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Microsoft Blames Anti-trust Legal Fees for Price Increases
jm.one writes "BBC news has an article about the Californian anti-trust case and points out that Microsoft tells users would suffer from this: 'Somebody ends up paying for this,' said Microsoft attorney Robert Rosenfeld. 'These large fee awards get passed on to consumers.'
Do they really understand why there are laws?"
I remember when MS got slapped with that fine. People said, "Eh.. it's no big deal to them to begin with, but with what they lost, they'll gain back with a simple price adjustment."
So basically they still haven't learned their lesson. Cost of doing business.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
This is a good thing.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Nice to let your customers bleed for your criminal conduct... More reason to leave them and use a real OS.
Im getting SO tired of us paying for their mistakes? There outta be a law to prevent companies making people pay for them getting pasted with fines due to their own law breaking policies ...
These large fee awards get passed on to consumers.
Like MS couldn't settle for something a little more reasonable than their 80%+ profit margins on Windows and Office. This is such bull. It's designed to get the government and public to be more accepting of their outrageous pricing.
It may sound "unfair," that Microsoft is somehow getting out of paying for its actions, but all expenses paid by all businesses for all reasons are always passed on to customers.
the company should pay the price of the fines, it should not be turned back to the customers. maybe a price increase is just what's needed to get those thinking about other options to just go out and implement them sooner. sounds like a pretty pathetic plan to me.
this is just the cost of doing questionable business, and it's not like they can even begin to say 'we didn't know we couldn't do that'. it's just fucking rediculous what these asshats are trying to get away with.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
$3k/hr sounds stiff. But what did he actually provide?
Would a less expensive lawyer been as successfull?
I think certain cases can demonstrate what a difference between a good, great and the best lawyers can have.
Maybe if we had a bit better performance the DMCA wouldn't exist. Maybe OJ would be in jail, who knows.
But when it is my ass or $$ on the line, I'd want the best, and the citizens of California deserve it too.
The problem with wide acceptance of OSX is that you need to purchase the hardware to make it go. Not very many people are going to shell out money for new hardware and software when they already have good hardware to begin with. Apple is not going to release the software only version of its OS to anybody, simply because they would have a tech support nightmare.
Upgrading to Linux is really the only feasible option here, but you still have learning curves, and the general popultion doesn't really want to learn that much just to surf the web.
Allright, now I realize you all like to bash MS as much as possible, but from the article: Mr Crew has billed Microsoft just over $3,000 an hour for his own work, as well as more than $2,000 an hour for other lawyers on his team.
Jesus! I'd object to having to pay that as well.
Wouldn't it be nice if all that money went towards, you know, the users that were "harmed" instead of to the lawyers?
RTFA people. Microsoft isn't complaining about the fines (or settlements) here. They're complaining about the plaintiff's legal fees (which they're being required to pay).
And, quite frankly, I think they have a point. The lawyer who lead the class action lawsuit may be a really good lawyer, but I don't think his time is worth over $3000 per hour.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Users get $10 coupon on newest version of windows.
Newest version of windows price increases due to litigation by $40.
Two years later, court says "no no no", consumrs get $15 coupon towards new windows.
They don't get it. The fine is because they over charged people.. They're not allowed to "make it up". They are supposed to distribute that 50bln their hoarding back to the people the stole it from.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
OK, Microsoft says its legal bill is too high, so it has to overcharge its customers. But why did it get that legal bill in the first place? From the article:
"The legal costs are part of Microsoft's settlement for over-charging consumers buying its software in California."
Sigh...
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
One of the unique aspects of a monopoly is the inelasticity of demand on the price of their products. In other words, MS can change the price of their products and, since they have a monopoly, roughly the same quantity of their products will be consumed. Of course, this is not black and white. They cannot make their products 100 times more and expect the same amount to be consumed (though, I know of some MS shops that would have no choice . . .). However, they can raise their prices much more than probably any other company without having a significant amount of revenue decrease.
This means that additional costs to Windows can pretty much be passed 100% down to the consumer, and the EU's monetary penalty is really just another form of tax on the consumer. Perhaps we could call it an "excise" tax on windows.
No, the real way to punish MS is to break up the monopoly and introduce competition, then charge a monetary penalty that cannot simply be passed on to the consumer, because if the new MS enitity/entities were to raise their price so many people would buy the competitions' products that MS would actually experience a decrease in revenue.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
The sad thing is, people will still continue to buy products and support MS. I don't quite understand that line of thinking.
MS clearly doesn't give a rat's ass about the law or even the very people who make them who they are. Microsoft is forcing their customers to pay for their mistakes. There's something VERY fucked up about that.
Sure, MS is the big corporate bastard here, but if the very people who give them this money don't realize what the hell is going on, then they're a part of the problem too.
Why would you support a company that forces you to pay for its mistakes?
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
In a true competetive market, this could not happen. In fact, penalties actually work and tend to weed out the crooks.
But when monopoly power exists, the monopolist can indeed pass on the costs of fines. That's why fines are seldom effective. What gets the attention of would-be abusers of monopoly power is the credible threat to destroy that monopoly power, as the trial judge tried to do in the BIG case. The remedies actually agreed upon by the DoJ and MSoft have been shown ineffective.
I hope soon consumers realise that MS is gouging them so much that they should give them the finger. It's just goddamn stupid, that's what it is, and the price increases are nothing to do with "antitrust action". Even if they were being sued for antitrust all the time, they'd still make sufficient profit from their (IMHO insanely inflated) current prices.
It's to do with them realising that consumers think that higher value == higher price and vice versa, and so they can get as much as they want out of them for Longhorn etc.
At this rate, the OS will be more expensive than the PC it runs on. Oh wait, it is!
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
The thing is, why shouldn't they? MS aren't here for the common good - they're a business with the aim of making money. They have every right to adjust their prices to reflect these additional costs.
..should be able to see through that argument. They took monopoly profits before, they take monopoly profits now. Sunk costs like legal bills have absolutely no effect on the optimal price/quantity point. It only comes into play if there's competition.
This is simply trying to shift the blame of why they're extracting monopoly profits: "Damn M$, stop bleeding us dry" to "Damn justice department, stop suing them so we don't pay the bill". When in reality, they would have taken that money anyway, because they can.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They have every right to adjust their prices to reflect these additional costs.
Actually, no, they do not. This is yet another example of them abusing their monopoly position within the marketplace. That's what all of the legal action has been about.
The fact that Microsoft can nonchalantly pass on these costs to the consumer with litte concern for its loss of market share shows how much of a monopoly they truly are, and how much they know it to be so. When an pattern of existence dominates an environment so completely, "evolution" ceases to be an issue - short of cataclysmic or revolutionary change.
Galmarley - Free research on economic hi
This whole idea reminds me of something I see all of the time -- people supporting a government program, but not realzing that someone has to pay for it. For example, here in Florida, voters a few years ago backed a bullet-train overwhelmingly, not realizing that the money for such a train had to come from somewhere. We enjoy no income tax here, so it comes in the form of higher sales or property taxes, which affect us all.
On the same vain, everyone cheers when Microsoft gets whacked with a big judgement or settlement. But, the money has to come from somewhere -- and it will likely come in the form of higher prices. And since 90% of desktops run Windows, it will likely affect you in some manner down the road.
With that said, the attorney's fees in this case (and many others) are outrageous. The judge for set them more modestly.
Jason
I would consider this to be "abusing their monopoly power." Shouldn't the law consider it the same, thus allowing the DoJ to bring another anti-trust suit?
Oh wait... Bush would just quash this one like he did the last.
In a sense this is still good because it contributes to the erosion of their customer base.
So, this guy just "wins" a case against someone for price gouging... then turns around and price gouges, but that's ok, becuse it's MS he's doing it to... Toss this one in the blindly biased bucket.
Lemme get this straight.
They're charged with overcharging on their software.
The legal costs for this charge are added to the cost of the software that they are already being charged with overcharging on. And you see that as OK?
The response to being formally charged with overcharging on your software is *raising* prices?
... they would push to make sure the majority of the "benefit" would go back to end users. But that wouldn't serve their purpose. After reading the article and a million different posts... they're just angry about having to pay their opponents' lawyer's fees. Hey, I would be too.
Not that I care for MS or their tactics, but isn't it a bit sad? If there are 13 million Californians who are going to recieve the benefit, a $10 coupon would not cut it. That gives you $130 million to the end users and $260 to the prosecuting lawyers. Looks like they'd have to double it... the saddest thing is that the big winners in all this are the lawyers and not the people.
FLR
I HAD to buy an XP pro laptop. Otherwise I could not take my law school exams on the computer. I dont know about having to write six 4 hour exams by hand if you dont have to.
It made me almost vomit to have to buy one intead of a Mac. I drew the line at not buying a dell. That would have just been too much. But how I do in law school is more important than which computer I prefer.
If I had been able to use the Electronic Bluebook software in any other platform I would have, even if that meant hauling a desktop running solaris over to the exam rooms.
So if I who am an absolute windows hater could be forced into buying a windos computer do you think the average person loses any sleep about getting a Wintel pc?
It seems like a lot of people here think that passing along the expense to the user is unfair. These are the same people that are proponents of Linux. Do the math ... Windows costing more means that there will likely be fewer users of Windows because they can't afford it in their or their company's budget. Anyone that pushes Linux over Windows should be HAPPY that the cost is being passed onto the users.
Add to that the average pro sports career is just a couple of years - don't blame them for making hay while the grass is green.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
I'm surprised that no one figured this out before...all companies do this (pass costs on to their customers).. It's just like these people who constantly want Corporations to "pay more taxes"......Companies DO NOT PAY TAXES !!! They only collect the taxes from YOU (the consumer ) and then pay Uncle Sugar to re-distribute as the Politicians see fit. Great system, isn't it. Time to go to the Flat Tax System (as the RUSSIANS have !!) -no income tax, only consumables are taxed - everyone pays the same flat rate. I doubt it's possible in the US though... the IRS and Tax Attorneys are too powerful...it would put them out of business.
Linux has made great strides in usability...but its got a way to go. Why did I just need to recompile my madwifi drivers with my kernel update? Why does Fedora's kudzu insist all ethernet interfaces start with "eth" (madwifi uses "ath")?
*I* know the "whys" for all this because I've been using Linux for years...trying to explain this process to someone less familiar, and they'll think I'm nuts for going through this process when my Windows XP setup "just works".
Linux is fine to use, until something goes wrong.. wireless is unfortunately a good example of this. I know two people who were trying to install wireless drivers on their laptops. Both drivers needed kernel headers. One required some very strange methods in order to make it work, and I had to MODIFY THE BLOODY SOURCE CODE to get the other to compile. Unfortunately, most end-users do not know, or care about GNU Make and GCC.
if any law infractions revolved around named human beings, and not this non person person they call a corporation. If we re adjusted the laws back to named humans are responsible for their actions, and if the fines came out of personal bank accounts of whomever issued the orders that resulted in the crimes committed, you'd see a lot more honesty with companies. And the government could mandate a price freeze as well on their products to go in conjunction with any fines, or they could actually institute a "three strikes and you are out" provision like they have with human beings, and in the case of corporations, just completely revoke their charters after a third conviction. But they don't do that too often, companies are allowed crime after crime after crime after crime, yet they still stay "in business".
You make Bill Gates pay a big chunk out of his pocket, then make him do 500 hours community service picking up trash next to the road,after a few months in lockup, like any regular guy would get for stealing those sorts of sums, you'd see changes in his company's predatory practices, and pronto. You give him a perpetual get out of jail free card, he'll keep using it. It's that simple.
There's a variety of techniques that could be used to make corporations more honest, but bottom line is, nearly all the legislators, judges, and people in the executive branch make the bulk of their money from being stock holders and/or being in ownership or management positions in corporations, they profit handsomely from this corporate insulation, so they will NOT write, vote for, or sign into law anything that could hurt them personally. They keep up the laws that benefit corporations, and they keep up that level of legal armor and shielding that corporations have, that private individuals don't have.
If YOU defraud someone, it comes out of your pocket and you can't "pass it on" as a cost of doing business. If you do it a few times, you will personally go to jail, some times even one time depending on the crime. Pass a bae check over 100$, it's a felony, you could serve time. a corporation defrauds thousands of people out of billions, or puts a competitor out of business using questionalb tacts, those corporate officers hardly ever see any jail time. It happens, but it's extremely rare. Corporations can just keep getting away with it, time after time, and when they are so huge as to be dominant market players, it never results in any significant changes to the corporation, other than they learn to obfuscate the bookeeping better, and THEN they figure out what new laws that would benefit them better, that might keep them from getting caught, etc, that need to be passed, and then they go to work on that with campaign contributions and lobbying, using money they half stole in the first place. It's a corrupt vicious cycle, organized gang activity basically, and gates and company are just one example of many.
The system is so broken and so corrupt there is little hope that it will get fixed any time soon. I doubt it will frankly. And there is so little difference between "government" and really really large international corporations that we should probably just end the illusion that there is.
That out of all of Microsoft's business costs, the only ones "somebody has to pay for" are the legal costs with the government.
For example, wouldn't it make more sense to point at the approximately three hundred million dollars per quarter that Microsoft has been pissing away on the XBox venture since it began with no apparent plan to move to profitability in sight, and say that perhaps that is the cause of the cost increases? Or what about the MSN division, which last I checked has run very slightly profitable for only one quarter (sometime last year) once with only losses for the entire rest of its entire history? Or-- say-- Windows Media Player? Microsoft's giving it away but there's clearly development costs. Doesn't someone have to pay for that?
It seems absolutely bizarre that Microsoft seems to be trying to make the implication that ventures such as the original IE, or Windows Media Player, really are "free", and just attempts to "stay competitive", and the fact they have all this money from their OS and Office divisions doesn't give them any unfair advantage. Yet then once it becomes advantageous from a PR perspective to do so, they begin trumpeting about how all their costs get passed on to consumers. Well, gee! If the costs of doing business are getting passed on to consumers, then aren't the development costs for IE and WMP being passed on to consumers as well? And if IE and WMP are being paid for via costs passed on to the people who buy Windows, then why does Microsoft claim that these are anything other than forced bundling? Why the "it's free" charade that seems to be the basis of their claim that IE and WMP aren't illegally anticompetitive actions?
I'd say the costs passed on to consumers from Microsoft paying slap-on-the-wrist fees for monopolistic practices are dwarfed by the costs passed on to consumers from Microsoft actually engaging in monopolistic practices in the first place.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It's a common misunderstanding that costs are always passed on to consumers. Most companies actually sell at whatever price they can get (the price that the market can bear). They then make a profit by having costs that are lower than that, the lower the costs the better the profit. In a competitive market, there is normally a fairly clear price which things can be sold at set by the price the competition is charging.
Where does money for this come from? Simply, existing shareholders in a company which is making less profit get less money.
If a company is a monopoly with a captive market, the calculation is completely different. The question is "what price can we get away with charging without someone stopping us". The idea, in this case, is to try to increase the "percieved value" of the product (so people are willing to pay the price) and to increase the "percieved cost" of the product so that people feel that the cost is justified.
All of this is the reason why the statement from Microsoft is tantamount to and admission of being a monopoly, and further, given that this is a discussion about illegal overcharging, it seems like a clear admission that Microsoft intends to break the law again.
The fact is the MS is in a position that most other corporations would love to be in - not simply just being a monopoly but actually dictating to it's customers whatever it likes, rather than in most other industries when the customer has the power of choice and some influence over product pricing.
Whether this is good for Linux or not is irrelevant - the fact is that the user base MS has is no longer a customer but a dependant in the same way a drug addict needs a dealer - in other words, customers taking some control and forcing MS's hand.
What this needs is a few big MS customers to simply refuse to pay those license fees and to stop upgrades (and no, I'm not talking about just moving to Linux) - then there is some likelihood of vesting power back into the customers' hands such that MS products are bought based on their quality and pricing, rather than just because they are depended on.
It is very dangerous to allow a corporation to have this much influence & power over its customers - if the customers just "lay down and die" now, then this kind of event will happen more frequently as MS gets more confident in its bullying tactics. This will get *much* worse unless people start acting now.
Incidentally, before anyone accuses me of Linux zealotism, my attitude always has been that Linux's continued success should be based on the postivie aspects of delivering what people want rather than MS negativity forcing people to migrate to it.
In this case, migration to Linux is an option but hitting MS in its corporate wallet is what is needed to counter this action - users should just continue using the MS software they have and not upgrade. Corporate users should look at the licenses they have a maybe start cutting back on Office licenses, possibly handing out Open Office to users who don't need the full capabilities of MS Office.
These are actions that can be taken that will not necessarily affect the user environment greatly but that will send a message to MS that the bullying must now stop.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
If all you needed to do was take the exams with Windows, why not use Virtual PC?
A new Powerbook runs VPC quite well.
I'm sure somebody else has probably pointed out by now that you could have run Windows XP on your powerbook with Virtual PC... "Electronic Bluebook" doesn't sound like it's too terribly complicated.
Or is there actually a rule that says "no Macs" at the door of the exam room?
Who did what now?
If someone persistently breaks traffic laws, they lose their priveledge to pilot an automobile. If you break anti-competitive laws, you get barred from that marketplace.
It has been said that it's hitting people in the wallet that really hurts. I don't think so. Hitting them in their ability to fatten their wallets is what truly hurts, and hurts in a way feared in advance and not easily forgotten. Stop Microsoft from developing or releasing anything related to IE or Windows or Office products for two years. Now that would get their attention and cause them to pause before acting with reckless abandon and total disregard for the law.
Those who think that 'what is good for Microsoft is good for America' say that because they fear that hurting Microsoft hurts themselves. But that is simply not true. Sure, there are a lot of jobs at Microsoft, but those jobs exist to answer market demand for the products offered. Bridling a ferocious company like Microsoft does not in any way destroy market demand. In fact the innovation permitted by the destruction of such a dictatorial central planning authority is often the best thing that can happen to an ecosystem. Especially when you consider that Microsoft does not innovate in markets, they distort.
Think of it this way. If you suffered from blindness and could be cured, would you worry about your cure putting your overcharging Braille publisher out of business?
Not to be pendantic, but pretty much ALL companies pass the costs of their mistakes on to their customers, else they go out of business. Stores increase prices to cover the costs of shoplifting, doctors increase prices to cover the costs of malpractice insurance, etc.
While I'm not a fan of MS either, but folks seem to be taking the criminal's point of view when they create bogus claims, or collect undeserved welfare payouts. They have so much money, they'll just write it off. Which is a bit of a bad analogy, because I don't mean to imply that MS did no wrong, or that the state shouldn't have punished them; it just that the premise that you can extract $X million dollars from a company and then be surprised when there are repercussions.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Doesn't matter if its Microsoft or any other corporation, the costs of punishment ALLWAYS end up in the lap of said companys customers one way or another.
The only thing that's effective is either fine (or jail if appropriate) the owners of the company or force a liquidation, anything else is just a strike in the air.
/greger
I might just be "anecdotal evidence", but I really want to be using Linux. I would be doing so right now if I only could. But for some reason, my Mandrake won't boot because of my ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon9800Pro video card (every single setting out of about the 20 possibilities ended with "An error occured, try different settings").
I'd like to buy Lindows (or Linspire, or whatever the name of the day is), but I was wise enough to write to customer support and ask if my hardware was supported (mostly an issue about the video card), and if not, whether they expected to be supporting it soon. The reply I got was "No, we do not support that video card". So now I got a video card worth well over $400 and I should trash it to go back to a crappier card because Linux doesn't support it? Sorry, but I'm gonna stick to WinXP as long as Linux doesn't run on my video card.
You are right about Linux not being hard to *use* anymore, but it is still freakin' hard to *install* and get it running.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
First I don't agree with Microsoft being a monopoly. PCs are just a small part of the computer world. Microsoft has quite a few competitors on that platform, they just happen to offer what people want and what people think they need. They don't control both the hardware and the software thereby lessing their total dominance. I don't think XP or MS products are addictive, they just simply do what little people need their computers for. There are suitable OSes but face it, there isn't a real reason to run much of anything else other than a Windows derivative if your John Q. Public.
The various government know this, hence they simply come up to the plate and tell Microsoft to pay them fines under the guise of "monopoly behaviour". This works out because the public believes that the fines are for just that, monolpolistic behaviour. Microsoft pays the fines because this is a no win situation for them, they just treat it as the expense of doing business. This turns around and becomes yet another indirect tax.
Whether or not you choose to buy a Microsoft product or not you will pay this "Tax" in one form or another.
Regardless, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RUN THEIR PRODUCTS ON YOUR PC. No one does. However nothing else is viable as a solution to John Q. Public. Linux + StarOffice - Get real. The configuration woes of setting up Linux are what us geeks when through in our DOS and Win3x days. Do you think anyone wants to do that now? Hell I don't want to set up linux boxes for people I know because they will ask for things I know are a bear to solve. They will have hardware which just doesn't work or there are no drivers for.
I tell them either get a cheap windows machine or if they are anti-MS go get a cheap iMac.
The lesson isn't for Microsoft, its for us. Fines are not the cost of doing business, they are embedded taxes that the consumer gets to pay.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Laws are for controlling the common folk.
I'm not sure exactly who the "they" is in your question, but this default case covers most situations:
In this supposedly enlightened age, as the roots of globalization branch, grow and strengthen and nations install governments that are little more than paid operatives of corporations, said corporations develop a sense of omnipotence and the companion view that laws that do not work in their favor are mere repairable obstacles on the road to greater corporate wealth; an artifact of a less enlightened time that can be removed with the judicious application of money and, until they are removed, the penalties for the violation of which are entered into ledgers as just another "cost of doing business" that will ultimately passed on to the consumer. The sad, albeit anthropological, fact is that since greed and vanity are key characteristics of most politicians, many politicians are happy to accept deferred positions on that road repair crew in exchange for assistance in their appointment. They may end up repairing the road to hell, but that is irrelevant to them since they probably won't be around to see it completed and would likely never be held accountable for the impact of their work, since they tend to control the formation of laws that would hold them accountable.
So, to answer you question: to many corporations, understanding why there are laws is moot. They understands very effective means to deal with them. Among the those means:
1) Affix a surcharge to the cost of all goods
2) Return a small portion of that surcharge to people in positions to influence laws and treaties to the corporations' benefit
3) Profit. ;-)
Sigs are bad for your health.
Call me a mug if you wish... All I can say is that I do enjoy playing games every once in a while (entertainment is important... life is not always work work work, or recompile recompile recompile). I also like watching TV, and the All-in-Wonder provides me with all I need for that. But I'm a programmer, and I also like to program. This is something I would like to do under Linux. However, because of the two other things I like that I mentionned above, I can't program with Linux. That's basically saying that programmers can't enjoy life... if you're a programmer, you must do nothing but programming. Some of us are actually trying to get away from that extreme-geek stereotype, ya know?
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
You're basically making my point here. Here's what you're suggesting:
I should install/boot in text mode, then figure out a way to get the ATI driver in text mode, install the driver in text mode and "attempt to configure". All that, plus reading a howto document that is 20 pages long.
I don't know about you, but that definately doesn't fall in the "easy-to-use" category for me... what's the point of having a GUI installer if I can't even use it?
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Actually, complete and utter irony would include an excise tax on all MS products to cover government legal fees, enforcement, etc.
Not suing MS because they will raise prices is akin to paying the mob shakedown money to be left alone.
What will happen when they start being sued for product defects?
'These large fee awards get passed on to consumers.'
I've heard this one before, and it makes me (as an armchair economist) absolutely livid. There is absolutely no correlation between Microsoft's cost of production and their market price. The idea that legal fees and fines or taxes get passed on to consumers is only true in competitive markets with a limited supply of the goods in question. Microsoft is selling a product with zero marginal cost (after producing the first copy of a new version of windows, each additional copy has effectively zero cost) in an extremely non-competitive market. Cost of production has absolutely nothing to do with their market price - it is determined entirely by the demand side.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
This swindle shows the central problem with M$ monopoly crime: corporate liability protection. Properly administered, monopoly crimes would be remedied and punished at the corporate level, directors and owners, as their decisions (active and passive) caused the damage (and continue to do so). But the corporation construct protects them. So they pass the costs along to their customers. As a monopoly, their customers can't just switch to the competition.
.NET vs. VisualStudio, Office vs. Works, Consulting 1, 2, 3. Decimating the company would have unleashed value for everyone, including ginormous shareholders like Gates and Ballmer, who would see the combined value of their parts grow more quickly than the monolithic entity. But their personal power, which chokes the industry and its dependent markets, would be diminished. And a model would be installed for killing these giant krakens before they strangle us with their endless tentacles. Instead, we are dragged to the maelstrom.
Even though Ashcroft's Justice Department and Bush's FTC have obviously given a pass to M$, exactly their kind of corporation, they're just the sizzle on the rotten steak of the original penalty judgement. The only remedy to a monopoly corporation is to destroy the monopoly. M$ should have been split into its vertical components: OS, development tools, applications, media, and consulting. Probably some of those components should have been split into directly competing companies:
--
make install -not war
A company that is convicted of being a monopoly can't be sued into behaving. It has to be dismantled. This is a perfect example of why that's the case.
The fines that are awarded, alternatively, could be secured by seizing the companies assets and either placing them in the public domain, where IP is concerned, or auctioning them to pay some recompense to the people hurt by the company. But even so, if you leave the company intact, it will just do the same thing again. I know of no example of any monopolistic company giving up it's bad behavior if it could continue to break the law and still make a profit.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Do a google search on Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. You'll find references.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
I said this already above but since this parent post is moderated higher than the other one i'll write it again.
Electronic Blue book closes up all the applications in the computer so you cannot access them (to cheat). If you run it on Virtual PC it will close all the application on the Virtual PC version of windows but it obviously will not shut off the applications within OS X since that is outside of the emulator. Thus VPC on the Mac is not an alternative to using a pc.