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Microsoft EU Monopoly Appeal Thrown Out
smnicoll writes "The European Court of First Instance has thrown out Microsoft's appeal to have penalties for the abuse of monopoly suspended, reports BBC News Online.
'Microsoft's application for interim measures is therefore dismissed in its entirety,'
The court's statement said. 'The evidence adduced by Microsoft is not sufficient to show that implementation of the remedies imposed by the Commission might cause serious and irreparable damage.' The commission's case is mainly focused on Microsoft's integration of Windows Media Player into the operationg system and the effects that has on the ability of Real Networks and Apple to get their rival players used." Similar stories at Bloomberg, CNET, and Reuters (via CNN).
MS was unable to comment because of their shock that they were unable to buy a court.
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtm
has some of the better comments from the bigwigs at Redmond..
My favourite being:
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
Surely a media player is an integral part of the operating system, just like a web browser, some card games, and a paper clip.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Hasn't it been 120 days already, or do they get to start the clock now? (again)
If the eds had used my submitted write-up instead (mumble, mutter) then you'd have known that this is only the second-highest court in the EU. Although the ruling was pretty damning, it's still possible that MS will appeal to the European Court of Justice, who could overturn the decision. Fortunately, given the feeling everywhere else in Europe, this doesn't seem likely, but the air isn't completely clean yet.
BTW, if it stands, this is a hit against MS on two major counts: the original ruling required them to open up various information for interoperability purposes, and to produce a version of Windows without Media Player integrated.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
C'mon, I dont believe there's anything in it about EU proving something or 'sure showed the dirty, nasty US'. I believe that they did a sensible thing. The appeals process will take 5 years ... so whats the significance of the earlier ruling if MS can go about doing everything as it was doing before the concerend ruling. Now MS will have to comply to the ruling for the present and is free to continue the appeals. Who knows what MS might pull off in 5 years that renders the earlier ruling irrelevant (like MS might change its packaging in some other twisted way such that the ruling cannot impose the change it actually asked to be enforced)
If people want windows with a media player thats fine. They can pay the probably very small (I'd imagine about £2) that a "with media player" copy of windows will be. Or downloaded it from Microsoft's website.
The point is, and the point that the European court has decided on, is that you CANNOT USE A MONOPOLY YOU ALREADY HAVE TO UNFAIRLY TRY TO GET ANOTHER ONE.
Repeat after me. Microsoft can give away or sell media player. What they can't do is use their monopoly on operating systems to aid them getting one in media players. Those are the rules you have to play by once you are in a monopoly position
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
"Following precedents is rather like walking backwards. i would rather there have been a mandate that audio and video codecs be open."
You missed the point. They were "in trouble" because they bundled a media player with their OS. Nobody is saying MSFT can't distribute their media player [crappy as it may be]. Just they can't include it in the OS.
What microsoft has to realize is that if they didn't market 95/98 so poorly [e.g. you can watch movies and play mp3s, etc...] and peddle these half baked programs [stupid backup/anti-virus/etc] and simply focus on a solid core OS.... they would be better off.
They could still sell their other software but if I walked into a store and bought windows I would not be installing 1.5GB of useless software that I'll simply replace with other implementation then pray someone with a net connection doesn't look at my box wrong lest they exploit it.
All about choice.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The "greed and deceit" of microsoft pales in comparison to the issues governments on both sides of the pond should be attacking.
Not if you're one of the tens of thousands Microsoft's greed and deceit has harmed financially.
I'm so sick of the fallacy that because there is [insert some terrible world problem here], we should turn a blind eye to [insert lessor injustice here]. I'm even more sick of the ugly (all too American, these days) mentality that if an injustice doesn't affect you, you shouldn't worry about it or care (and indeed, if an injustice benefits you, however indirectly, you should somehow support it). Enough of that nonsense already!
Injustice is injustice, whether it affects Linux or not. Harm is harm, and it should be fought everywhere. Yes, software patents need to be stopped in Europe and overturned in the US. Yes, SCO's executives should be in prison. And yes, Microsoft should pay the piper for their years of anti-competative, greedy and deceitful behavior, irrespective of what the market has done to try and mitigate the consiquences of said behavior. "The market" may or may not have adapted (it is highly debatable that there's much of a free market at all when it comes to PC desktops), but certainly those who were run out of business and had their livelihoods ruined by Microsoft's illegal activities didn't have that option, and Microsoft owes society, and arguably those individuals, some reparations in addition to ceasing and desisting in their behavior.
A child misbehaves, and a decent parent won't just require the child stops, they'll punish the child in some way as a disincentive for the child starting up again the moment the parent's back is turned.
Microsoft is one big ugly ill-behaved child that needs a good, hard spanking and a great deal of corrective behavior.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
No, since Apple is not a monopoly.
Only one of those operating systems is a monopoly. And antitrust-law says that using your monopoly in one area to gain monopoly in other areas is against the law. MS used their OS-monopoly to gain monopoly in web-browsers. Now they tried to gain monopoly in the streaming-media markets, by using their OS-monopoly. And that is against the law.
I find it really surprising that some people simply do not "get it".
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Making Microsoft unbundle components of the OS is a weak solution. Microsoft will do that but so something like like ask the user every week if they want to install it.
The real solution would be to force all PC vendors to include a option to buy the hardware without a OS and when doing so it must be listed with full credit of the OEM cost of Windows. So when a vendor says it includes $200 of software, I should be able to get $200 off if I buy it without an OS. Vendors could also offer Linux and BSD options. Make Microsoft contracts with the hardware vendors void as they are anti-competative.Because one of the big problems is that vendors like Dell, Sony and others do not give us a choice. For those running Linux or a BSD, you still have to buy a product that pays Microsoft extortion.
And if the US courts had any guts they would pass such a judgement instead of folding up like a house of cards
You see, it hasn't hurt me.
I chose to run windows. I also chose to run OS/2 and i also chose to run Linux and Solaris.
I chose to use Internet explorer and i chose to use Netscape and now i choose to use Firefox.
I also chose to use windows media player over everything else and i agree that the media player should be fully integrated with the OS because that is a feature we as in windows users request just as sound in kde/linux is done.
I don't think there is any injustice in the practices the EU are suing for. I don't want the EU suing so anoter crappy business (Real Audio) can get in with spyware and take over my pc - if anything Microsof thas been the most cooth over keeping things clean and protecting your consumer rights.
Server code doesn't need to be shared either. Thats like telling Oracle they need to share there IP because other databases that are emulating them are having to hack support or use proprietary systems.
Please tell me how microsoft has and continues to stimmy competition, the market and harm consumers?
Tell me again how the government suing microsoft in this case and the others will benefit the tax payers paying for these suits?
Why do courts always ignore the bootloader issue?
The bootloader license between Microsoft and OEMS states that the Microsoft bootloader must be installed as the primary bootloader and also that the MS bootloader must only be used to boot MS OS's.
Microsoft can revoke the vendor's license to include Windows on the machine if the bootloader license is violated. Because the world runs on Windows, no hardware vendor can afford to ship machines that don't include Windows alongside whatever alternative they might want to offer.
When companies are denied the possibility of shipping computers with Windows AND any other OS without losing favor with Microsoft there is no way for any other OS to get a foot in the door.
Great OLD article about the bootloader issue and the demise of BeOS: http://www.birdhouse.org/beos/byte/30-bootloader/
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
RedHat is not a monopoly.
Apple is not a monopoly.
Microsoft, however, are a convicted monopolist. When you're a monopoly, the rules are different and you can't use your monopoly desktop to legally "shut off the air supply" to competing vendors.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The EU simply doesn't have the power to take any other remedy. They can't order that Microsoft be broken up because Microsoft is not a European company. Only the US can do that, and they haven't.
The best the EU can do is fine MS and order them to unbundle software. Personally, I'd like MS to have to unbundle *everything*, including Notepad, and leave it up to the OEM to decide what MS software to add (on an a la carte basis to the OEM) to their basic software load. So, for example, HP in Europe would be within their rights to install barebones Windows XP plus Firefox as the browser, but take the Microsoft components for other things - instead of being forced to bundle the entire lot as they are now.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows