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Appeals Court OKs Microsoft Antitrust Settlement
mbstone writes "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld [pdf] the settlement reached between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department in the antitrust case filed in 1998, beating back a challenge by Massachusetts, the only state that didn't settle. Many critics, of course, believe that Attorney General John Ashcroft took a dive on the case which was originally filed by former Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno."
From the articles:
Court:This is a resounding victory for the Justice Department and American consumers. The Court addressed the merits of every argument raised against the Department's remedy by two industry groups and the sole remaining state plaintiff (Massachusetts), and it clearly and thoroughly rejected all of them. The Court's forceful decision confirms what the Department has been saying all along - our settlement protects the public by providing a full and effective remedy for Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct.
MS: "We remain 100 percent committed to fulfilling our obligations under the settlement and earning the trust of our customers and the industry," Smith said. "We are excited about the potential our industry has to bring new innovation into people's lives and help them realize their full potential."
My comments: In order to see what a real inovation is, one has to compare firefox's mouse gestures to Ie's SP2. I mean, who gives a damn about mouse whatnot, we don't want viruses, right?
But I actually don't care since I switched to Gentoo..
A drop in the bucket here. Overseas sales, sales here, and a lack of change in their business structure means that this settlement accomplished nothing.
The only hope now is that the negative publicity will affect sales somehow. Stupid Ashcroft.
My uncle. A local politician is fond of the saying. "Law is like sausage, anyone who likes either should never watch them being made". Whoever says justice has nothing to do with politics, or claims law and its use is not always someone enforcing their morality on someone else, needs to take a look at this case.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
The truth of the matter is, even a couple hundred million dollars of fines is not that much of a hit to Microsoft, and it isnt exactly a secret that Microsoft holds a near monopoly, so, the whole lawsuit is a nonissue in the end
'You are not decyring enough comrade!' Not only did it happen yesterday, but why is it in the YRO category?
IIRC, the Clinton Administration was planning on throwing the book at Micrsoft, it wasn't until the Bush Administration was appointed by the Supreme Court, did the government loose intrest in pursuing the case and just all of a sudden wanted to settle.
The blame starts with Reno and the people that were assigned to the case.
Wha...? The lawyers she had on the case knocked it out of the park. It's now out bobbing in the ocean somewhere. Every time David Boies brought up a MSFT witness, he was able to discredit them and show that MSFT was indeed using its monopoly power to limit competition.
Reno has nothing to do with what judge is assigned to a particular case (would you want the DA to be able to choose what judge hears every case? I didn't think so either). What Judge Jackson did was pretty bad and he should have known better.
But Ashcroft pretty much rolled over as soon as he was AG. He settled and tried to get everyone else to settle as well. Why is a different debate, but he certainly had enough evidence to win in a new trial.
Wait a second, Bush was given money, and then he told the DOJ to seek a settlement as soon as possible, and you're saying this is evidence of a lack of collusion? I think it's time for you to reexamine your logic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Unfortunately, the courts will probably never be a good place to rein in a monolopy. By the time it works it way through the entire legal process, none of the real competitors are still alive to benefit from any decision.
Within the last year, the Dr. Dos suit got settled. Who benefitted from that? And it is unlikely that Netscape (which exists in name, but not much else) would have gotten much out of this suit if things had gone differently. And as much as I love FireFox, the biggest thing it has going for it is the fact that IE development has stagnated for some time.
When it comes to technology, things change so fast that any delay in settling any issues means that whatever decision is finally made, it will probably be pretty much meaningless. Inertia is a powerful force, and most people don't bother to download updates to their OS, let alone download and install alternative replacements for something that already came on their box.
This gets Score 5: Interesting? If they disagree with me they must be corrupt?
But Ashcroft pretty much rolled over as soon as he was AG. He settled and tried to get everyone else to settle as well. Why is a different debate, but he certainly had enough evidence to win in a new trial.
Here's a link for you. When the (then) richest man in the world donates to your boss's campaign, I think you're going to pay him back in some manner or another.
A quick note, though...There are as many Democrats as Republicans on that list of donation recipients. Bill Gates donates to those with power...not necessarily to those of any particular party.
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Maybe we can concentrate on developing and using better alternative operating systems instead of having the courts make all our decisions for us.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
I take it you have none?
Its only about money until you have a buttload, then its about power.
Actually, the perfect Michael Moore bit on Microsoft would have been to go around to the various PC makers and try to buy a PC without any Microsoft software.
Then when told he can't, ask how much he's paying for it.
Then when told he can't be told, ask to have a second OS installed alongside.
Then when told he can't, buy it and try to return the unused MS software.
All on camera. He gets to play innocent and point out the truely sleazy aspects of the situation - while informing the public that, yes, there really is a problem. Of course this should have been done circa 1998. Would've made a great episode of his 'The Awful Truth' TV series.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Maybe another reason the DOJ "rolled over" was because Microsoft had already been defanged.
At the start of the trial the common wisdom was that the Microsoft monopoly prevented competition. It was generally believed that Microsoft would simply purchase, aquire or destroy any who stood in their way, and that they would use every illegal means to do it.
But the impossible happened. Along came Linux. From some perspectives this was inevitable. Despite Slashdot myths to the contrary, Linux was not written to be a Windows competitor. It didn't have to be Linux, it didn't even have to be Open Source. The evolution of the personal computer created a vacumn for a cheap powerful and customizable operating system, and Linux managed to be there at the right time and place.
Now come to the end of the trial. Linux had become a household word. It had sucessfully prevented Microsoft's domination of the server market, and even managed to score higher market penetration in certain areas. Microsoft still retained its monopoly on the desktop, but it was slowly but surely being eroded. Beyond Linux, Apple was back from the dead in an time when people said no one could compete with Microsoft.
In short, the Microsoft threat had been dulled. The primary purpose of the trial was not to punish Microsoft, but to correct a problem in the market. The situation was being corrected by market forces.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that Jackson had already made up his mind early on what the facts were. Another judge handling the trial "by the book", might have come up with a different set of facts. Overall, I'd say that Jackson did more to drown MS than to save it.
On appeal, Jackson was actually given a lot of deference on his findings which is the cultural norm for courts of appeal. It was that same cultural norm that made it unlikely that the settlement would be overturned.
I disagree. MS, like them or not, played a big part in making PCs popular with the general public, most of whom are not knowledgeable enough to run an OS like Linux. Whats more, by having such a huge competitor, rival companies are forced to increase innovation, not decrease it.
Bacause of MS's leaning on PC manufacturers, it was suicide for any of them to even offer alternative OSs. That was what the first case against MS was about. Famous examples: OS/2, BeOS. After seeing what happened to them, who would invest money in even trying? No one. Linux is only able to challenge at all because it's supported by a community, not a company. As for "making PCs popular with the public"; that was initially Apple, later IBM. MS takes a lot of credit for things that it didn't create, just because their marketing and OEM deals make them the most visible. I rather doubt that we wouldn't have at least as good software without MS.