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Storm Brewing over Microsoft on the Horizon?
SexyFingers writes "Robert X. Cringely, of I, Cringely discusses one of the last anti-trust lawsuit beleaguering Microsoft. It seems like Microsoft is looking bad on these bouts... words like, lie, dissemble, ignores were applied to Microsoft."
Wouldn't normally evidence that suggests that MS is doing naughty things (manipulation of evidence, etc.) invite a DoJ probe or something to see what exactly they're up to?
Or are actions like that limited to smaller companies that don't have the money to move to make problems "go away"?
I wish I could write clever and witty sigs.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the way this article describes the actions taken by Microsoft in court were true.
If Microsoft really 'plain lied' to the DoJ in the antitrust case, they might be 'really' convicted after all.
sig not found
"words like, lie, dissemble, ignores were applied to Microsoft."
so what?
those words have been applied to any other major corporation in the world.
in fact, those words are almost an synonym for corporate america.
I own a pump action golf ball cannon. I made it myself.
In theory, being from the kind of technical background that I am, I ought to fawn over every column, but, to be honest, I find his usual statements to be a bit feeble, a gentle puff, with no real gusto. He does pull his punches.
Normally.
However, this one has broken that mould. There were no punches pulled, and he completely nailed his colours to the mast. Good on him.
However, I'd be tempted to say that he's even made himself a target of Microsoft lawyers, as he has made allegations which could be, if false, be taken as libelous (or otherwise defamatory). (Not that I believe they are false.)
Will the posse of lethal attack-lawyers be set on him for it? Or will MS just hope it gets forgotten about as quickly as possible?
FP.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
That *does not* mean MS stuff is grandly spectacular, it just means their competitors are more litigious than they are innovative.
How would you compete against Microsoft?
No, really - how would you compete? Say you DO have something that's more terrifically innovative than anything Microsoft offers. And say you're an American following the American dream of trying to capitalize on a great idea and become rich, while meanwhile Microsoft has near-infinite reserves of cash and manpower and lawyers to throw against you if they see you have something which might be profitable to them.
How do you parlay your great idea into a successful business before Microsoft copies your idea, gives it away free with Windows, and chokes off the cash coming into your company? And you get extra points if you can do this without being "litigious."
Really - tell me - I want to know.
See, here is where you and I will never see eye to eye. It doesn't bug me that MS offers a web browser with their OS. If you are going to try to base a business plan on selling a webbrowser, something that you get for free in the dominant OS, then you'd better friggin make sure people know it's better. Yes, MS has an advantage because they have a popular operating system. So, why doesn't opera make a popular operating system? Why don't they release "Opera Linux" and bundle it there? And if it's so super wicked bad cool, advertise and tell people. I also said I've never seen Opera on a store shelf. How is that Microsoft's fault?
Here's the primary problem. The stuff that is bundled with windows is good enough for most people out of the box. There are superior products out there, but if people are not willing to buy them on the basis of their superiority then Microsoft cannot, and should not be blamed. I bought a mac because I wanted something better. I got it, and I'm happy. I will sing its praises, but if windows is still "good enough" for people, no amount of convincing is going to work. MS is not hurting consumer choice. The consumers have choices, they just choose microsoft because it's what they're accustomed to.
His point was this: Imagine that you are a small business that provides computational physics consulting to big companies. You don't make much money, but you have a big computer center which is most of your capital. Now, imagine that the feds investigate you for some reason (a competitor phones in an anonymous tip that you have warez on your servers or something like that). They bust in and take every computer that you own. In all, they have 50 terabytes of disk space.
Now, the feds don't have time to sort through 50 terabytes of disk space, so they just tinker with it little by little while they delay the court case while they try to build a case. In five years they give up and maybe return your computers.
Of course, you spent $50 million dollars on that computer hardware, and were making only a modest profit on the investment - before it was confiscated. For the next five years you make nothing and go bankrupt since you're still paying the loans on the computers that you can't use. Then, when you get them back they're worthless since they're slow by modern standards and you'll need all new servers to keep up with the competition. However, you can't get a loan for new servers since you defaulted on the loan for the old ones. They go on ebay and you recover a few hundred thousand dollars for your creditors.
Sure, this is a bit of a contrived example, but you can probably use your imagination to come up with similar scenarios. The feds don't care if they don't have enough resources to analyze the evidence - it isn't costing them anything to store it until they get around to it...
The government routinely kills small businesses in the course of investigations by confiscating capital equipment. They'd never do it to Microsoft, however...