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Microsoft's Long-Playing Business Record
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.'"
"I can tell you with 100 per cent certainty that when managers are deciding what features to put inside products, they are not considering antitrust issues unless it is in a very narrow area covered by the DOJ settlement," said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, a research firm that closely covers the company.
... Nobody ever said the browser did not meet the rule-of-reason test. It absolutely met the rule-of-reason test to go in." You just HAVE to love that. Ballmer getting to decide what's ok and what's not.
Unfortunately, because of how these types of things have been handled (including laws), they have been either way too specific or way too broad. On one hand we have the DCMA that has sweeping implications for tons of different situations. It has done little but allow for more lawsuits from bigger fish against the minnows. I believe its intention was to protect but it ended up making everything so vunerable. On the other hand, we have MS' settlement. They are basically allowed to do what they want based on what they think is best. What the fuck kind of punishment is that? As long as they stay within the narrow constraints placed on them they are good to go. Asked whether the "rule of reason" test would have prevented Microsoft from bundling the browser, the issue at the heart of the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit, Mr. Ballmer was adamant: "I would still integrate a browser. We would still integrate the Media Player.
While I have reservations about both the browser and the media player being "integrated" (for obvious tin-foil-hat reasons), I am more concerned w/the simple fact that THEY get to decide for themselves what is all right. After all the fucking money that was wasted coming to this fucking "punishment" why don't we have a team of REAL FUCKERS telling MS what to do? Hmm, looks like it is the other way around eh?
And to think, I always believed that the laws were to protect those that could not easily protect themselves.
It just allows the rich companies to continue to abuse the system and break rules that other smaller companies have to follow. Once you're in power, it's much easier to stay in power.
microsoft : $60 billion cash
its rivals : less than 1/10th the cash and less lawyers and energy plus hit badly in the tech slump.
duh. did anyone expect anything different?
People don't change the 's' in Microsoft to '$' for any old reason, now do they?
They are giving away Internet browsers and media players, dumbass. Free downloads of Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player for Windows, Mac, and at one point UNIX, are available on their website.
That everything in here is pure speculation? There are no confirming quotes from Microsoft (contrary to the title and description of the article). There are guesses by people outside the company. I'm not saying this isn't true. EVERYONE is saying it. But this is hardly new or useful.
Is there anything that Microsoft has been sued for "illegally integrating" that a Linux distribution or Mac would be caught dead without? Monopoly or no monopoly, a modern OS requires an internet browser and a video player.
Anti-trust law is not supposed to be government or corporate welfare project.
When a company can simply write off 'punishments' as costs of doing business, they cease to be punishments. Increase the fines, or make them percentages instead of amounts, if you want to change anything. (Percentages would be better because it would affect small companies the same as big companies.)
Microsoft, like all other companies, has one duty: To make as big of a profit as possible. It's up to society, and therefore the government, to provide them with economic incentive to be nice and play fair.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Great summary line from the article: "Government is really not equipped to regulate in such a fast-moving industry as technology," Rosoff added. "That's why the most aggressive antitrust commentators originally pressed for the breakup of the company."
So whose fault is it that Government is "inequipped" to regulate high-tech? If I was inequipped to teach my son about how to walk, and he tried to do it himself, should I cut him off at the knees?
And is it moral to destroy a company simply because you can't move faster than the marketplace for its products? And if the marketplace moves so quickly to make monopolies, might it not move equally quickly to destroy them?
The best thing that could ever happen to the PC industry would be breaking MS into pieces. Separate the OS from the application division. That would be wonderful.
I just ran Windows Update and now my CD Burning software no longer runs reliably. I have no idea why, but I'm pretty sure that if I was running Microsoft-brand CD burning software, I wouldn't have this problem.
It's sickening to have to constantly update non-Microsoft applications because changes to the OS wreak havoc with all non-Microsoft applications. I have to assume the software companies aren't whining that much either, as they get residual income by selling updates and upgrades because of Microsoft's ever-changing environment, but for the rest of us, it's the pits.
The unfortunate truth is that for Microsoft to do business differently the attitudes of people in a lot of different positions has to change.
Just to name a few:
Investors have to realize that pumping money into a company that turns around and puts the money in the bank is ultimately the same as putting their money into their own bank.
Businesses have to realize that the one-supplier solution for IT is as bad as a one-supplier solution for anything else.
The government has to realize that they don't want a company competing with them for control over the masses.
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.
This tells me that new steps need to be taken. If fines aren't a deterrent for them, then something else should be imposed.
In more news today
Grass can be yellow
sky is black at night
Sapphire breaks the myth on the last one
Jonathanjk.com
When the profits of maintaining a trust are more then the fines and fees of antitrust legislation, it is profitable to maintain that trust.
Microsoft has had the beat us if you can, stop us if you can attitude for some time. You can't blame them for wanting to take over the world...doesn't everyone. The failure here is to successfully demonstrate that in taking over the world they have used dirty tricks to snuff out the competition. Until any settlement hurts them either in the wallet (unlikely) or in their ability to operate as a company (split them up), they will continue with business as usual. Either the laws are outdated/weak, or the cases are flawed - or both
The other problem is that the average non-slashdot computer user probably thinks Microsoft first when they buy software - why? everyone uses it - so it must be the best, and half the time Microsoft is giving it away, whereby the competitor is trying to build/stay in business. Bundling applications/features that drive other companies out of business (regardless of the quality of the programs) hurts everyone but Microsoft. Although I wonder if things were flipped and if Apple had the 90% share would companies/governments/people be suing them for including iPhoto/iTunes/iMovie, etc?
Don't you mean "tells it like /. readers want to hear"?
Of course they think this way.. they pretty much can do what ever they want and pay for the fines out of petty cash.
once you get this large, its just factored into the marketing budget.. and they move along, business as usual, unfairly crushing competition, and securing market share for the future to more then make up for the difference.
The ONLY way to stop them is to ban them from selling their products. Repeated fining and hand slapping is useless.
Sitting around stating the obvious over and over gets us nowhere..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
U know this whole Microsoft problem is a bit of a hard topic. Microsoft business practices are clearly evil. They can do nearly anything they want and it and get away with it as few have enough power or money to even phase em.
On the other had it is important to remember we can have "a law for everything" laws simply reduce freedom and will make a never ending sea of red tape for the next guy that may want to enter that market. Even "protection" laws designed to level the playing field or save lives historically have often only had short term benefits coupled to long term economic and "safety" losses.
Of course the more laws you add has its own costs as well, sorting through all that legalese requires and ever larger load of parasitic lawyers to clear the path along the way to prosparity. Even with such sound legal advice today one (a business) must expect to incur numerous silly lawsuits what ever course they take. As even the lawyers cant figure out what is really legal form time to time ("...rigidly defined arias of dbout and uncertainty").
The choice litigate the evil empire (M$) and break it up like bell at the expense of freedom. Or on the other hand, let em slide and continue to muscle out good competeiton and suffer a loss of an unknown goods and services in the form of products we will never see.
*it's a no brainer choice, A,) damed if you do, B.) damed if you dont.....
American hating pussies
Well, I'm going to define a true patriot as one who loves their country, _and_ will willing make an effort to make it a better place.
If you are a patriot, and you have a brain, then under my definition a patriot would want anti-trust reform. You would want to see M$ wings clipped, so that they play fair, in a fair market economy. That way americans will benefit.
Another patriot is Michael Moore. If you don't realize that, then you don't get patriotism.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Till date, I have not met anyone who was forced to buy a MS product. So, what exactly is the government protecting me from?
You are free to install products from other companies in your machine, on top of Linux or some other OS. You are also free to educate and evangelize other people about it, if you feel MS is so bad. Those who are too lazy to do so, simply want the law to interfere and enforce on their behalf!
It is not enough if some nerd decides that a product is superior to the commercially successful one. It is upto the paying customer to decide. Please leave that freedom alone.
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1) Settling with governments is not always going to be possible. With over 200 countries in the world, eventually one will stand by it's principles (or more likely get too greedy) and force a change of policy. For example, the current EU judgement is not just a fine, it's a fine + a demand for compliance. The fine will keep growing if the compliance doesn't happen.
2) Settling with Microsoft is fast becoming a viable business model. All you need is to sell software in a market they are unfairly dominating (roll your own mozilla distro for about $0 for example) and a lawer who will take you on no-win-no-fee basis (becoming easier as case law mounts up against Microsoft).
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Slashdot is nominally the home of libertarian rational actor free information blah blah blah.
How quickly those qualities are put aside when microsoft comes into play!
I can't believe how many threads here continue to bash microsoft and wonder why they haven't changed their ways as if by not changing their ways they are doing something wrong.
The people writing such things are idiots. Microsoft is a for-profit corporation, not a child that can be shamed into submission through dirty looks. It's job is to win minorly inconvenient settlesments while maintaining to the maximum extent possible a dominant market position over the long term.
If you have issues with microsoft's behavioral changes (or lack thereof), then your beef is SQUARELY with regulators and governments who have not done what is in your mind an adequate job of reigning them in. Microsoft is BLAMELESS here. It's doing what it's supposed to and what any company would do. Companies cannot have two masters--they can not credibly both work to make themselves successful and to limit themselves. This MUST be done externally.
Once they bundle virus scanners with the OS, you can count mcaffee and symantec in there.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Way to keep your morals and ethics alive. The ol' "well they do it so I can" argument seems pretty flawed to me. If one person gets away with murder, does that mean we all are able to murder? If one person sues for spilling hot coffee on herself, are we all allowed to do it? If someone embezzles and gets away with it, are we all allowed to do it?
See where I'm going with this? Maybe not b/c you're too busy "sailing the seven seas as a pirate" and basking in your self-righteous justification.
And is it moral to destroy a company simply because you can't move faster than the marketplace for its products? And if the marketplace moves so quickly to make monopolies, might it not move equally quickly to destroy them?
After they've been warned several times, and convicted of monopolising markets, yes, I believe it is quite moral. It's the only way to regulate a company that defies the law as blatantly as Microsoft does. Consumers have been harmed by Microsoft's strong-arming of OEMs, monopolistic pricing schemes, and squelching of innovation by competitors. Combined with their complete lack of attempts to rectify their behavior, and even arrogant comments about how they don't plan to change their tactics at all, I think we have more than enough reason to cut them off at the knees.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Let's be serious for a moment. A breakup doesn't mean burning down the redmond campus, executing the manages and raping their wives and daughters. All it means is that the whole company is divided up into smaller companies, not destroyed . Why should the government do this? To protect the marketplace, which MS is abusing through its monopoly status. Legal institutions such as corporations, partnerships and trusts were invented to serve the people, not the other way around. If they're hurting us, bust 'em up.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Disclaimer: IANAL, but my father is. As has been said, it's Microsoft's goal, as a corporation, to attain as much profit as they are able to. But it's also the duty of the government to protect their citizens - including protecting them from a market where there is no choice. I've read that the Reagan administration pretty well gutted a good number of antitrust laws, and those are the sort of things that try to keep corporations in check. I, for one, am not anywhere near as pro-business as the Republican Party of the US is (and I'm a Canadian), and I am very much in favour of stringent regulations to prevent abuses of the system. While Microsoft has indeed come out ahead in the preceding legal cases, that doesn't mean that we can't change that for the future. The introduction of new laws or revision of existing ones would certainly be a way to do it. For cases where they've won, Microsoft has precedent on their side, and that can be a powerful legal advantage. By replacing the existing laws, that advantage can be negated, and the present failings in the regulatory system addressed. And, as I think of it, governments may want to think of it like disciplining a child. A fine may deter a company, but if it doesn't, you don't keep fining them in the hopes that the repetition will make it more effective. If your current measures aren't working, you switch to new ones. I'm reminded of an analogy somebody once made about World War One: Commanding Officer: "Let's rush the other guy's trenches!" *A little later* "Sir, the rush failed. Most of the men are dead or wounded." The commanding officer: "Let's do it again! I'm sure it'll work *this* time!"
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" The only way to fix this situation"
As Jefferson said, the tree of liberty must occasionally be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Go read your history some time; you'll find that the colonies' beef was not with King George, except insofar as he was the figurehead of the government. The democratically elected Parliament was passing the laws that the colonists opposed. Their opposition was largely based on economic issues, but there were some intrusions by the government into private life, as well (see the amendment regarding the quartering of soldiers.)
Funny, that. A democratically elected body, but one that the revolutionaries felt did not represent them. A series of laws designed to increase the wealth of the already wealthy. Intrusions by the government into private life. Does this sound like ANY government you've heard of recently?
The difference between then and now, of course, is that there is no ocean separating the government and the governed, so I predict no revolution in the USA.
I know soemone will reply with talk about how the last election was stolen, etc., but let's get past that and focus on the election that is to come. Negativity and pessamism on this are working in favor of the status quo!
Peace.
This has been pretty obvious for several years now - breaking the law is not an exceptional circumstance, it is part of regular business, and the fines and lawyers fees etc. are just a regular business expense.
When you have large quantities of money and can afford infinite legal resources, unlike your competitors, manipulation of the law becomes a regular business process that could even be documented.
The only way that this can be changed is for fines for offences to be relative to the revenue of the company concerned and deliberately hurtful.
It is unlikely that this will occur though as such companies are too valuable to the US economy.
In other words we can't do anything about this - we are held to ransom by such behaviour.
When you get to the end of your road you have Facism. When companies reach the point that they effectively have total control over a market the rules change. From your remarks, I would assume that you would consider it a fair game of sport to pit a team of 6 year olds against an adult profesional sports team as long as they followed the same set of rules.
Yes - MS has the right to produce software
No - MS has the right to bundle software together
- Not in an attempt to use their monopoly to leverage another market
Yes - MS has the right to build better software than other companies.- They have the right, they just don't exercise their right. They use their monopoly position to put out poor quality software. The US auto industry as a whole had a monopoly on car sales in the US until the 1970's. They kept putting out poor quality products and complained about loosing sales to foreign manufatures. MS can continue to put out poor quality software
Yes - MS has the right to market its software- As long as marketing is not another term for lying which has been a hallmark of MS. But then again, people who express the kind of ideas you do don't believe that fraud in business is an actionable offence.
Yes - MS has the right to not release its source codeYes - MS has the right to make a profit
- As long as it is made legally. Why did MS not have to pay hefty fines to the SEC last year while other companies did for the same offence?
Yes - MS has the right to not make public its internal protocols, file formats, internal api calls- It then should not market its products as general use.
Yes - MS has the right to change its software from version to version- That is fine. It will make people like it less
No - MS has the right to not make sure that each and every change to its software does not break some non-MS software- Not in an attempt to use their monopoly to leverage another market. When they market some of their software as a general purpose operating systems that other software companies can create applications on they don't have the right
But then again your are just a MICROSOFT TROLL.So, what's new here? They say _Microsoft_ sees the legal fees as the cost of doing busines? LOL! Did you just wake up after a 100 year long nap? EVERYONE sees these fees as just the cost of doing busines. Tactical and stretegical lawsuits have become the integral part of any business activity in the US (and the world) long time ago, regardless of whom they originate from. Microsoft is not different form anyone else here.
.. and I'll wager that you'll see a bit more than protest going on. I think the government forgot the 60s when we got rid of the draft (almost) and what was going on back then, and what happened when the returning nam vets started joining the protests in huge numbers.. And then the only support they barely got back then was from still totally buffaloed ww2 and korea war vets who saw service as automatically "patriotic". they weren't bad or wrong,they just didn't have the benefit of hindsight like we have now, they didn't know the gulf of tonkin was a pure lie.
/carlisle group / whatever daisy chained name it is now some money or to make the middle east more comfortable for a few million belligerent people who exist on US foreign aid welfare.
Now? Nope, we've seen the lies behind the big so called wars, and too many people can get real information without having it massaged through a few corporations media outlets. In fact most of the vets I know are hugely anti government, because they KNOW that they got screwed over and lied to. And I feel bad about the guys in now, they got zero info about DU rounds, little info about the effects from gulf war 1, and all of them got lied to same as us over WMD and whatnot. We are all victims, and the government wants to draft MORE VICTIMS. It won't pass before the election, but you can almost bet it will pass as soon as the election is over, because these guys are in it to grab the whole mideast and all the oil. These are these potential draftees parents in a lot of cases,and I don't see them encouraging little johnny or janey to go "join up". The government right now is in crisis mode because so many reservists and guardsmen are quitting as fast as they can. And the reason is because..they signed up to defend the US, not to fight wars to make halliburton/brown and root
Jail sentences are much more effective, because they have the same impact on the rich as the poor.
But that assumes the government actually _wants_ to enforce the law, that is, where Microsoft is concerned.
Unfortunately, that assumption is false. The government only wants to give the _appearance_ of enforcing the law -- that's why they went after Microsoft for the fuzzy and hard-to-prove antitrust violations, but they ignored cases where there were clear, proven violations, such as when Microsoft tried to sabotage Java.
With the antitrust laws, the degree of violation is subject to interpretation, and the punishment can be negotiated. This ensures that Microsoft is never really punished, while "coincidentally" resulting in increased campaign contributions, not to mention power, for various politicians.
But when Microsoft tried to sabotage Java ("kill Java by growing the polluted Java market"), it was a criminal act, and Microsoft was clearly guilty. That might have resulted in jail sentences for various Microsoft executives, and it would have gained the government nothing, in fact, campaign contributions would have gone down. Hence it never happened -- it was left up to Sun to pay for a civil suit.
It would appear that we no longer live in a society governed by rule of law. Instead, we have gone backwards to a feudal society, where power and privilege determines the law.
Microsoft relies on the government to enforce it's intellectual "property" privileges, though. It's more like you providing a wheelchair (copyright law) for your son and then your son repeatedly running over your feet - should you take the wheelchair away for a while? Point out that if he doesn't stop running over your feet, you will?
Coprights and patents are government-enforced monopolies. A simple, effective solution to the Microsoft monopoly problem would be to simply STOP GRANTING THEM MONOPOLIES IN THE FIRST PLACE, DAMMIT!
In the case of any sufficiently large monopoly, the rules *have* to change. Bundling is ok in an industry in which there is competition, but whenever Microsoft bundles something into the OS, they usually kill an already established industry (Netscape, Real, etc.). This is not good for the economy, and ultimately it also sucks for the customers, since sistematic elimination of competition leads to stagnation of technology (how many years have we had to put up with no updates to the piece of crap browser that is IE 6?).
So yes, it seems very simple and very nice and on first impression they should let them conduct business as usual, but when you stop to think about it, they're killing companies, stealing technology and then sitting on their ass doing nothing until they have to do it all over again (which is why they fear Open Source, because it's not susceptible to this kind of attack).
Overcaffeinated. Angry geeks.
Is there some flaw in my reasoning that the "punishment" should have been to force MS to open (i.e. publish the specs royalty free, for anyone to use) their data file formats (e.g. Office documents) and networking protocols (e.g. controlling Domains) to allow competition to compete?
Lock in is the issue. When I can't install Jim's OS and then attach my computer to the company's Domain Controller, when I can't run Fred's Email program and access the Exchange servers, when I can't run Bob's Word processor and access Office documents, when I can't setup a server running BlueHat OS and have Windows boxes attach to its domain then we have no competition.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Tell you what. Give me twice as much money as Bill Gates, and I'll donate twice as much to charity as Bill Gates. In fact, give me twice what Bill Gates donated to charity plus one percent, and I'll gladly donate twice as much to charity as Bill Gates does. And I'll become an extremely wealthy person in the process.
Here's the thing: Bill Gates isn't a generous philanthropist, just an extremely wealthy one. He's like anyone else who donates fifty bucks a year to the homeless shelter down on Main Street. By that, I don't mean that he gives the same amount, or the same proportion. Instead, I mean that he donates money to these causes after he's already provided for all his own needs and wants.
Remember the parable of the Widow's Mite? The rich man gave from his bounty, while the poor woman gave despite her own need. The person who chooses to feed the hungry rather than feed herself has performed a far more generous act than someone who chooses to feed the hungry rather than... buy Oracle?
In short, the only difference between Bill Gates and everyone else who gives money to charity is that Bill Gates has a whole lot more of it.
Which brings us to the question of how he got that money in the first place. Yay capitalism, right? As your high UID indicates, you're pretty new here. So let me start by disabusing you of the notion that America is a capitalistic country. We have all sorts of impediments to true lassiez-faire capitalism, and that's not always a bad thing. Libertarians may bitch and moan about how much money is being spent on government programs like OSHA, the EPA, the SEC, etc, and they can certainly point to examples of excess and stupidity by any government program. But each of those three agencies arose precisely because true capitalism wasn't providing solutions to important abuses.
We're not a capitalistic country in that we have social programs like welfare. As a country, we've decided that just because pure capitalism would let certain people starve in the streets, that doesn't mean we should let it happen.
Finally, we're non-capitalistic in the sense that we have anticompetitive cartels and monopolies, that cannot be addressed on a consumer level, and have not been addressed by the government. The RIAA, Microsoft, and your local gas company are all monopolies of one sort or another.
The point is, there is a broad spectrum of possibilities between capitalism, anarchy, and communism. America has chosen its spot, while many European countries are camped out closer to the socialism flag.
In closing, here is a quick list of reasons you should have a problem with Microsoft (readers feel free to add):
* 60 billion in the bank, enough to buy up the airline industry.
* A string of anticompetitive acts dating back to the early eighties, leading to two separate taxpayer-funded lawsuits.
* It has been widely rumored that Microsoft is funding SCO's war on Linux.
* Features first, bugfixes later, security wheneverwegetaroundtoit. That has been their strategy for decades, and I have no confidence that this new "security initiative" will have any success.
* Microsoft Outlook.
* Clippy.
* Microsoft is a monopoly. So declares the judicial system. Monopolies stifle innovation and competition.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Simple, you freeze them in the spot. No money or supplies go in, no money or products go out. The company is effectively frozen in time, unable to do business.
Now, most of you are probably looking at this going, "But if that happened to MS, the world would screech to a halt!" But isn't that the point others were trying to make? That having a single supplier situation is a Bad Thing. If this happened to a more diverse market, such as auto suppliers for a car rental company, the company could switch to another supplier (I'm making the assumption that if the law were like this, corps would have a sufficient backup plan to put into place).
When the company "returned" to business, they could try and pick up their contracts again, or realize that because of their behavior, their market has dwindled. I think this would work better than a static fine (as evidenced in this case) as well as a percentage fine, since charging a small company $1000 for an infraction can also be seen as a slap on the wrist. (Now, I know that a small company and monopoly tend to be mutually exclusive, but I mean other infractions that corporate entities can commit as well.)
Focusing on Microsoft is popular and something I'm guilty of myself, but we should really be focusing on the badly broken legal system that enables them. It's a legal system designed by lawyers to keep lots of laywers working. And the problems it causes range from being a big piece in why offshore outsourcing is taking off to being unable to handle Microsoft to Tyco's Kozlowski getting a mistrial after a six month trial.
Even if the rest is the law.
:-) - and a few want OS X. Hey I personally think they are all neat in their own ways... and interesting from an academic perspective in others. Believe it or not I dropped out of a PH. D. program in Virology so Windows is somewhat compelling to me. haw
Hey, capitalism - a blessing and curse all in one... just ask Indian consulting firms and the laid off American workers they replaced.
Look - MS has won. You are all right - their software sucks (but is Good Enough apparently), their business practices are flat out BS... but like it or not, people want Windows.
Not Linux. Not FreeBSD - which is dead
I really don't know why yins are so up in arms about MS's strong arm tactics. After all, DeBeers and OPEC make them look absolutely saintly - where is the geekesque indignity over them? Hey I guess we all think globally and act locally right?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
this is worst idea that you could come up with because it not only crossing the line between civil and criminal sanctions. but you also having the government randomly give a competitive advantage to a company, in the form of the fine you are randomly giving away. The solution is not to attack microsoft with technically/legally weak arguments like a browser case. The fact every time a competitor uses the government to attack microsoft because they lost the market to them, they create a situation where microsoft can increase their power by fighting until they establish the desired legal precident and the settle to get the issue cleared out of the way. The fact is Microsoft only intergrated the browser into the OS after SUN made the arguement that having two browsing engines (one for local files and remote files) was stupid (with ther NC). This Establishs that the DOJ should have told Netscape to go to hell. If they had done this the appeals court precedent which defined the "rule of reason" would not exist and the substantially more legitimate case for bundling media players. Had the DOJ targetted microsoft for this bundling instead without setting up bad legal precedents first a valuable line could have been drawn between applications which truely belong into the OS (tcp/ip stack, dun, internet browser) and applications which run above the application layer of the OSI and therefore truly represent illegal bundling.
Threatening to sue people for using your competitor's product seems like a crime to me: extortion, fraud, barratry, take your pick.
Msft isn't doing that directly, but msft is doing exactly that, via scox.