Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft To Fight Korean Verdict
DocHart wrote to mention a BBC article covering Microsoft's appeal against their recent Korean ruling. From the article: "The KFTC continued to investigate Microsoft's practices, despite the firm paying Daum $30m in November to end their dispute. The ruling of the KFTC echoes a similar 2004 judgement by the European Commission, which also found that Microsoft was abusing its market domination. Microsoft's rivals have since accused the firm of dragging its feet over unbundling its software in Europe, something Microsoft denies. "
because they arent the underdogs?
what is so bad about bundling?
Maybe this can refresh your memory.
If Microsoft didn't bundle internet explorer, both IE and Netscape would keep fighting to deliver better, more secure products. It's been 10 years since Windows 95 came out, and viruses have multiplied via internet explorer security flaws.
Bundling in and of itself is not a bad thing. Having a monopoly in and of itself is legal. However, when you use your monopoly to gain leverage from bundled products in order to eliminate competition, that is a bad thing; and that is what Microsoft has been found guilty of doing.
Judging by the revolving release date of Vista, I wouldn't say they're capable of doing the unbundling any faster. Let's face it. That's how long it's taking them to do something that they really really want to get finished...
And, most importantly, you can choose which pieces you want to install, and only have the ones you want. They're just on the distribution as a courtesy.
There is a difference between saying "here is your OS, and by the way, we've included scads of optional stuff you can install or not as you wish" and the Microsoft position of "here is your OS, we've also given your our media player, conveniently given you links to drive you to MSN and Passport, and given you no way to choose not to install them".
Those components come with the base OS and need to be separately uninstalled, if it can be uninstalled at all.
In the article, they say "Korean customers can easily download rival systems", well, why not put the competitors on equal footing and allow you do download the MS offerings if you want? They defend it as saying that people wouldn't know how, or it's too much hassle; but tout it as a perfectly good way to get the competitors products -- the difference is the competitors don't have the same luxury of shoving the apps down the user's throats when they install the OS.
Meaning they get to ensure that since everyone is going to have their OS, that the user should be presented with their (often crappy) apps first. Want to include 'em in your distribution and make them truly optional components go ahead. Want to make them installed and entrenched from the get go, not a good plan.
If users had to always find and install the apps they needed ( or at least choose them ), they would understand that the defaults provided are neither required, nor always 'best of breed'. When people get the MS stuff by default, they just assume they have to do it.
I totally agree you should be able to buy a Windows operating system without getting the implied Microsoft bundled applications, which keep causing secutiry issues for people who don't otherwise know better.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's not so much that the EU said "MS abuses its monopoly, so they pay XXX $". The EU court decided that MS abuses its monopoly to curb competition and development, and ruled that MS has to stop abusing its position. In case they do not comply with the court's ruling, they have to pay a penalty.
Im my books, companies are corporate bodies, and as such, they have to respect the law. Just like I have to. If I break the law, and am considered guilty, I have to pay a fine.
Why should it be different for corporations?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There just seems to be a trend of "let's figure out something to prosecute MS for".
"Hey, why not prosecute them for their illegal abuses of monopoly power?"
"Brilliant! Have a Guinness."
What's the conspiracy again? I could believe selective enforcement (provided other companies who appear to be getting away with similar acts), but Microsoft has been found to be abusing their monopoly in the U.S., Europe, and now Korea.
But in answer to your first question, it becomes state-sponsored extortion at the point where MS is no longer actually guilty of the things they are accused. Their reluctance to comply with even the wishy-washy U.S. judgement indicates that reform is a long way in coming.
The enemies of Democracy are
Is MS really that evil that they are breaking laws all over the world illegally using their defacto monopoly?
They were convicted of breaking the law in America.
The court trial in which they were convicted of breaking the law in America never reached the remedy/punishment phase. A new political administration simply quietly terminated the antitrust case with some handwaving before it could complete, with no real-world steps taken to stop Microsoft's existing antitrust violations or prevent them in future.
So Microsoft broke the law in America, was convicted in a court of law, and no one ever did anything to make them stop breaking the law. So is it that surprising that they're breaking the law in the rest of the world as well?
I don't see why Microsoft apologists keep falling back on this talking point of claiming that these fines and such are all about the money. If Microsoft would obey the law, they wouldn't have to pay these fines and settlements and whatnot. The power to end these fines is in Microsoft's hands. Microsoft prefers to pay fines and settlements rather than obey the law. What terrible extortionists these horrible statist states are, making Microsoft pay money until they stop doing illegal things. Who do they think they are? They're almost acting like they think they're autonomous countries with the power to pass and enforce laws within their own borders.
Is windows "N" the dominant windows version? Providing the option at the same price does not alter the way MS is anticompetitive. People who will buy windows "N" are the same people that use alternative media players anyway (providing you can find windows N on the shelves, where I live it wasn't). So the damage to microsoft's plan to leverage its monopoly: Zero. The EU was 'outsmarted' on this one. I hope it has people with a clue on board this time. A better plan would be to somehow make MS sell windows N exclusively, or to order MS to make wmp uninstallable. On the current case against MS in the EU: 'Opening up' MS a bit will not only benefit Europe, but the whole world.
At what point does extracting huge gobs of money from every nation in the world on terms they have no control over NOT become corporate extortion and economic subservience?
Yes, of course they have a defacto monopoly. When 90-95% of all computers run a Windows OS, how the heck is that not a de-facto monopoly? When Microsoft gets to decide they've innovated a new knock off of someone else's software and all people should get it, that's an abuse of a monopoly -- because consumers have no choice and they get to usurp someone else's market all in one go.
Microsoft is saying "we wish to sell our software globally, and purely on our terms, deal with it". The countries are saying "sorry, but you must adhere to the following restrictions if you wish to do business here". Most notably, to sell the OS without every MS app under the sun bundled to allow others to have equal access to the market
Say, country XZY has a small, but thriving software industry. They've got their own XYZ specific IM company, their own XYZ specific search engine, and a whole raft of webmail companies. Microsoft suddenly adds those features to their OS, makes them so they can't be unbundled, and when you install the next version of the OS, it installs itsself as the default and makes it difficult for you to get your XYZ specific stuff back. Effectively, putting the local company out of business, or seriously cutting into their revenue, thus sending even more of your dollars to Microsoft with no recourse -- all by making it the default with the OS.
The ability to push your own interests and products to the exclusion of all of your competitors, and in a way they do not have access to because you control the infrastructure -- that's a monopoly. Microsoft keeps talking about their freedom to innovate, which is a double edged sword that also means their freedom to ram stuff down people's throats and exclude their competitors at a whim. Their competitors do not have access to that distribution channel.
So, yes, what Microsoft is doing is BAD.
These countries are trying to ensure that at least some small percentage of the nation's software expenditures have a chance of going back to local companies. As opposed to Microsoft guaranteeing themselves the right to scrape as much money as they want out of a country.
Microsoft just thinks they should be able to sell on their terms, and all other considerations are secondary.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Apple's iTunes has such a large presence on Windows Machines.
Umm... that was the whole point. The gp said:
If you have a product that you want to sell but Microsoft bundles a similar product into its monopoly product it will kill your product.
Microsoft doesn't have a product competitive to iTunes yet, when they do they can use their monopolistic advantage to promote it.
Find coupons in Greeley
Additionally when you look at the linux/*bsd distros they usually have multiple choices for software, ie you want a video player, you can choice xanim, mplayer, xine you want an IDE eclipse, kdevelop, emacs (which is really everything), glade.
You get choices on what you install and no particular product is promoted over another by the distro, excluding desktops which usually has a default but even there you have the choice on other desktops that you can install.
Microsoft does no such thing they say here you have a media player it is shiny and pretty, when you are installing they keep telling you how great the bundled features are so when you actually finish the install most users are brainwashed and never even consider alternative software.
So to summarise, Linux (as my example) says you want a media player, cool which one here is a list of bundled choices choose whichever one you like.
Windows says ohhh look at the pretty media player we have given you, you shall use it with its new widgets and you will like it, if you try and remove it we will break everything so you have to reinstall so we can try and brain wash you again.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
I suspect all these countries that go after MS still have MASSIVE installed bases of MS software. Are all these fines just a round about way of getting lower license costs?
Only in the same way that going after drug dealers is a way to get cheaper sports cars onto the market. In other words: Yes, if you insist on some really convoluted thinking, you can construct that being the case. For everyone who likes Ockham's Razor better, the case is simple close-and-shut: Criminal company breaks law and gets sued.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Back when I was young, monopolies were considered BAD in the US.
Me too. I'm afraid Reagan ushered in a new age of stupidity in otherwise smart people.
So many of these new "free marketeers" are simply 100% ignorant of the ramifications of their beliefs. They have thought it out, and being otherwise intelligent people have decided that greed makes sense and if everyone would just be completely greedy, we'd have this perfect world...
It takes a faith stronger than any Christians' to continue to believe in a completely free market in the face of massive evidence that it needs significant controls, so trying to reason with them isn't useful. Also, remember that many of these people are quite smart and used to being right--it's much more difficult for such an individual to recognize when he's got good logic but is working from bad assumptions.
I think we have to wait for the next reset, probably a massively serious depression, before we swing back to a more worker-based system. Maybe next time we'll pass a few more permanent laws so that the next wave of "neo rich" can't dismantle them so easily.
Americans (Humans?) have such short memories and are doomed to repeat their mistakes no matter how clearly those who actually understand try to explain.
What is illegal about having a monopoly? There is no law (in the US) against having a monopoly. The illegality begins with what you do with the monopoly, not having it.
MS may have killed Netscape, but only by pulling the trigger. Netscape had already shoved the gun barrel down it's own throat.
Yes, but I'm not talking about Netscape's death. I'm talking about MSIE's artificial domination of the market and their most stupid idea (created to "compete" with Netscape's plugins) in the world: ActiveX. The thing was a hacker's dream come true. I still remember the days where you could open an infected webpage, and a vbscript would be created on your harddrive, filling your computer with trash. I tested some of those vulnerabilities myself on a hacker webpage.
Netscape plugins worked JUST FINE, and they didn't give viruses to your computer. Microsoft's rendering engine was a great achievement, but they had to screw up with their proprietary ActiveX controls. And since they were a monopoly, they didn't have to worry about Netscape getting in the way.
But don't talk about Netscape's death so lightly. Netscape mail was the best mail program that was free at the moment (Eudora mail was shareware, it had an expiration date - i only decided to stop using NS Mail when the html mails screwed around with the html engine, and i moved to Yahoo).
And this leads us to another of Microsoft's mistakes: Outlook express, which was *BUNDLED* with Windows, too.
It seemed as if every bundled package in windows (Outlook express, MSIE, WMP, IIS) had a backdoor to be used by blackhats to mess around with our PC's.
Except this lawsuit is in South Korea and doesn't have anything to do with the Netscape vs. IE bundling case. The complaint South Korea has filed relates to including Windows Messenger as part of Windows, which a South Korean firm named "Daum Communications" claims is impeding their ability to compete in the IM market.
The point is, every country on the planet has some little company which makes a product that competes with something inside Windows. So where do these lawsuits end? These types of verdicts are thinly disguised extortion of a hated American company.
Your argument seems to be, "Well, they were convicted of competing illegally against Netscape in the U.S., therefore all of their other business practices are probably illegal too." In other words, now they are guilty until proven innocent. It's faulty reasoning. Every situation is different.
You keep using the expressions "break the law" and "obey the law" as though the law is clear-cut in these circumstances. Your view of "the law" is incredibly naive: the law is anything but clear here. What exactly do you want Microsoft to do in the Korean case to "Obey the law"? Please explain what *specifically* they must do to be a "law-abiding" company in your eyes, or rather what they are currently doing that is specifically illegal in your view?
The specifics of this case are *very* weak for the Korean government. It's not even clear that Microsoft knew anything about this little company named Daum Communications when Windows Messenger was added. It is a completely different situation to the IE vs. Netscape situation, where Microsoft clearly aimed its strategy at taking out Netscape as a competitive entity. If you don't even know about a competitor or don't even consider them a competitor, how can you be guilty of conspiring against them?
You do, however, remain free not to use them - which is the important part.
You are free to not use them, but you are not free to:
a) Uninstall them.
b) Not be counted as having them as a windows user.
This lets web developers or media companies assume that 90% of the world have the capability of rendering an IE only page, or playing a wmv file legally, so they can default to microsoft products and not be losing over 10% of their audiance. But this is anti-competetive. And this is how microsoft leverages its monopoly. DivX was a great format alot before wmv caught up and arguably it is still better than wmv, yet most DVD players support windows media, because it can surely be played on 90% of the computers on earth. This is a format war, if it was about customer experience, they would ship all the codecs with wmp (like divX) instead of making you search to download it. (And obviously they have the money to pay any license fee, or pass the cost on to me. If something, this is the good thing about an OS you pay for, that you can integrate the cost of licensing technologies in the cost of the system.) In conclusion, let microsoft bundle anything they want (I would expect a web browser with my OS for example), just give people the choice to _not_ have it on their system if they are not using them.