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Microsoft faces Monopoly Lawsuit (again)
james_in_denver writes "Forbes magazine is reporting
that Microsoft will be sued in California for predatory pricing. This lawsuit appears to differ from earlier challenges to MicroSoft's marketplace dominance by entertaining the possibility of a Class-Action lawsuit. This would allow individual users/licensee's to participate in the lawsuit. A notable quote from the full text states: "It's anticompetitive, it's predatory, and it denies consumers, and in this case taxpayers, the benefits of innovation that a free marketplace should provide,""
Translation: Lawyers get rich, users/licensees get worthless vouchers.
Linux is free to anyone who wants it. All the apps are free. How can anyone claim Microsoft is a monopoly that unfairly prices its products? This argument doesn't work anymore. It's a free market. Don't like MS? There's a free alternative. Stop whining.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Is the market really free if the state of California tries to regulate it?
If we're going to get into that topic it's worth noting that Microsoft only exists in its current form through governmental regulation.
That horse left the barn the second they incorporated.
Now they must render unto Caesar.
KFG
Same thing over and over again. State sues MS. MS challenges. MS Looses (the judges work for the state, right?)
MS "pays" restitution in free liscences. MS is even more entretched.
It's a dance called the:
"The PR Microsoft Litigation CircleJerk shuffle".
At the end of the dance the stains are a bit hard to get out, but the public gets it up the ass everytime.
it denies consumers, and in this case taxpayers
Since when are we not all taxpayers? A consumer is almost always inherently a taxpayer in the U.S. A notable exception would be certain untaxed items in some locales, big ones being food and clothing. You also need to get the money somehow so that you can "consume" and that is usually taxed. I hate how we allow ourselves to be called taxpayers because what that means is that we are seen by the politicians as nothing more than those people who give them money. Call me a citizen or constituent, but not just some dumb taxpayer. Shit, I'd rather be called a "voter" than a taxpayer, because if there was only one activity associated with me that one would be better.
I am feeling fat and sassy
"In fact," she said, "we've built our business on delivering innovative software at low prices, and have been the market leader in reducing prices while increasing the value contained in software."
Since when is $100-$200 for an OS a 'low price'?
I wonder if this will have any impact on the proceedings? "Independent auditors" recommend Open Source, suggesting that California could save $32 billion.
Can't Microsoft point to reports like this and say, "Hey, look! There's competition!" These reports this might end up serving Microsoft, rather than OSS, in the end!
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
So that's how the RIAA and MPAA can bring all those lawsuits to bear on US citizens?
The only reason there are gutters is for the businesses to dump the little guys when they're done with them. The politicians are standing shoulder to shoulder with the big corps over this, too - that's why US drug prices remain at the highest levels in the western world, and why laws like the DMCA and the INDUCE Act will continue to make their way onto the books.
So long as politicians keep get big $$$ from big business, there's going to be a severe tilt towards serving business interests as opposed to human interests. I'm surprised there haven't been overtures to ban political donations from corporations - I think it would fix a lot of problems.
-- james
Microsoft strategy is just to drag out court proceedings until a regime change in whatever entity is suing them. Pump money into the opposing campaign and -poof!- suddenly lawsuits lose their teeth and disappear.
-Electrawn
It will result in the state settling for some relatively rediculously paltry sum, 50% of which will go to lawyers, and which will only reach consumers in the form of a $50 off coupon on any future Microsoft product they purchase.
Seriously, is there any way whatsoever this case could end in anything resembling a victory for consumers?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"It's anticompetitive, it's predatory, and it denies consumers, and in this case taxpayers, the benefits of innovation that a free marketplace should provide,"
What exactly does the free market place have to do with taxpayers? Are people who cheat on their taxes not entiteled to a competitivly priced OS?
And since when is innovation a "right"? If so when will iMacs be subsidized by the gov't?
MS,as scuzzy as they are, have the right to charge anything they want. It is their product! I personaly don't want it written down in the great history books of geekdom that Linux won by default. It's one thing to press charges over threatening companies into unreasonable, exclusive contracts (through monopoly power). It's another matter entirely to sue for "the right to competative priceing". Go to a dollar store for criminie's sake!
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Randroids are to economics as al-Qaeda followers are to religion. Meanwhile, those of us who live in the real world realize that things are rarely that cut and dried.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Yeah, I'm sure billg will personally walk up to the judge and pay it out of his pocket change. MS won't notice the fine and everyone involved will probably get something like $3 each except for the lawyers.
Do these class action lawsuits ever serve anyone _but_the lawyers?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.