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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."
I wonder what'll happen in the EU anti-trust sanctions. If they manage to get off the hook there, it'll be hard to convinve me that they didn't buy the European politicians.
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
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.
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.
It's not the fines that are a hit to Microsoft. It is the restrictions (which there aren't many). But what totally blows is that the length went from 10 years in the drafts to 5 years in the final judgement.
What this basically means is that Microsoft squeaked Windows XP out before the restrictions went into effect, giving them an OS they can market until the restrictions are lifted in November of 2007.
So, if you pay attention, the release date for Windows Longhorn will be November 13, 2007 - the day after the restrictions are lifted.
Now I don't know where the San Francisco Chronicle gets their data, but opensecrets.org (the defacto source for Slashbots) paints a very different picture of contributions... They still gave more to Republicans, but not significantly more... Heck, excluding the whole anti-trust thing, tax cuts are business friendly. That's enough to earn Bush support, really.
Besides, the person who really lost the antitrust case was Judge Jackson. If he hadn't gone on about Microsoft being a bunch of evil bullies his breakup order would've stood. However, when an appeals court sees a lower Judge out spouting off belligerence in public interviews while a case HE is working on is winding through the legal system, they tend to act in favor of the person being punished.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
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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I'd love to see a nice documentary on the Microsoft case and how the Bush administration rolled over and let Bill have his way.
Maybe he could call it "Justice 1.0," or something.