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.'"

Comments

Re:wow, I thought the law was supposed to protect

[msim]

As others have said elsewhere, around 60 Billion in cash = deep pockets to bring out some seriously nitpicking lawyers.

They have the resources to just drawwwwwwwwwwwwww any legal experience out beyond viability for anyone other than a decent sized business (personally that's why i think that class suite from the US states pretty much folded in their favour anyway).

"You want to sue us? fine, stand there while we smack you about the head with a 2x4 a while first please"

Re:Which is why fines are not the right solution

[Chiasmus_]

If you don't think fines are the solution, then what do you suggest? Gaol sentances? Might work, but who do you put in gaol?

Here's a novel solution.

Fine Microsoft, sure, but instead of making that fine payable to some country's department of justice, make it payable to a competing company.

Microsoft may not miss $100 million too terribly... but it might not be thrilled about having to fork $100 million over to, say, Red Hat. In other words, replace criminal sanctions with something more closely resembling civil liability.

Rather than distribute the fine among all Microsoft's competitors, which would render it worthless, I'd suggest picking one of its top twenty competitors out of a hat and giving them the whole chunk.

I wonder if that would solve the speeding problem, too... instead of fining you, they could just look up your religious or political affiliation, and force you to fork over $100 to the organization they suspect you would have the most distaste for ;)

Yes, I see some obvious problems with this plan, but forcing Microsoft to pay Apple or Linux companies is still a fun idea to kick around.