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Microsoft Settles Minnesota Antitrust Suit
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Star Tribune: 'The Microsoft antitrust suit in Minnesota was settled out-of-court Monday seven weeks after it began, but before the plaintiffs even finished putting on their case before the jury. Terms of the settlement won't be disclosed until they are finalized and presented to a Hennepin County judge for preliminary approval 'in early summer,' Microsoft said in a statement. The antitrust suit in Hennepin Country District Court sought as much as half a billion dollars from Microsoft for alleged overcharges of more than 1 million Minnesota consumers and businesses who bought Microsoft Windows, Word or Excel software between 1994 and 2001.'"
What is Minnesota running out of money just like the EU? So they try to hit up the cash cow, I think we will see more and more of these suits comming out, and all that it is going to do is make it so generic that they will get thrown out on the spot.
Just throw money at every piece of litigation they are in? Are they trying to artificially boost their public perception by being in as little lawsuits as possible?
....move along....nothing to see here....
Microsoft are like that car company (Ford???) who decided it was cheaper to compensate burn sufferers and the bereaved than fix the gaping flaw that made their fuel tanks tend to catch fire.
Microsoft can pay fines out of their petty cash, while perpetrating similar tricks over and over.
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"Free" copies of WindowsXP? "Free" copies of MS-Word? a $4 coupon off your next purchase of $600 software? MS is just extending their monopoly, probably dangling a carrot in front of the schools, after all, who can fault them if its 'for the kids' ?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If so, I can see why M$ would settle.
A win against them in court by the state would make it a lot easier for a class-action suit to also win, setting even further precedent in other states.
Microsoft is going full throttle to settle all outstanding lawsuits. It wouldn't do to have a bunch of outstanding legal battles while you're throwing mud at Linux and questioning the legal security of the businesses that are using it.
Regardless of how the SCO thing works out, you can be sure that MSFT will be using this FUD when trying to close deals with big business customers.
For the same reason states got cigeratte money instead of the public for smoking and putting up with second hand smoke. Then they turned around and used that money for everything but the intended purpose. Which I really think what MN is hoping to do here.
Also a fellow Minnesotan (and proud to be one), I can see why they chose to settle the suit. It may not have helped the little guy, but given Microsoft more or less got off from the Federal Government, chances of this suit succeeding are very slim. Also - MS has been paying out CASH for quite a few of it's settlements - from the article "Microsoft previously paid $1.55 billion to settle similar suits in nine other states and the District of Columbia."
Hopefully this will result in that type of settlement and not the "free educational software" [which is ironic as the suit is because Microsoft was a monopoly - letting them put their software in schools only increases the monopoly].
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
Microsoft attorneys said the company had done nothing wrong...
Then why settle even before the plaintiffs even finished putting on their case before the jury?
Could it be the case was compelling?
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Yep, i agree. Will someone please address this issue? i know we live in a time when a law suit is both a legit way to "right a wrong" and a way to intimidate, hush, or exact financial ruin upon someone.
How long will MS keep paying what looks to be hush money to make problems go away before someone notices that they are not chaging?
That is, of course, only one issue...i'm worried about what nberardi is worried about: at what point will legit suits against MS get tossed out because it looks/smells like another "let's hit MS's deep pockets" suit?
Actually, most settlement agreements have a disclaimer of liability (not guilt, this wasn't a criminal trial). If this had gone to the jury and an actual verdict been issued, then the court may have had the ability to set up a situation where further improper conduct on MSFT's part would have resulted in contemp citations.
Yet another reason why MSFT benefits from settling.
--AC
Supposedly this was Gates rejoinder to Steve Jobs when the latter said, "We're better than you." Gates knows in this case that throwing a bit of cash to Minnesota to settle the suit doesn't really matter, either. It's the same Machiavellian insight as to what it takes to win his grand strategic goals at the cost of a few tactical losses. "Oh, I over charged you for the years between 1994 and 2001? So sorry. Here's a 30% refund in 2004. Thanks for the 70% I get to keep! (And the time I needed to eliminate my competition, hehe...)".
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
The microsoft to Ma Bell analogy holds little water.
Bell was a large company, broken into several smaller companies, each allowing to provide service to a given area. No restrictions were made on what type of product each baby bell was allowed to produce, or the prices each baby bell could set (other than the pricing regulations already in effect)
The other large anti-trust case, (Standard Oil) was the same. Location of service were split into multiple companies, not type of service.
Microsoft is a producer of goods, not a distributor of goods. The things that they do distribute (Software downloads, services) aren't really location based. As Slashdot is well aware, the internet has no boundries.
There are 0/None/Nada precidents for splitting up a company based on product, or telling a company what products they can create.
While MS did (and may continue to, depending on who you ask) act uncompetitavley, this power would not be removed by any logical splitup.
If you split them into OS vs Office for example, the major source of anti-compete accusations in the past was bundling of features within the OS, or forced contracts on OEMs. Neither of these would be fixed by this (proposed) split.
As stated, geographical splits don't really make sense for a virtual company. You could split up distribution, but MS doesnt really do their own distribution except for downloads. Everything is already passed out to OEMs or chains like Best Buy.
The only thing you could do would be to make the internal departments act like Black Boxes to eachother. The office team doesn't get any inside info on the OS that isnt available to other developers.
Even with that, MS is still a defacto monopoly. Very few buisiness apps or games run on non-MS hardware (Discounting mainframe and huge unix apps like SAP that MS isn't even competing with)
In office they have a defacto standard, because everyone wants their files to be readable by as many people as possible. The new XML file formats will significantly lower the barrier for entry into that market tho.
And finally, The fact that Mac and Linux are claiming such good marketing position, is in fact evidince AGAINST MS being given a radical splitup. If you really want MS to get split up, make Apple and Redhat say that they are closing because MS drove them into the ground.
As long as they are around, all MS will get is "corrective" action.
Where can you get a FULL, non-upgrade, non-OEM copy of XP for less than $100?