Microsoft Chided Over Exclusive Music Idea

grumpyman writes "The federal judge overseeing Microsoft Corp.'s business practices scolded the company Wednesday over a proposal to force manufacturers to tether iPod-like devices to Microsoft's own music player software. Microsoft blamed the proposal on a newly hired, "lower-level business person" who did not understand the company's obligations under the antitrust settlement."

Comments

"Microsoft regrets

[ceoyoyo]

the proposal ever was sent to music-player manufacturers..." Wow, they let the new coffee getter conference call with Sony by himself? Huh.

Re:"Microsoft regrets

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously there long enough to understand how Micorsoft works though, just not that those inner workings should never be made so ...public. Hilarious that MS's retraction related to adherence to "the company's obligations under the antitrust settlement" and not to the fact it's a loathsome business practice. One more window into the Redmond giant.

Re:"Microsoft regrets

[steelfood]

That's one of the things that's so frightening, and so ineffectual about the settlement. It's possible Vista's launch is planned to coincide with the ending of their settlement terms. It'll probably be something like one app in Office 12 (like Word or Powerpoint) with it, or even a dumbed down version of said product (like the way Outlook Express is). After all, when people buy Office, they buy it for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook as a package. Including Word with Vista won't hurt sales of office, but it might help to kill the whole open formats thing.

Re:"Microsoft regrets

[einhverfr]

IANAL, but these are my thoughts.

Which makes you wonder what Microsoft will be doing once those clauses of their settlement expires in 2008. Perhaps what they're really regreting is the manager letting the cat out of the bag before they could legally do it.

Doesn't matter. Antitrust law doesn't expire in 2007, only close government supervision does. If anyone thinks that this expiration means the end of Microsoft's antitrust woes, they need to think again. The reason is something called collateral estoppel. Basically all those facts decided as a necessary part of that portion of the case not overturned on appeal is beyond relitigation. I.e. in any future antitrust suit, Microsoft cannot say "We were never a predatory monopoly." The best they can say is "We are not a monopoly any more" or maybe "what we are accused of doing is not predatory." I.e. the litigation changes from establishing facts to establishing *changes* of facts since they were established.

What this means is that the whole point of the antitrust case against microsoft was the judgement that Microsoft both was a monopoly and had broken antitrust law in maintaining it. The exact details of the judgement are largely irrelevant. Indeed had Microsoft been broken up, it would have been *easy* to argue that facts had changed "Yes, Microsoft was a monopoly, your honor, but we were broken up and so the facts from the prior case no longer apply." THe fact that they are largely allowed to continue doing business as usual is *not* a good thing or a light punishment for Microsoft. Indeed it is largely a declaration that it is open season on Microsoft from an antitrust litigation point of view (in that the bar has been lowered to a rediculously low level for such claims, including continuing violations).

Already there are over 100 antitrust suits against them winding their way though a multidistrict panel including Novell v. Microsoft, Go v. Microsoft and countless more. The antitrust settlement might be a minor cut to Microsoft, but it is a cut that occurs in waters populated by a large number of man-eating sharks. Sucks to be Microsoft. Which is one reason I no longer work there.

Blame Management!

[TauntingElf]

How in the world can they blame the low level worker when it would have to be a management decision. Now are they saying their new management has been stuck under a rock for 5 years? How many people don't know about Microsoft and the monopoly case against them?

Re:Of course

[MLopat]

Yeah well that's closer to the truth than you think. 10% of the company is comprised of co-ops. They typically put in longer hours, do more work, and are the real boys and girls in the trenches.

Re:Of course

[rtb61]

Well perhaps they would get more senior people doing it if there were considerable fines and minor jail terms for continued attempts to thwart the princicples of the settlement as minimal as they are. This failure to apply genuine fiscal pressures upon microsoft, especially considering the cost to government of the continued overseeing of the monopolistic machinations of bog balls and wee willie, is very strange to say the least ;-).

Simpler explanation

[aepervius]

They are "testing the water" to see how far they can go expanding their grasp without anyone reacting. Next time they will go a little less far and nobody will react etc...

Re:Turnabout is FairPlay?

[Janacek]

Completely different situation. Apple makes the iPod and has every right to limit it to run whatever software it chooses. If MS made the player nobody would have a right to say that it must run other companies' software. The problem here is MS was trying to force other manufacturers to limit their players to running only Windows Media Player software.

Re:Turnabout is FairPlay?

[caese]

No, because Apple isn't twisting the arm of hardware manufacturers to use their software. You buy an Ipod from Apple and it comes with Apple Software. It the same as if you bought a Sony MD, you're be expected to use Sony software (sonicstage was perhaps the worst piece of junk ever i might add). This is clearly not the same as Microsoft (a software company, OK they do make keyboards) saying to Creative or whomever is creating the devices that they have to use WMP.

Nice work judge, now what about OpenDocument?

[cpu_fusion]

Fantastic ... Would same judge please slap Microsoft silly for the BS it is currently pulling in regards to the OpenDocument format?

MRD

[starling]

Microsoft blamed the proposal on a newly hired, "lower-level business person" who did not understand the company's obligations under the antitrust settlement.

Well, they would say that, woudn't they?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Rice-Davies

Re:Suuuure

[cgenman]

low level business person who did not understand the company's obligations under the antitrust settlement.

Ballmer?

Re:In defense of MS

[DrJimbo]

Please realize that Microsoft as a company is not some huge evil organization out to rape your wallets. They are regular people who want to, like anyone else, do the best job they can.

Unfortunately that job they are working so hard at is to rape our wallets, for the benefit of their stockholders.

The fact that the company is comprised of people doing the best they can is not really a valid argument against the idea that Microsoft is a huge evil organization. In fact, I would imagine that most, if not all, huge evil organizations are filled with regular people doing the best they can.

Re:Turnabout is FairPlay?

[oscast]

"You are smoking crack."

No crack.... you're just confused.

"The iPod and iTunes are as anti-competitive as it gets."

Not at all... watch as I destroy your whole argument.

"The hardware is completely closed and no third party software can run on it."

That's not anticompetitive... Apple creates the whole product. You might as well go after radio manufacturers (for example) for not allowing other companies to automatically be suppliers for their knobs and buttons. If you create the entire product (hardware and software) you can include as much or as little as you want with it. If Windows could be used to the exclusion of PC hardware... then they would be allowed to bundle as much as they want without concern of leveraging their illegal monopoly.

"There are also a limited number of codec's that work with the iPod."

Actually, the iPod is pretty much on par with all other music players with regard to the number of codecs it can play.

"The only thing that you can do is play AAC, MP3 and DRM'd apple music on it."

Wrong. The iPod can play songs encoded with these CODECS:
MP3 (from 32 Kbps to 320 Kbps)
MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR)
AIFF *
WAV (with no compression)
The following require iPod software 1.3 or later:
M4A AAC *
M4P AAC (Protected) *
M4B AAC (iTunes Music Store Spoken Word files) *
The following require iPod software 2.2 or later or iPod mini 1.1 or later:
Apple Lossless Encoder
* Requires iTunes 4 or iTunes 4 for Windows. AAC files also require the most recent update to the iPod software.

"It is a black box. It even enforces DRM practices on non-DRM music."

Its a Black box... and of course also a white one... and no it does not enforce DRMpractices on non-DRM music.

"Apple chooses to enforce their monopoly on the market by forcing consumers to use only apple products to access the iTunes music store - No iPod, no iTunes."

Motorola chooses to enforce their monopoly on the market by forcing consumers to use only motorola LCD displays in their phones. No Motorola LCD display, no motorola phone.

Whirlpool chooses to enforce their monopoly on the market by forcing consumers to use only Whirlpool dish soap dispensers in their dish washers. No Whirlpool dishsoap dispenser, no Whirlpool dish washer.

Sony chooses to enforce their monopoly on the market by forcing consumers to use only sony buttons on their stereos. No Sony buttons, no Sony radio.

See how ridiculous your argument is? Apple creates the entire product the same way that these other companies do. Because Apple also happens to compete in a market that is largely comprised of multiple vendors each contributing a small part in a piecemeal approach to any given technological solution does not mean they are required to do so under any law as you're implying... be it legal or ethical.

"It is a monopoly now - because Apple currently has a majority of the mp3 player market share, and a 100% monopoly on music encoded in an Apple DRM format."

Keep in mind... its not illegal to be a monopoly. Its illegal to use your monopoly illegally. Apple is not doing anything that excludes competitors to enter into the market. Microsoft's spotty history is rife with this sort of behavior throughout its history. They didn't achieve their monopoly legally... and they certainly haven't maintained it legally. Apple on the other hand achieved their monopoly in the market through hard work and innovation. They are maintaining it by doing the same repeatedly.... over and over again.

"They are also actively discouraging 3rd parties from interfacing with their hardware and software (real player)."

And there's nothing illegal or unethical about that.

"Thus, they are using their monopoly advantage to exclude competition in the market of players that can play AAC/DRM formatted music."

No, any company can use the AAC codec and can attach DRM to the fo