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EC Reviews New Complaints Against Microsoft
Rob tells us that while Microsoft may still be fighting against existing antitrust sanctions the European Commission is already reviewing new complaints made against the software giant. From the article: "European Commission spokesperson, Jonathan Todd, confirmed that the competition commission is considering the complaints but said that no decision has been taken on a course of action, adding that the commission does not have to wait for formal complaints to take action against a company it suspects of anti-competitive behavior."
same old, same old... Microsoft upsetting people again...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
if the EC did force M$ to embrace interoperability. it would be a boon for open source, and other software companies wanting to not get stomped on with each new rev of OS/application suite.
After reading through the article, I didn't find much in the way of information. What specifically was the problem here? Microsoft still bundling? What are they being accused of bundling this time?
The kleptocrats can't quite afford their new mansions and yauchts. They're looking for large, rich businesses to help them out.
"confirmed that the competition commission is considering the complaints" I can barely say that out loud, let alone imagine how Microsofts attorneys are going to understand it said with a British Accent.
The European Commission do seem to keep pluggin on this. However, I was under the impression that their first ruling was supposed to have put this to rest.
I know they already issued a financial punishment to Microsoft (which Microsoft could undoubtedly afford) but seeing as this has 'come back' again, you'd think they would arrange a punishment which would actually hurt Microsoft - to persuad them to Be Good(tm)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
These complaints come as no surprise, according to inside sources.
Go, and never darken my towels again! -- Rufus
In a truly competitive market that would be the case. The desktop and office suite markets are very far from that though. Intel have survived having to share their IP with AMD, why can't Microsoft do the same with their competitors instead of erecting artificial barriers in order to soak their customers and prevent any effective competition from emerging.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
No, they have the hurdle of compatability (an ever moving target) before they can even compete.
Product A (lets call it office) Is real nice, but expensive.
Product B (lets call it open/star office) is pretty good, but free/cheap.
Product C (lets call it santa's magic office suite, because it doesn't really exist) is better than both other products and free/cheap
If company X has all of there stuff in product A's proprietary format B and C can be irrelavent even though they are valid/better options, that is not competition for the best product, it is momentum of living on past success.
The problem is the small/medium guy needs Office compatability at a 99.5% level to work smoothly with the big guys who need it at a 100% level because of legacy apps and docs.
right now product B is around 90% compatable (can share information, but presentatin may be different), but that is not good enough in a lot of places.
The dominance in Office is used to slow adaption of Linux, by keeping a proprietary changing format. Also, MS was forced to make Office Mac if I am not mistaken, but would probably be hard pressed to stop since OSX users are in the unenviable position of having less good choices for non-MS office suites than Linux users.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
A "better product" is both successful (ie. popular) and technologically up to date.
The owls are not what they seem
..just slap them on the hand and force them to seed 2 billion dollars into a market they don't dominate...that'll teach em!
I know you are trolling but this is so often repeated that it deserves an answer.
IANAL, but I have followed a number of antitrust cases. Courts are very hesitant to forceably break up a company and rightly so. In general, the emphasis is on long-term corrections rather than creating instability as a result of such a breakup.
Such a strategy takes time to have an effect, but it is often, I think, more effective than merely breaking up companies. The stifling restrictions that AT&T lived under for decades eventually lead to their divestiture (this was largely voluntary), and the restrictions that IBM lived under cost them their market power. But it doesn't happen immediately.
The slap on the wrist along with a court finding is actually one of the worst things you can do in an antitrust suit to a company. The reason is something called "collateral estoppel" which basically holds that absent a change in fact, facts which were necessarily decided as part of one case cannot be relitigated in another. So leaving the company intact while finding them to be guilty of Sherman Act violations lowers the bar to everyone else. Ralph Nader point out that it would take an army or lawyers to enforce such action against Microsoft, but he fails to note that in this case, Microsoft is now facing hundreds of antitrust suits, each of which is now far more dangerous simply because of the portions of the finding of fact that were not overturned by the appeals court. So Microsoft is heavily stifled by this judgement. Had they been broken up, they could rightly argue that facts had changed, but now they are in big trouble.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
.....move the chairs out of Ballmer's office.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Well, it can still be "better" in itself, as in having more features, better features and be more stable. And it will all be irrelevant if it isn't near 100% compatible with the monopolist. This is the reason OpenOffice has to spend time and effort chasing Microsoft all the time.
If Microsoft could again make a super-proprietary format that only they could read, and not having regulation in one form or another stopping them, it would probably make sense, economically. And this is the reason it is important to preserve free competition in the market, to regulate the monopolists. If you can't do that, someone could end up "owning" the market without anyone being able to realistically make a dent in their market.
That's not really free competition either.
In french we say "bla", which is a clearly superior in terms of signal/noise ratio.
aurelien
Back when VCR's (video cassette recorders) were just out, there were two competing formats. One of these was Betamax. Technically, it was superior. However Sony wanted large license fees from those companies that wanted to produce products that used this format. The competing technology, VHS, had licensing terms that were considerably more reasonable for those interested in producing VCRs.
So while dozens of companies bought licenses to produce VCRs using the VHS format, only three or four companies made VCRs that used the Betamax tape. Naturally VHS came to dominate the market.
So here we have, in essence, an example of a superior product(Betamax) that was not successful. This happens all the time. It's the best marketed product that wins, not necessarily the product that uses the best technology.
In Europe Microsoft has different contracts with businesses preventing them from using other software.
For instance: to become some kind a MS-partner you have to have at least 30% of your staff and 50% of your sales people have some kind of MS Certification. The total share of your servers/clients that has to be Windows 70%. Next to that, if a MCS... can convince management to replace a Linux server by a Windows server they can get a bonus from MS up to 1000 Euro/server.
IF you can or will not comply your company will have to pay all licenses in full until 2 years back
To the people that don't believe me: I worked in such a company with such a contract. I told one of the customers that Microsoft wasn't his best choice for the technical needs he had (big customer, lots of servers) and I almost got fired because some big shot from Microsoft got to hear about it and demanded my release or they would revoke the license advantages. If you complain to the authorities same Bad Things(tm) will happen
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I hate to say this, buddy, but there are cities in the US with huge unemployment areas, your education system is suffering & while you have good quality healthcare, no-one on a minimum wage can afford it. So I think we cancel each other out on those bits...
We need cash, lets rape the Americans; they only gave us electricity, phones, internet, cars, planes.
Yes, quite possibly. But the longbow (a weapon that, like the aircraft, revolutionised warfare) was a French invention (I believe), the jet engine was British, Airbus will trounce Boeing & you handed over your car industry to the Japanese, just like we did. Oh, and let's not forget that what brought the Internet out of the realm of academics into the eyes of the general public was the World Wide Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee who was *BRITISH*.
Oh and gratitude, screw it, who cares that they lost 10,000s, of 10,000s of young men bailing us out of two world wars last century, we don't like Bush now.
Erm, what about the equal numbers of European young men who died in those same wars??? And Australians, Japanese, etc. etc.??? Or were their sacrifices any less just because they weren't American? I find your statement offensive & ignorant....
Gratitude, that's not trendy, "evil Americans" is.
I've nothing against most American people - hell, I was in the US when 9/11 happened & I wept for the dead as much as any of the US citizens around me did. However, whilst most governments are just plain corrupt, the Bush administration is *EVIL* & your politicians are nothing but puppets to the corporate lobbyists. That's why anything that stops your evil corporations in their tracks is a *good* thing for the rest of the world.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.