of Microsoft: Wha, business? Sure, whatever, that's great. Where's our check?
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Anyone know if the EU is planning on plowing the fine into Linux development? Doing so would seem to be in the best interests of the EU in the long term and would also make MS much more responsive.
Because people will want a media player, and when Joe six pack goes out to buy a new version of windows, and has to choose between windowXP and WindowsXP with Media Player, what one will he choose?
If they dont know the difference then its hard to tell, but if they know what media player is, they will buy the one with Media Player, bucause they will want something simple and free to play media.
If this happened in the U.S. and I had to buy a media player (sure some are free, but the ones I would use cost money) I would be vary unhappy.
TruePunk | Games
The worse thing that can now happen is... ;-)
that MS Steve Ballmer jets over to Italy for talks with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italien prime minister and also owner of numerous TV channels. MS will then buy TV commercials for hundreds of millions EUR.
In a surprise move next week Berlusconi will then urgently recall the Italian official Mario Monti from his work at the European Commission to head the newly introduced 'Italian ministry for parking offences'.
For the post of European Competition Commissioner some new guy called Pinocchio will take over - with all strings attached to back home.
Microsoft will never ever open their source, nor are they likely to pay the full $615m fine. They might submit to the unbundling of WMP. For those who can't understand why, let me explain.
First, the source. We all know that MS will fight against this more than any other single punishment. This is what they truly don't want to have happen. You can bet that MS would be willing to go to such extreme's as pulling out of the EU market rather than supply the source. Further, the EU has no real way to actually force them to release it anyway. They can issue such an order, but if MS says no, what are they going to do? They can't legally seize the code and release it for them (at least, I don't think they can). The only way to force MS to release the code would be through the cooperation of the US, which isn't likely to happen. Regardless of whether or not the US gov agree's, as soon as the EU tries to force their hand, it becomes an EU vs US thing (guess who will win that battle).
Second, the fine. It's big. Damn big. Yes MS can technically afford it, but if nothing else, that is likely to get overturned and reduced to $100m or so.
Finally, the unbundling. If MS releases an unbundled version it will cost exactly the same as the regular version, because hey, WMP is free, right? Second, people who mistakenly buy the unbundled version are gonna be peeved when they can't find WMP and are gonna complain. Whether the Open Source/Free Software communities likes it or not, people want this software, like this software, have gotten used to this software, and most importantly, DO NOT CARE THAT THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES. Yes, thats right, they are happy using WMP and want to keep on using it. So what is ultimately going to happen? People will buy the bundled version anyway! Furthermore, MS knows this and is more likely to comply for just this reason. They've already strangled the market, so it doesn't matter anymore.
Then, Kodak has the monopoly for Kodak camera, Canon has the monopoly for Canon camera, Fuji has the monopoly for Fuji camera and Nikon has the monopoly for Nikon camera.
Expand that to other markets: General Mills has the monopoly for Cherioos cereal, Coke has the monopoly for Coca Cola, Pepsi Co has the monopoly for Pepsi, Folgers has the monopoly for Folgers coffee. etc.
How many monopoly can you have in a single market? By your definition, everybody has a monopoly since you can narrow the market to include only the brand of that company.
*Sigh* Human stupidity has no bound
in the MS monoploy cases? Removing Media player or IE or other applets from the OS is NOT where they should be focusing their time! Next thing you know they will want to remove the networking piece so that we can have the "freedom" to pay a couple hundred dollars/seat to Novell or Vines just like the bad old days of DOS.
The thing they should be attacking is the contracts that exclude other OS's from being pre-loaded on new PC's. This is the only thing we need the government to help us with.
Apples music format is AAC, which AFAIK is not related to QuickTime in any other way than that QT can play AAC.
First, no, most choice especially in the media player market is due to commercial ventures such as Real Networks, Winamp (although free, get's advertising moneys), etc. Not open source. Choice is out there. True, MS does all in its power to reduce the attractiveness of those options to the average consumer, but there's still plenty of choice.
Secondly, I prefer to view the Open Source movement as benevolent capitalism. Nearly everyone I meet, including other capitalists, has an intrinsicaly flawed view of the system. That is, they all think its purely about money. Its not. Money is an abstraction, a placeholder for other things. Capitalism is really about those other things, be it food, praise, reciprical code contributions, community, or just a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. Open Source types just tend to prefer the latter, but its still capitalism. Human nature is essentially capitalist, even if you're all living on a properly functioning commune, so long as it's voluntary.
how is it that /. is full of smart people and yet some are unable to grasp a simple concept of monopoly. How is it that they can code, solve differential equations, understand quantum physics and yet think that Apple is a monopoly? Or that requiring MS to unbundle certain parts == requiring Ford to unbundle CD player? Or that requiring MS to open up its API == MacDonalds shows Burger King its sauce recipee?
It is mindboggling, really.
I wonder what would happen if MS actually said, "Fine. We won't sell our products in Europe." I know they would never consider this, but if they did, would this open the door for Open Source, or would it make the EU back down?
You can bet that MS would be willing to go to such extreme's as pulling out of the EU market rather than supply the source.
This is the third time I've had to correct this piece of silliness, here we go again. If they pull out of Europe they lose nearly half of all their revenue. Europe is by far their biggest market. They would also at a stroke cease to have a monoploly on the world's desktops. It just aint gonna happen.
as soon as the EU tries to force their hand, it becomes an EU vs US thing (guess who will win that battle).
If recent form is any guide this would be a shoe in for the EU. The US may be the only military superpower, but they are no longer the dominant economy.
people want this software
Actually people use the software that the content provider determines that they do. If it's in Real they use Real if Quicktime they use Quicktime and so on. Most consumers just use the most heavily promoted product that works with the format they need to view.
The U.N. Sure does a great job maintaining peace in the middle east!
U.N. = Unwanted & Not-Needed
my personal boycott of all things European Union begins today. I will also gladly share my thoughts on this subject will all friends, family, associates, and clients and I hope that some also find this farce highly offensive. The voters of the EU in: Austria Belgium Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Portugal Spain Sweden United Kingdom and soon enough: Cyprus Czech Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Malta Poland Slovakia Slovenia need to take action and stop this matter via the political process. Tell your representatives that you freely choose Windows, you like inexpensive computers, you like computers that act the same at home and at work, you like the standards that the market has chosen over the last 25 odd years, etc. As an American stock holder and technology worker, I find this EU action as nothing more than a method to steal from me potential dividends and also raise the prices that I pay for technology. The above nations will not have me visiting, nor will I be buying any goods or services from those States.
Yes. It also proves at long last that screwing nearly everybody, stongarming and threatening and bribing everbody else, is not the "most effective and profitable" way to do things. Even in the "real world".
Your income you are talking about is equivalent to Microsoft's profit, not their revenue.
Microsoft's income each year is more like $8-$11B.
So, this fine is more like 10% of profits. How would you do with 10% less income?
They shouldn't.
French enterprises are some of the most horribly corrupt entities buying entrance into third world markets (its a de-facto practice for them and their congress allows it) ;-)
Just FYI, the french IRS allowed bussinesses to deduce the money used on bribery in designated third world countries from their revenues. No longer true, that allowance was revoked years ago : Now at least they have to hide the dirty tricks
One of those Europeans...
You can say a lot of things about both IE and Windows Media Player, but they're both far superiour to both Netscape and RealPlayer.
.wmv, Quicktime uses .mov and RealPlayer uses .rm. And because WMP doesn't have support for both .mov and .rm, people will still install Quicktime and RealPlayer if they want to be able to play those filetypes. Therefore I consider this not an abuse of MS's monopoly. .mov and .rm files with WMP. Then it would be unfair competition. But right now it's just one format vs another.
After both Netscape and MS released version 4 of their browsers (which were of comparable quality), Netscape just skipped version 5, while Microsoft released IE 5. Then version 6 of Netscape was released months after IE 5 and it wasn't worth trying at all. The same was valid for version 7.
It's true that because IE came bundled with Windows and wasn't uninstallable IE gain marketshare. But it's not only to blame on MS, because Netscape just released crappy versions of their browser.
This is also valid for Real. I mean, RealPlayer came loaded with ads and spyware, which really nobody was waiting for. Then they started complaining about Microsoft. Jees, just take a look at your own product and improve it. In the end they made RealPlayer open source. A good thing, but way to late if you ask me.
And there's one other thing you should keep in mind. Netscape and Internet Explorer both use the same medium: They both render webpages.
Windows Media Player, Quicktime and RealPlayer use all different formats. WMP uses
It would be different of course when you would be able to play
(this is not an attempt to troll, just trying to show you a different prospective.)
sig(h)
>If Windows was 30% of the market share, MS could add a media player and increase value, sure.
If Windows was 30% of the market, they would jump at the chance to bundle in the low-cost or free media players, browsers, etc that were already available and successful on the other (presumably non-monopoly, non-MS-like) platforms. They couldn't afford to develop (and nobody would want) incompatible, MS-only 'equivalents'. This would be a healthy situation, and would encourage cross-platform standards that would in turn reinforce a healthy competitive marketplace.
What Microsoft does, however, is spend huge sums of money just to provide comparable, but incompatible, functionality to what already exists. It then bundles that functionality into a monopoly desktop platform with the deliberate intention to kill off the cross-platform competition, maintain the monopoly, and where possible, extend it to other arenas.
That's the problem. It has nothing to do with their being 'too successful' and everything to do with their abusing their success.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
But ATM runs on XP...
"Mr. Gates is on the line. He says he has proof positive that Europe has the world's biggest untapped reserve of oil, and one anecdotal comment form a madman in a mental institution that they are developing WMD."
"Either yer fur Billy or you're agin him. Well sir, our mission is clear. We must liberalate the people of the great country of Europistan!"
If this lawsuit holds, and I'm afraid that it might, it will be completely unfounded. Here's why:
Yes, Microsoft has a extremely large share in the OS market. This is because over the years Windows has become the most used OS and therefor continues to thrive. There is nothing forcing users from switching to something else like Linux when they buy a system from an OEM.
Sure, Microsoft bundles Windows with Media Player and Internet Explorer. What's wrong with this? I actually would be irritated if they didn't. Think about it. How many users out there even have the ability to go out and find replacements for WMP and IE? Not a majority, I'd suggest. Why should my grandparents not be able to just "plug and play" as it were, having easy access to a media player, one they've already paid for? Also, why should I pay $200 for an OS and then have to go pay even more money to get the software periphials that should come packaged with it anyway?
Along these same lines, how many people should have to pay for a media player? Real Player sucks freaking rocks. My opinion of Quicktime on Windows is about the same, except when it comes to Quicktime movies. I use Winamp 2.91 (because I'm scared of change ;) ) for my audio needs and it works amazingly (and free, ooh!). For video I typically use WMP 6.4.
Oooh, Internet browsers. Now I know I'm taking a risk here, but guess what I use on my XP Pro box? Internet Explorer. Why? Because I think it's faster and supports more websites as they were meant to be seen. I say this from a developer's point of view. Writing sites with a Mozilla browser in mind is not something I enjoy. The way it renders certain things is simply a pain in the ass (DIV and TABLE padding, for example). As far as bundling it with Windows, here's another place where you have people who don't have a clue arguing about it. IE is so engrained into Windows (good thing, btw) that why try and get rid of it? It's an integral part of the system.
I can even understand reasons why MS wouldn't want OEMs using some third-party software. Operating systems are the most stable software on the planet, until you start installing other software. That said, keep in mind that what others have said is also true. Many OEM PCs come out with Real, Quicktime, WordPerfect, and other third-party products.
Finally, as to the specifics of the lawsuit. This is where I just say we should take an overall look at the validity of the EU as a whole. Tell me they aren't looking for a quick buck like a bunch of sick beggars heckling a wealthy businessman (like the US, as an innocent example). They charge a record amount fine against Microsoft until it removes WMP and gives source code to rivals on the server market?!?!? Well good golly, why doesn't Intel just give all it's chip research to AMD? Why doesn't Boeing give it's wing design to Airbus (oops, hope no beggars see this, you'll see a new lawsuit in a week: "EU Sues Boeing, Wing Design Creates Unfair Market Share").
For crying out loud, why should MS need to share it's source? If the "rivals" can't keep up, maybe they should try something they're good at.
So the EU doesn't like Windows Media Player. Cry me a river, then go out and get a free copy of Winamp, Real Player (yuck), Quicktime, or whatever their little European hearts desire. They want MS to hand over source code to "rivals". Those wouldn't be European rivals would they? Huh, makes you think.
In the end of this rant, the EU just needs to stop living off the US and start taking care of itself. If not, maybe the US will need to act likewise and sue some big, rich, envied company based in the EU... oh, never mind.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I think it'll have more implications for things like SAMBA and Apple's Active Directory plugin. There might be an issue with SAMBA though, if there are 'strings attached' to the published documents, as there are in the USA. It could be suicide to include code influenced by MS' forced-published documentation if they had any chance whatsoever to rescind the rights to it.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
How is this offtopic? It's been a while since I saw a post that was more on topic. I've come to expect some level of "I disagree but can't string together a reply so Mod -1 Whatever" from slashdot but come on!
Reason can be video is the key for videoclubs, hollywood, and broadcast,.. is the Key for whatever general broad, and not restricted to computers. If Microsoft take over the Video format itself, as has been already done with .DOC, Microsoft will control Hollywood and whatever that generate or use VIDEO info. PANIC IS AUTORICED.
-Woof woof woof!
Government shouldn't regulate capitalism beyond enforcing contracts and ensuring consumer safety and truth in advertising.
We should remember that the likely outcome of this case - even if all of Microsoft's appeals are unsuccessful - will be a separate MediaPlayer-free version of Windows in European Union countries, and in the EU alone. Those of us in all other markets will suffer the same as before. Further, you can bet that over time MS will attempt to make European-only Windows versions of server code that make interoperability with WindowsEU accessible, but outside of the EU it's business as usual. They would likely do this by diverging EU-compliant and non-EU versions of server offerings.
One can only hope that other governments have the foresight to investigate like the European Commission and US DoJ has, and soon. Certainly if MS violated antitrust laws in these two jurisdictions, you'd think the same practices would also be illegal in others such as Canada, New Zealand, India, Japan, etc, etc... why has nothing been done so far elsewhere?
The major issue is how Quickly can the EU come to this conclusion.
MS dragged out it's case with the US for it's IE inclusion just long enough that their browser became the end-all-be-all for the average end-user. The result: MS gained control over not just market share of browsers... but of price. No company makes a browser as their profitable product anymore. MS is almost there for Media player.
You may say that the internet's wide-spread adoption has made browsers a free neccesity, which may be true. However, people still pay for TV's... and phones... and MS Office.
If they control the market for media apps, they control the formats, and the companies that get money for making the MP3/MPEG/AAC/QT/etc. codecs will no longer be profitable. People will either use WMA, included "free" with Windows... or go down trying to use anything else. Unless the EU settles this NOW. They should care... arent some of those formats from EU companies?
Just drop acid, already, and invent something better... or quit your whining.
Full text, registration required
Testimony during the second week of trial in the consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota has revealed some embarrassing internal documents from Microsoft which were not disclosed in the bitter 1997 federal antitrust lawsuit that focused on the company's attempt to control the browser markets in the 1990's.
Among the documents introduced in court this week was a letter from June 1990 in which Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, told Andrew S. Grove, the chief executive of Intel at the time, that any support given to the Go Corporation, a Silicon Valley software company, would be considered an aggressive move against Microsoft.
Other evidence presented by the plaintiffs' lawyers at trial yesterday gave an account of how Microsoft violated a signed secrecy agreement with Go and showed that Microsoft possessed technical documents from Go that it should not have had access to.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said that many of these newly disclosed documents were not relevant to the trial, which focuses on Microsoft pricing actions.
"These are very old documents, taken out of context for the sole purpose of obscuring the real issue of this case," said Stacy Drake, the Microsoft spokeswoman.
...
Yet he said he was surprised by what was revealed about Microsoft's activities in the documents. "I was shocked," Mr. Kaplan said in a telephone interview. "This was a corporate mugging that went uncorrected and unknown."
are these universal remotes? nuclear weapons? wtf?
I don't know if I'm proud to be European for the first time... or simply glad I'm NOT American.
go towards Open Source. Imagaine how far the money would go on OSS projects. Then BillG would feel the pain of ~$600 million in more ways than one!
The voices from Redmond, Washington, were calm, measured and professional at all times. But there is no doubt about it - Microsoft is on the warpath.
Angered by Mario Monti's decision to act against the company, Microsoft executives argue that the Commission has harmed consumers, broken international law, confiscated its property and worsened relations with the US.
"We think that any notion of harmony in transatlantic competition relations has been shattered by the nature of the Commission's remedies announced today," Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel, told the Financial Times.
Washington's battle with Microsoft "was all based on encouraging market forces to give more value to consumers".
"The Commission decision announced today . . . was designed to offer consumers less value by requiring us to make a new version of software that does less than the software we offer today," Mr Smith said.
He argued that Mr Monti's calls to make Microsoft share interface information with its rivals and to provide a version of Windows without Media Player amount to the "broadest compulsory licensing of intellectual property rights since the EU was founded 50 years ago".
The argument is not that after sharing information with rivals "you cannot . . . then pull it back if you then win on appeal".
It is also, he said, that the Windows brand would be damaged by "the version of Windows that the Commission is ordering us to create".
Mr Smith said there were 20 features in Windows and on popular web pages that would not work if Media Player was stripped out of the operating system - a claim Microsoft's rivals bitterly contest.
The alleged damage caused by the Commission decision is the key reason why Microsoft will call for EU courts to suspend all the measures imposed by the Commission - except insofar as they duplicate measures that are already in place in the US.
Mr Smith also argues that the Commission decision violates World Trade Organisation rules on intellectual property - although he is coy about whether the company will push for the US government to take up the case at WTO headquarters in Geneva.
You fail to realise that a large portion of the OS integrated helper apps rely on the IE rendering engine to display. The file explorer/manager uses IE for display, Add/Remove Programs uses it. There's dozens of apps that all use it. It's basic code re-use. Something the *nix distributions should look into getting better. Then they'd have less dependency problems.
-]Phreak Out[-
"Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel, said the final Commission decision violated Microsoft's intellectual property, breaking World Trade Organisation rules on the topic, and would make Windows worse for consumers.
"We still worry a great deal about the transatlantic discord that the commission has [created] today," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Wednesday attacked the ruling as "preposterous."
"I now fear that the US and the EU are heading toward a new trade war, and that the commission's ruling against Microsoft is the first shot," Mr Frist said."
"Gentlemen do not discuss facts" - they find out about them. The articles that you quote are hardly cut-and-dried... You may also want to look up levels of personal debt in the two regions, and quality-of-life statistics such as paid holiday (2 weeks in the US, 6 weeks in Germany). Another point (which pertains to the story!) - in Europe government bodies are less in hock to special interest groups....
In any case, you may get some insight as to why you did not feel welcome in Europe in one of your former visits if you just ask.
Heres to finding out for yourself!
EU Citizens get tax break....
...The U.S. is preparing to fine Volkswagen $231 million USD for shipping their cars with a stereo. All vehicles sold by them must be delivered without any radio, but with an extensive, powerful speaker and power amp system by 2006. Said system must have sophisticated control protocols and electrical interfaces and specifications for them must be available to car stereo manufacturers in 2005.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
In a follow up story Bill Gates apoligized and announced that the fine would be paid entirely in Euro-pennies.
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
Fined $613 million, and yet their stock price is up -- what gives? Were stock traders expecting an even bigger fine?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
fair enough, but could it be that our precious little minds have been warped for so many years that we're not only willing but desperate to invest money in an OS that includes something to play music, but can't keep *anything* secure for even 3 months? i truly think you've bought into the hype: hype that says an OPERATING SYSTEM needs to play media, browse the internet, and play solitare instead of manage files, protect files, and protect it's user. forgive me, but a GPS is as useful in a car as media player is in an OS. they're nice-to-haves, but you're missing how the cross opportunity is playing out, and you're becoming a victim.
Guess I should have used better wording. I have always felt quite welcome in Europe. I have great conversations there, tasty food, etc. Some may find it surprising, but I found France to be quite enjoyable. Even other Europeans tell me the French are hostile. Not at all in my experience.
quality-of-life statistics such as paid holiday (2 weeks in the US, 6 weeks in Germany)
Better have a look at the unemployment rates in Europe as compared with the US as well. Much less economic mobilty in Euroland, too.
- in Europe government bodies are less in hock to special interest groups
Then you will find this interesting:
(From the timeline in the link:)
"EU begins investigating complaints from Sun Microsystems that Microsoft withheld software code rivals needed for their server software to interface as well as Microsoft's own."
Pathetic. This action has Sun's fingerprints all over it. Plenty of additional references to Sun in other articles as well.
Interesting choice of words:
"The Commission characterized Windows, which runs on more than 95 percent of all personal computers, as a "near monopoly."
Near monopoly? What kind of jurisprudence is that? Good enough to pick up $600M+ USD. Guess it could be considered the ulimate hotel tax. Glad I can stay with relatives!
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
who "doesn't get it." As I stated in another post, the governments should be prosecuting MS for locking other OS's out of pre-installed PC's. Things like adding a browser, media player, etc are some things I like about MS's OS's. Apparently most of these guys are to young to remember the days when MS's OS's did not even include something as basic as a network client. I do not want to return to those times.
"Microsoft can choose to sell their product at whatever price they want to whomever they want."
Like, they could charge Irish people more than Italian people in the same state? No, there are limits to the rules of how a company can charge people for a given product.
In this case, the MS rule has a name, and it is "extortion".
But you very conviniently left out BASF, that makes much more in the USA than it does in Europe despite beinng a German company or is that suddenly no longer important ?
You are trying to change the topic...this is not a discussion about the security issues with Microsoft Windows. I would agree that the OS should be secure but that is a different conversation.
Would I expect my operating system, my experienced computer friend's OS, or my grandmother's OS to play media and be able to browse the internet. Absolutely yes.
If you want to ask them to unbundle solitare so competing soliatare companies can get their new innovations of this classic game exposed, then I will not try to argue about Solitaire being an important part of the OS.
I imagine that what he meant to say was "We didn't really do anything to them, so neither should you, 'cause it will mean that people will realize that we are incompetant boobs who are in the hip pocket of big business." -- excerpt below from excite.com "Justice Dept Worried by Microsoft Ruling Wednesday March 24, 5:46 PM EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department's antitrust chief said on Wednesday that the huge fine European regulators imposed on Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) was "unfortunate" and other sanctions against the company could have "unintended consequences." "Sound antitrust policy must avoid chilling innovation and competition even by 'dominant' companies," Assistant Attorney General Hewitt Pate said in a statement. (C)2004 Reuters Limited. "
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
Microsoft has a tremendous cash stock pile. In fact, if they simply ignored the court order to pay the money and just pull out of Europe for a year, what harm would it do them. They can let go of their thousands of european employees. I figure at an average of $40,000 U.S. a year, that would be an additional $40,000,000 saved per year/per thousand + corp taxes = 50%, so $60,000,000 per thousand. And likely to have about 5,000 employees scattered around Europe. So about $300,000,000 on employees. They have office space all over. I would imagine they have as many at 50 european offices, at about $100,000 per year/per office for space and utilities, let's figure there's another $5,000,000. Then there is the additional cost of corporate taxes and so forth. Really, it could cut their costs by $1 billion U.S. per year or more.
Of course, they probably make quite a bit in Europe since they can charge at least an additional 25% out here over U.S. prices. But, really, between the court suit, the additional legal costs, the items mentioned above, the additonal costs of being in comtempt of court since they won't remove Windows Media player (last financial I saw showed that MS still pays a $1 million per day fine over the IE settlement instead of removing IE). It would more than likely impact less than 10% of the total income of Microsoft.
Of course, Europe would then have to buy non-localized, imported U.S. copies of Windows, since you can't replace it overnight. Piracy would still be complicated by the activation mechanism. They could even cut off european IP's from accessing the activation services. Broadcast sites with Windows Media wouldn't be accessible so easily anymore. Of course, users would have to buy U.S. versions of Microsoft Office as well instead of localized and forsake their dictionaries and grammer checkers. Because if they want to do business with the U.S., it's Word and Excel.
Microsoft would also have to cut off distribution of MSDN to Europe. Which means that companies depending on developing software for Windows on a world market would be screwed as well.
The fact is that European inventories of Windows would run out in not too long. Companies would have to start shipping pirated versions of Windows with no european support infastructure, so all support calls would have to be long distance to the U.S. and starting at 2pm GMT or later, so morning support would be gone.
Mac of course is a viable option, but it would cost billions and billions to transition to Mac in companies, and the software base would still be weak, and the office related issues would still be unresolved. Linux is not an option since outside of very basic office related tasks, it still has not evolved as a desktop OS to the point where it can be deployed in organizations where support staff is not readily available or properly trained.
It would takes years on either platform for software to catch up. American and Asian companies would take ages to transition to a word processor format friendly to Europeans if they did at all.
So the way I see it is, Microsoft should say no, pull out and wait till Europe begs them to come back. Jack their prices like mad as well. I'll be buying shares when their stock takes the hit over the pull out heheh.
Keep in mind, if Microsoft pulls out of Europe, people and companies will still buy Microsoft products. They'll just cost more. So win-win for MS
...and now Microssssnake will make promises of distribution centers and R&D departments and other MS owned centers in all of the main EU partner countries. They will also promise thousands of jobs and millions of dollars to construct the facilities. And the EU will do just what Ohio did when MS promised and built a new facility just outside of Cincinatti...they will accept anything that MS is willing to give.
Telling MS not to include WMP in Windows is really stupid. Why the hell should people who want nothing more than to watch the occasional video off the internet have to go out, find a video player, install it and download it? Why couldn't their player be included? Its like if IE wasn't allowed to ship with Windows, it would be pretty damn hard to browse the web, even if its to go over to mozilla.org and get the latest stable build of your favorite browser. What if QT wasn't allowed to come with OS X or Xine/mplayer wasn't allowed to ship with boxed versions of Linux?
Lets put it another way. Lets say the US government cracks down on Ford's monopolistic practice of putting stereos in cars. By including a basic stereo with my car, they block compeition with Alpine, Sony et cetera. Sure, I can rip it out and buy an Alpine, but damn, its already there, so I can wait for a bit.
Its the exact same situation. I would be pissed if a basic media player didn't come with my OS, just like I would be pissed if a factory stereo didn't come in my car. In both cases, I've ripped out what comes from the factory, but it was nice to drive around with my crappy radio for a few weeks before I upgraded. Its not like not having that very basic radio would have saved my any money. Replacing MWP is one of the things I sometimes do on my PC, other times, I augment its features with another (though, RP can eat shit and die for all I care). By including it in Windows, I was given choice between keeping the basic or moving on.
The below letter was received by me at 18:35 eastern. (Yes I am a unix sysadmin, but keeping an eye on the market is prudent).
March 24, 2004
To Our Partners:
The European Commission today announced a decision against Microsoft in its
five-year investigation of the company. I am writing to provide you with more
information on the process that has led to this point and how we see it going
forward.
First, it is important to emphasize that, as Commissioner Monti has noted,
throughout this long investigation Microsoft has worked constructively with the
Commission and has sought to address all of the concerns relating to the case. As
this case moves forward, Microsoft will respect and fully comply with European law,
we will continue our investment in developing great technologies, and we will
continue to deliver our innovation to our partners and customers.
We were indeed able to reach agreement on all of the issues in the current case. In
doing so, Microsoft made far-reaching and very substantial concessions on both the
interoperability and media playback technology sides of the case. We volunteered a
set of obligations that would have been unprecedented in the technology industry or
elsewhere. Our settlement offer, which applied worldwide on both sides of the case,
would have resulted in over 1 billion competitor media players being distributed in
the next 3 years.
However, the Commission also required Microsoft to agree to a single formula that
would define how all questions concerning future innovation and technology
integration beyond the scope of the current case should be dealt with. As a company
that has been at the leading edge of the last 20 years of technology innovation and
development, we do not believe that it is possible or desirable to design a single
rule that would apply to all innovation and technology integration questions that
may arise in the future.
Innovating to the benefit of partners and customers has been the driving vision of
Microsoft--and the basis of its partner philosophy--since it started in 1975. Our
understanding of the needs of European partners and customers goes back to the time
when the company set up its first European operations 22 years ago in 1982. Many of
the innovations over that time have focused on language support, usability and
adding features that improve the user experience with their PC from the moment they
take it out of the box. And we seek to do this at a fair price by taking all our new
technologies to a mass market.
In many ways these additional technologies are core to user experience and to the
usefulness of the product for partners and customers. According to our research,
fully 80 percent of our European customers believe that Windows Media Player should
be included with Windows.
Computers have changed the way we live and work in the past two decades and
Microsoft is proud to have been part of that revolution. It is unfortunate that the
European Commission chose to take this route, but we also recognize and thank the
Commission for the professional and co-operative fashion in which they have
approached this case.
As we move forward through this process, we will remain focused on collaborating
with our partners and supporting product innovation to benefit Microsoft customers.
We will support European governments on the pressing issues that face us all:
computer security, spam, education and IT skills training. And we will help
increasing Europe's competitiveness in the technology field, creating an information
society and making sure that the online environment in which that society will
thrive is safe for everyone.
We will keep you informed of developments as the process moves forward.
Yours sincerely,
Allison Watson
Vice President, Worldwide Partner Sales and Marketing Group
See our press release for more information.
http://go.mic
It means that the EU is even more f***ed up than the US government is. Here's to more lawsuits, more trade wars, crummier and more expensive software, fewer exports of American produced software.
If the US were ever to break up Microsoft, it would cause more problems then it would solve. First off, if Microsoft were to be broken up, it would make the US economy go to craps (more then what it currently is now). Second, it would have an effect on MSFT investors, some of whom have poured their life savings into. Third, if Microsoft were ever to broken up (which I hope will never happen), over 30,000 people in the United States and at least 20,000 overseas jobs would be effected (and could quite possibly be lost). I think that if Microsoft were to be broken up, it would not be as nice as that of AT&T and Standard Oil.
The corporate form is a legal entity that has been created by government. Companies don't exist "in the wild" - they exist because the government decided that it was a good idea to create a legal entity that made it easier for people to come together and create productive enterprises.
Companies are in no position to complain about government regulation as they exist solely at the mercy of the government.
What is actually needed is a EU-wide statute to forbid MS making contracts with hardware manufactures which result in their OS being installed on every computer made. I.E. One should be able to buy the hardware without the O/S and get it at a lower price.
Okay, so Microsoft is finally getting punished! Woohoo!
But wait... they own 600 million to Europe. Where will they get that money from? Well, I'm not buying a MS product, so probably from charging the United States government $3500 per Windows 2010 license, monthly. So basically your U.S. tax dollars will be sent to Europe. Woohoo!
It's like that whole cigarette fine. You need to pay millions of dollars because you sold dangerous cigarettes, and the best way to raise millions of dollars is to sell more cigarettes.
Hmmm
matthewR
Considering the fact that the EU now has some 500 million people, and a whole bunch of other countries are coming in. Many of these countries are below western european standars when it comes to computers, which means there is a large market coming up in the next few years. Poland, the baltic states and so on are all going to spend more money on computers as their economies grow, and I very much doubt MS would want to miss out..
The problem is not if they will comply to the rules, but if the rules will come through. I do think there are hopes for this though, as the EU has fined companies before for not following legislation. Some, like Hoffman La Roche, even got the new principles unofficially named after them afterwards, when the european court of justice had had its way with them. I sincerely hope for a stronger EU.
im sure my comment will not go over well here, but should microsoft be punished because they were successful? should they be forced to pay over $600M just because people chose M$ over other alternatives? at any time an M$ user could reformat and put on linux, buy some sort of unix, solaris, or any other OSes that one wants to _choose_.
Can you imagine Samba or Novell paying Microsoft IP? This part locks out OSS developers for good.
So, for Bill Gates, 613 BILLION bucks is about, what, 50 cents? Sure, that'll really piss him off.
This is really one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
.RM or .MOV files, so if I wanted to watch awful quality streaming video I'd still need to install Real Player. (QuickTime isn't bad, so I use it.)
First of all, a half billion dollar fine for including a digital media player that people don't even have to use is kind of extreme on its face seeing as no one was coerced or defrauded.
Aside from that, Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in the OS market or the digital media player market (if the latter 'market' even exists). No matter how many of MS's competitors try to get gov'ts to bitch slap MS. There are still dozens of competitors, both commercial and open source, in both.
[I vaguely seem to recall a penguin mascot used by a competitor in the OS market that can't be competed with because as we all know from the RIAA/MPAA "you can't compete with free."]
Including Windows Media Player with Windows doesn't prevent me from using WinAmp or QuickTime or XMMS or RealOne or anything else. Microsoft hasn't made WMP9 able to play
I've also never seen a GUI-based desktop OS that didn't have a digital media player included with it. Let's face it, one of the major uses for PCs is surfing the Internet and using multimedia content.
I am also quite interested to learn who would buy an OS upgrade when there is nothing new in it, and it has fewer features than the previous version? Maybe the 'Competition Commisioner' could answer that for me?
Yeah, I mean how could ignorance of the law possibly be an excuse?
It isn't like people are supposed to be aware of enough laws that a dead tree version of all those laws could be used to press to death a person in punishment for their violating the law.
Good thing capital punishment was outlawed!
In the Consent Decree which the DoJ made with M$, Redmond wanted to continue to insist that all of a manufacturer's boxes had to have Windoze on them.
The DoJ said NO, but they still folded like a tent, making the concession that each box that shipped would have to come with *some* OS.
(It didn't need to be installed, however.)
You'll find boxes available which are shipped with FreeDOS on a CD--not on the HDD.
gewg_
Capitalism == Good, therefore anything Good == Capitalism. Brilliant.
A pile of crap by any other name still stinks.
MSFT share holder and Linux user. I am an atheist, pro-life Republican voter.
BTW, the word "monopoly" means that there is only ONE supplier, just like the word "unique" means that there is only ONE of a kind. No such thing as "very unique" in English as distinct from American.
To say that I "fail to realize" is a blind assumption.
I'm well aware of what you said; however, are you saying that the only way for Microsoft to provide a file manager, help system and add/remove programs option with its OS is to integrate IE with the OS?
Perhaps you fail to realize, or ignore the fact, that this integration is one of the main things Microsoft uses as an excuse in order to maintain it's anti-competitive behavior, as in: "*whine!* We can't remove IE from the operating system, or Windows Media Player! You'll destroy Windows and make life less enjoyable for end-users!".
The question is, should Microsoft be allowed to integrate it's apps into the operating system so that the operating system becomes dependent on them? Should Microsoft be allowed this anti-competitive advantage (that it is so desperate to maintain)?
You have dependency problems with Windows too, it's just that they're anti-competitive.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Better have a look at the unemployment rates in Europe as compared with the US as well.
Uemployment figures from governments everywhere are generally "cooked" in some way or other. One thing which would explain part of any difference between the US and EU countries would be the level of state support to the unemployed.
Can someone explain this paradox, I'm loosing sleep.