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Microsoft Accuses European Union of Collusion
GarbagePailKid wrote to mention the news that Microsoft has filed a formal complaint alleging that the EU colluded with company rivals and hid critical documents during the EU regulation hearings. According to Microsoft: "While the documents provided do not include the direct correspondence between the commission and its technical experts, they show that the commission, the trustee, and Microsoft's adversaries were secretly collaborating throughout the fall of 2005 in a manner inconsistent with the commission's role as neutral regulator and the Trustee's role as independent monitor..."
What's interesting about this is MS's increasingly aggressive stance towards the Commission. There seems to be some tension between the stance taken by the Commission on software patents (where McCreavy in particular is seen to be strongly influenced by MS) and these anti-monopolistic actions.
One wonders if an antagonistic relationship will be beneficial to our favourite monopolist in the long run... Is this a sign of desperation or of arrogance?
Now, perhaps you could list a list of SPECIFIC cases where the EU is seen as corrupt? Also, please refresh my memory about how the EU is even remotely as bad as the Bush administration (Halliburton, oil companies etc.) in this regard?
Jay-walking is against the law. Do you ALWAYS obey it even though it is a stupid law? Should you be shot in the leg after the first, second, or third offense to discourage you from doing it again? And I am not saying that the anti-trust act is stupid, I'm saying that declaring a corporation a monopoly and fining them because the OS THEY made comes with THEIR internet browser that is an integral part of the system and THEIR media player installed by default.
Stick to the topic. This is not about the browser, this is about the interfaces to the server OS. Bundling is illegal in almost every jurisdiction because it is a simple and easy way to use a monopoly to move into and take over new markets with products that are no better (and often worse) than the competition. Tying, is slightly more complex. The gist of it is, Windows server editions have an advantage over a Linux or Solaris box because they can speak all the secret protocols used to communicate with the desktop. This includes exchange, active directory, etc. As a result of this, Windows servers have an advantage based solely in the fact that they are made by the same company as Windows desktop. Windows servers are generally slower, less secure, less reliable, and can't multitask for crap, but they are tied to Windows desktop and Windows desktop OS's have a monopoly so everyone has to talk to them.
Thus MS was convicted, as they had been in the US and several other countries and as part of their punishment they were ordered to document all those secret interfaces by which their server was being illegally given an advantage. They are in the process of trying to weasel out of that. The reason: they know they can't compete in a fair market but they want to take over that market anyway and they don't mind breaking the law until someone manages to force them to stop.
If you'd like an explanation as to why bundling the browser and media player are illegal and bad for the industry (and can't already see the parallel) just ask, or go ahead and do a Google search. Antitrust law is very well explained many places online.
The long and short is they broke the law and it hurt everyone in the industry. I know a number of sysadmins who run Windows servers as well as Linux simply because they need something that can talk to exchange and active directory. Those servers usually only run one application, since Windows becomes unstable with multiple ones under load. They basically suck, but MS was paid for them anyway. How many billions of dollars did that suck out of countries around the globe? How many cool new technologies were not developed as people struggled to reverse engineer these secret protocols? How much manpower was wasted? How much did the computing industry suffer?