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Microsoft Faces Fresh Antitrust Complaints
Rob wrote to mention a Computer Business Online review piece about new anti-trust action against Microsoft on both sides of the Atlantic. From the article: "Other examples of anticompetitive behavior cited by Tangent include bundling of Outlook with Office and Active Directory with Windows Server, as well as the bundling of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Server with its desktop and server operating system respectively. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment on Tangent's complaint, other than to acknowledge that it was being reviewed, but was more forthcoming in responding to a fresh complaint lodged with the European Commission by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS)."
can someone explain to me why people care about windows media player being bundled with windows? i could maybe understand internet explorer, maybe. but wmp? what?
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
Don't you have to buy Office and, thus, buy an office suite? One that would, presumably, include email and calendar functionality?
Can't you purchase Office modules separately? I was sure I had seen boxes of Word, Excel, etc. a few years back.
Remember we started the present suit against M$ in 2001...5 years later we see no change!
Like any good slashdotter, I have my complaints with Microsoft too, but this is getting out of hand. Active Directory? WTF are they thinking?
1st post!
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
It's amazing how people critisize MSFT about having so many vista versions. Stuff like this makes it super obvious why they have to release so many versions.
What happend to Standard Oil? It was dismantled and each component was forced to compete with the others. This is how we got: Esso, Exxon, Mobil, etc. (some have remerged by now, this happened 100 years ago)
Microsoft could be shattered into seperate companies. A Windows OS company. An Office productivity software company. A media player company (which would last about a fortnight). This is a real possibility.
Bundling software isn't anti-competitive behaviour unless there's something else going on, like forcing computer manufacturers to bundle that software with their computers.
Nobody is forced to use Active Directory when they set up a Windows server, although most people do because it makes sense. Honestly, as someone who's not worked with large linux networks, I'm not sure what the alternative would be. However, lack of a viable alternative, or even lack of a popular alternative, doesn't make Microsoft wrong for packaging Active Directory with their product.
Bundling Outlook with Office may be slightly closer to anti-competitive behavior, but I still think it's a BS complaint. I know plenty of people that choose to use Netscape Navigator, Eudora, or Thunderbird for email, even though they own the Office suite. Wouldn't complaining about Outlook Express make a little more sense, since it's packaged with the OS?
This reminds me of people playing the race card... it's done even when that complaint isn't accurate, and as a result makes people less likely to believe when there's a REAL issue.
What's next... claiming that inclusion of MS Paint is anti-competitive?
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
How the hell can Microsoft be expected to sell it's OS without any extras while the other companies selling OSs bundle all sorts of shiat with them. OS X comes with Quicktime 7, Safari, Apple Mail, and the whole iLife thing. Those are all types of things that Microsoft has been threatened with a lawsuit because it includes them in Windows. Apple takes it a step further and bundles their hardware with their software. If Microsoft did something like that, they'd be driven out of the country by screaming zealots. Why can't people just leave them be for once?
*The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.*
out of hand to the point of sheer stupidity. Certain gripes I can see as far as the bundling of IE with Windows. To start a complaint about directory services being bundled with server software is lunacy. Outlook being bundled with M$ Office? Oh the humanity! I wouldn't expect to pay $500 for a full office suite without a fully functioning email client/calendering system. Enough is enough. Now that it has gotten to this point any further "legitimate" claims will be dismissed as frivolous and unjustified.
The only valid point that I thought the article made had to do with Word documents. It's no secret that interpretting Word documents is haphazard at best (just look at OpenOffice) and that standards need to be documented more thoroughly. Almost everything else in that article seemed like nit picking, and for once I feel bad for Microsoft.
They can't win: if they include Windows Media Player with their OS they get sued, if they don't include it they get hundreds of thousands of complaints from users and even more Microsoft bashing than before. If they include Active Directory with their OS they get sued, if the don't include it they get thousands of complaints from administrators and even more Microsoft bashing than before. The list goes on and on. As for Outlook being bundled with Office, I think that since Office is a suite consumers pay for (either in retail channels or through OEMs), Microsoft should be able to include what it wants to. Outlook is part of the suite, plain and simple.
Next week's top story: "TextPad Sues Microsoft for Bundling Notepad with its Windows Operating System"
-William Brendel
The latest news is that, according to Yahoo! News and BBC News, a fresh anti-trust complaint has been filed with the EC against Microsoft by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (composed of IBM, Oracle, RealNetworks, Sun & Nokia). Although the complaint was filed privately, ECIS hinted (see the links) that it related to MS Office.
The story here is about Tangent, a computer manufacturer who filed a federal suit against MS in a Northern Californian court on Valentine's Day. I've found two articles which go into more detail on this: Gameshout and ZDNet.
Basically, the complaints in this suit relate to:
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
GM has been accused of bundling engines with transmissions, Pioneer has been accused of bundling speakers with stereo equipment and, Bob's big boy has been accused of bundling plates with silverware.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
WHY does everybody keep talking about Microsoft monopolies, then talking about Explorer, Outlook, and... everything but the OS?
Nobody is forced to use Explorer (even if it is a part of the OS). Nobody is forced to use Outlook, Active Directory, or WMP.
What we ARE forced to put up with as software engineers (if we want to actually sell any units) is their OS! Mac users and some expert PC gurus running Linux aside, Microsoft has a monopoly on the OS market. If we in the US are so anti-monopoly (and there's a lot of precedent -- Standard Oil, Ma Bell etc), why haven't we broken up this one by making the OS open-source and allowing MS to continue as it pleases with its other products (which don't force anyone to use them.)
I can't be the only one to see this -- but I just don't get why people keep talking about the big, bad Microsoft monopoly -- then looking right PAST the one thing they *do* have a monopoly on. It's all very confusing to me.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
So let's see, we're complaining now because Windows comes with more programs for us to use? What the hell is wrong with these people? I've seen too many anti-trust suits like this.
I could rant, really; but I'll put this simply enough: It's nice when you get software bundled with the system; it's anticompetetive when the system is designed to detect competing software and prevent it from running properly. Until the second case is true, this is all bullshit and these lawyers need to find a new hobby.
Next week, Canonical gets sued for shipping Ubuntu with Firefox instead of Opera; Novell gets sued for shipping GNOME instead of KDE; and the XFCE guys sue everyone because nobody uses their desktop environment.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
No, it couldn't, and no, it isn't. MS has far too much power and (more importantly) far too much money for such a thing to EVER happen. The opportunity was lost back in the 90s when Clinton called off the justice department actions in exchange for an endorsement of the clipper chip.
The only vulnerability faced by MS are a voting public that tires of ever-increasing taxes and millages to pay for MS software in the schools and the government offices. The student/home edition of MS software was released to squash what little resistance remained in even that arena.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Maybe, but it still doesn't force you to install Outlook. I seem to recall that the installer allowed you to install, provisionally install, or not install each component separately. So you could by the cheaper version which included the programs you don't want and just unselect those components during the install.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I loved this part:
"ECIS is a front for IBM and a few other competitors who constantly seek to use the regulatory process to their business advantage. When faced with innovation, they choose litigation,"
Which screams out the need for this obligatory quote from Inigo Montoya:
Microsoft: "INNOVATION!"
Rest of World: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
No matter where you go... there you are.
Although their is no contradiction in them recommending MSW and suing MS about bundling and keeping the price artifically high. In fact, the opposite is true. If they didn't like MSW they would probably just sell free software OSs, and not care.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
First, in no way shape or form am I a Microsoft customer or sympathizer. I do not have a need for, nor do I like any of their software that I have used to date.
However, things like Outlook with Office and Active Directory with Windows Server, as well as the bundling of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Server with its desktop and server operating system respectively.
Outlook with office? Why can't I get an extra piece of email and calendar software with an office suite? By no means is anybody required to purchase Office. There are alternatives. Even if Office is bundled with a PC, it is always an option, not a requirement.
Active directory with Windows Server? OS X has directory services, to some degree so do Linux/UNIX systems ass well. I've heard that AD is actually the best of that type of thing, I just have never had the need to use it. What else does the exorbinate price of Windows Server come with, and what is it supposed to do? If its just sharing files, won't any CIFS or SMB solution suffice?
Windows Media Player and Windows Media Server coming with desktop and server OSs iTunes comes with OS X, and is freely available for Windows as well, along with Winamp, and a plenty of other media players. If in 2006 a computer does not come with a basic media player, that is a crime, including one is not. Media Server with a server? QuickTime Streaming Server comes with OS X server, and plenty of other similar products can be found for UNIX/Linux, etc.
Now, if the EC wants to complain about OEM muscling, the Windows tax, the vendor lockin, lack of standards compliance and/or making Microsoft "standards" and document formats known, and other valid monopoly complaints, that is fine by me, but including standard tools and services with their OSs is expected.
I posted this deep in a conversation, so I'll repost it. The matter at hand is not whether or not you thing its a legitimate business practice for Microsoft to bundle products. The legal issues are far more limited than that. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, so its business practices are very, very tightly controlled under anti-trust regulations. The rules that apply to Microsoft are very different than the rules that apply to say, Apple, or Sun, or IBM. When you've been convicted of having an illegal monopoly, you have to abide by certain rules, or face legal action. If you disagree with this, the proper place to register complaints is with congress, not the courts. The courts have to make judgements on the existing legal framework, and under this framework Microsoft is not permitted certain business practices that would be perfectly fine for anyone else.
Bundling by a monopolist is considered "tying". Tying is illegal under the Sherman Anti-trust act.
Vertical tying is the practice of requiring customers to purchase related products or services from the same company. For example, a company's automobile only runs on its own proprietary gas and can only be serviced by its own dealers. In an effort to curb this, many jurisdictions require that warranties not be voided by outside servicing; for example see the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act in the United States. More recently, video game consoles run only software licensed by the console manufacturer and use lockout chips to enforce this.
Microsoft ties together Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express.
Tying may be the action of several companies, as well as the work of just one firm.
It was first made potentially illegal in the United States by the Sherman Antitrust Act (section 1) if the firm has market power in the tying good, and a "non-trivial" amount of business is affected by the tying. See International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U.S. 392 (1947).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying
At issue is not whether or not this is a reasonable law; but whether or not Microsoft has violated it.
A) Microsoft is a convicted monopolist.
B) Microsoft ties its products together.
C) Tying of its products affects a substantial number of businesses
D) The DoJ settlement did not measurably reduce Microsoft's market power.
Therefore, a new antitrust case is in order.
If you disagree, don't argue about the courts; they are just doing their job. Congress will have to pass some legislation either revoking the Sherman AntiTrust act, or specifically exempting Microsoft.
Regardless of whether or not you support Microsoft, you should support the rule of law. If you believe that Microsoft should be permitted to tie products together, you should be writing your congress man, not bitching about federal courts.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
... I want every microsoft product bundled for free with Windows. Am I alone in this? I don't want to have to install windows, download a browser, download or install an office suite, download or install an email client, download or install a chat client, download or install CD burning software or download or install streaming media software.
I remember the dark ages of streaming media, when I had to install that festering pile of stink called Real Player on my computer and every other computer I knew of, so that they could get the full web experience.
When Windows boots for the first time, there should be a full suite of "Good enough" software to at least operate in the short term until I can replace it with something I might like better.
As I see it I can either:
A) Boot up with no software, which forces me to download everything.
B) Boot up with crappy software that gets the job done.
I choose the latter. Knowing it doesn't matter what windows XP machine on earth I'm on, I'll have a media player and a chat client is a huge plus in my mind.
Microsoft could be shattered into separate companies. A Windows OS company. An Office productivity software company. A media player company (which would last about a fortnight)
And every one of those companies would be a monopoly in their field. Windows would still have 90%+ market share, IE Corp would still have a monopoly on browsers, Office would still command it's share, and WMP? well, it's either that, real, or Apple. Real might as well be declared dead and Apple is gaining market share through Itunes anyway through Ipod sales even though WMP is bundled. So I guess that means we need to split it up down to word inc, excel inc, windows server Inc, WMA Audio Inc, ETC, OOPS! the're still monopolies...
In fact, Apple and Mozilla are shining examples of software that competes very well in the MS monopoly. Why? because they don't suck, spam you, or are owned by someone who doesn't know what to do with it. Most of the companies that screamed monopoly Either got bought out and flushed by whoever bought them out (Wordperfect and Lotus), Made a shoddy product (Netscape), started using their client for ad revenue to the point of becoming practially spyware (Real), or did a combination of the three. Meanwhile, Microsoft slowly surpassed them while they were screwing around.
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