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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.
Oh come on, really, can you really say that just because their OS costs more than most pieces of hardware predatory?
"This lawsuit appears to differ from earlier challenges to MicroSoft's marketplace dominance by entertaining the possibility of a Class-Action lawsuit." Um, RTFA? At least 16 other states have had similar lawsuits, including the recent settlement here in Minnesota.
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.
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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.
"Predatory pricing" is traditionally a term that refers to when a merchant tries to sell a product at a price that is vastly less than what the competitors are selling their product for.
In this regard, if one wants to go after so-called predators (and I'm not one of them) then the government should go after Red Hat and Suse and Mandrake, as they sell far more product in a box and at a far less price than Microsoft.
Once you go down the slope of the madness that is government interfence in the economy, all things are possible, mostly bad.
"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!
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I dont recall anyone ever saying that government has no place in a free market economy. Without government there would be anarchy, and that seems to be bad for business ;).
Government does many things including provide for enforcement of contracts (legal system), provide pure public goods, ontop of busting up monopolies.
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 creates more jobs in one month than you linux fags will do in a life time. Thank god our legal system is rational, microsoft will probably just have to pay a fine.
Why does the opposite of Microsoft have to be Free software? A fair market situation would be if e.g. at least 3 different OSes for PC were sold and would have an equal market share.
The fact that only a free os can compete with Windows proves how ill the software market is. A monoculture is always bad. Even for jobs. If there were real competitors to Microsoft, there would be more people employed. Have you ever questioned how many people lost their job because Microsoft ruined/bought their company?
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This is a very interesting language issue because so many conservative interests like to use the terms interchangeably in defense of Capitalism while they're really quite distinct and even incompatible.
In fact, free market ideas are dangerous to Capitalism. While the US is a good example of an economy that relies heavily on Capitalism, capitalist economies existed long before the US and are considered to have started in 15th Century Venice. Capitalism, as I'm referring to it, is a system where equity markets such as a stock, bond and commodities exchanges where inverstors use their capital to invest in shares play a central role in the economy. Clearly, such equities markets are very important to the US economy, so it is fair to say the US economy is heavily reliant on Capitalism.
But examples of a free market include ideas like international outsourcing. While globalization is clearly a good thing from a free market perspective, it is not necessarily a good thing for shareholders of American corporations or even for those corporations themselves. Taken to its logical conclusion, outsourcing could quickly gut a capitalist economy. So, what's good for free markets in general is not necessarily good for any particular instances of Capitalism such as the Dow or the NASDAQ.
Let's look at another example of a free market activity that hurts rather than helps Capitalist enterprises --second-hand sales. Again it is easy to see that second-hand sales are clearly free market activities, but if it becomes too popular, it begins to erode sales of new items. So, the general idea of free markets and the rather specific instances of Capitalism are often at odds rather than being interchangeable synonyms.
Sure, /. loves to hate MS. But isn't this at some level an inevitable problem? Network effects make dominance of a particular OS inevitable at some level.
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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
Some define capitalism as free markets period. Others as a system whereby capital means are primarily owned by non-state entities. And then there's Marx.
Stock markets are just a by product, and don't actually contribute much to raising capital except for IPOs and additional offerings (in which a company sells its own stock, rather than day-to-day trades).
Commodity markets aren't about capital at all, they trade commodities.
Outsourcing in general should be good for the economy - wealth of nations, and all. However, that doesn't take into account the fact that there's no level playing field at the moment (e.g. agricultural subsidies, freedom of movement, etc.). Globalization is catching so much flack at the moment precisely because the "free trade" aspect is being implemented in such a way as to benefit multi-national corporations (and their shareholders), whilst giving the shaft to developing nations and out-sourced tech support people.
Second hand sales don't hurt Capitalism at all! In fact, they promote the efficient allocation of capital means, which is surely a good thing. After all, that's what the "Invisible Hand" is supposed to do!
You seem to have fallen for the the stock market myth of the need for ever-growing profits, an ever growing economy etc. There's really no need for all of that. Many small companies simply make a stable profit each year and don't feel the need to expand. In fact, a large chunk of the economy is chugging along happily, neither experiencing explosive growth or busts. That's because an ever-expanding economy is either unsustainable (both from an economic, as from an ecological perspective - yeah, I said ecological, very un-Capitalistic, but hey, oil will peak) or, more simply, a myth (i.e. you make more money, but you spend more too, and in the end you don't get any additional tangible thing in return.. That doesn't just include inflation, but cost-of-living/doing-business as well - lawyers will always have a rising income because there are always additional laws being made, rather than less - but they don't add value to your products.)
I liked the "second hand sales hurt Capitalism" bit though. Very RIAA-esque. If we don't expand copyright to stamp out second hand and public domain sales, then the world will come to an end because anything that's free has no value. Indeed, freedom has no value! Only (monopoly-)"rights" do.
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