Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft's Long-Playing Business Record

Posted by timothy on from the damned-if-do-damned-if-don't dept.

khendron writes "The Globe and Mail has an article which tells it like it is. Microsoft is looking at it constant court costs and anti-trust fines as simply 'the cost of doing business,' and has no intention of changing. A telling quote 'Losing or settling case after case, Microsoft has tested the bounds of antitrust and patent infringement law, with little evidence that its power has waned or that its behaviour has been substantially changed. Rivals and many legal experts say antitrust law itself has come out the worse for the skirmishes, while Microsoft appears to have built the ongoing scrutiny, fines and remedies into a strategy showing scant sign of reform.'"

5 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Repeat? by rduke15 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Didn't Crimly just cover this?

    You mean Robert X. Cringely in "Now the Only Way Microsoft Can Die is by Suicide". Yes, and it was discussed on /. too.

  2. Not alone by michael_cain · · Score: 5, Informative
    Microsoft is looking at it constant court costs and anti-trust fines as simply 'the cost of doing business,'

    MS is not alone in this behavior. Large local telephone companies are regulated by the states in which they operate, and many of those states require certain levels of company responsiveness when customers call -- eg, that 95% of calls be answered by a person in less than 30 seconds. Staffing to the necessary level has historically been quite expensive, and the level of fine that the states can impose for non-compliance relatively small. When you have to decide between spending $20M on additional staffing, or pay a $10M fine, the answer is fairly obvious.

    I suppose extensive outsourcing to India or the Philipines will change the equation...

  3. Re:wow, I thought the law was supposed to protect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The car was a Porsche 959. Gates worked within the confines of the law, even offering sacrificial 959s for crash tests. If you read the article, he became a partner in a business to federalize the cars. The only sign of shady behaviour may be trying to import the car that wasn't approved for the U.S. streets.

    To help put this into context, motorcyclists do this all the time, licensing rare imports (a.k.a. "grey-market bikes") and two-strokes or dirt bikes for the street.

  4. Re:wow, I thought the law was supposed to protect by timeOday · · Score: 4, Informative
    Didn't look very hard, did you.

    I highly recommend the article, it's an interesting read and is quite apropros.

  5. Re:No draft needed, and stop the BS about DU too. by HuguesT · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't see what politics have to do with what you say.

    Of course for your argument you are going to use a reference provided by the military, which will show no toxicity whatsoever. Perhaps the military has a vested interest in showing those results, same as they've denied for years the gulf war syndrome in veterans.

    In fact there is research in the toxicity in DU and there exist guidelines for exposure.

    DU is at least as toxic as lead (that much is obvious), with the added problem that unlike lead, Uranium oxidizes very easily upon impact and becomes a fine dust which is breathable. So DU is not very toxic in unexploded ammo, because it is not in dust form. However after use it turns into dust which is quite toxic. Also it can pass into drinking water and become toxic there. As a heavy metal it can concentrate in the body (it is not excreted) and the chemical and radioactive components do have a cumulative effect.

    So it somewhat safe to handle but not good for you to visit a battlefield where DU has been used and much less to drink the water there.

    Other references: here, here, or here .