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Microsoft turns to U.S. for EU Antitrust Help
An anonymous reader writes "The NY times reports that Microsoft has asked U.S. goverment officials to intervene on their behalf in the EU antitrust case. The US (through diplomatic channels) has asked the court to be 'fair'." From the article: "Microsoft has complained frequently in recent months that it has been denied the right to a fair defense in the continuing antitrust case with the European Commission. It has also accused the commission of collaborating with its rivals in the software industry and denying it access to what it contends are vital documents it needs to prepare its defense. A memo written by unidentified government officials in Washington stated that Microsoft's complaints raise 'substantial concerns' about the way Microsoft is being treated, according to a person close to the commission who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the memo."
Why doesn't M$ just defends itself with good arguments instead of requiring help from US government. If you're sure of your case, don't need to be scared ;-)
who lies more? the government or microsoft. beats the crap out of me. but if they are both saying the same thing, then this is easy.
Yes this was reported earlier, though I do not remember if Microsoft "formally" requested help from the U.S. An official from the DOJ was telling the EU that they should treat Microsoft fairly and that official held up the U.S.'s Anti-trust case as an example on how to treat Microsoft.
Thankfully the EU, so far, has told the U.S. (in some many words), to go F@$# itself. Rolling over is not the way to treat Microsoft. The EU has legitimate gripes with MS. MS failed to deliver documentation explaining one of their APIs, with which program can be made to work with Windows. This is gross negligence on MS's part.
The irony is it takes a foreign governmental body to discipline a mis-behaving U.S. company.
Oh Teddy Roosevelt where are you when we need you!
Well, which success are they speaking about? Has Microsoft monopolistic behaviour changed anyway since this "successfull" rulling has taken place? In some PR speech perhaps.
The DOJ settlement was only successfull for Microsoft, its shareholders, and for nobody else.
Has anybody heard of any positive effects it would have had?
I am not so sure the EU will buy such a weak argument. At least I hope it does not.
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
So when Microsoft plays unfairly with it's competitors it's fine. But when the EU does it to them, they run to daddy?
I think you suffer from a serious prospective problem. You sound like my 5 year old cousin whining after he gets caught.. "but he hit me first". Just because they have done Bad Things(TM) in the past doesn't give anyone the right to do Bad Things(TM) to them in the present. Their hearing should be fair... and I don't think it's too much to ask. The entire point of "freedom" and "liberty" is that things are fair for all, even those with whom we disagree... cheering and hoping for injustice against your opponents is borderline facism.
That being said, until I get something other then vague generalities about "documents", it's going to be impossible to convince me that anything unfair is actually occurring.
Yeah, but we're talking about Microsoft.
Microsoft: If you can't beat em, buy em
Government: Bomb em first, then try to beat em.
MS + Government: If you can't beat em, bomb em.
Given the current public opinion in Europe about the current US Administration, i kinda doubt that what amounts to a request from the Bush administration to "Cut some slack with Big American Company" would actually produce any positive results.
Most likelly it will make no difference.
Possible it might actually make things worse for MS.
Additionally that they even asked just reinforces the widespread opinion here in Europe that the US administration (and by association the Americal people) believe that the whole world should play by made-in-US rules except themselfs.
Their hearing should be fair...
Yes, but...
That being said, until I get something other then vague generalities about "documents", it's going to be impossible to convince me that anything unfair is actually occurring.
Exactly. They are being treated fairly. They just claim that they aren't. Just their latest attempt at making the EU fall over like the US did. They hope that somewhere, someone will whisper in the right ears that after those accusations, the punishment should not be too stiff, because it would confirm the (baseless) accusations.
Diplomatic games, that's all.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
As far as I can see, the DOJ did not drop the case for juridical reasons, but for political ones. As in the new adminstration didn't want this case to go any further.
Why might one ask? Well ... one consideration might be that on the whole it wouldn't be in the US interest at all to see its great software champion cut up into "Opsco" and "Appsco" (an Operating System division and an Application Software division). So that competition laws would have to take a backseat to National Interest (which certainly would be a legitimate point of view). I'm sure though that conspiracy theorists could come up with other, less savory, alternatives.
Therefore, err ..., might the EU be justified in expressing "substantial concerns" about "US" motives for having such 'substantial concerns about the whether Microsoft is being treated fairly'?
My second point is that this whole charade began 2 years ago. In 2004. After Microsoft was found guilty of violating EU competition laws and was ordered to disclose publish the API's that allow Windows Clients to interact with Windows Servers, so as to allow others (SUN, IBM, HP, and Samba) to make their OS act as Windows Server to Windows Clients and to allow their clients to log into Windows Servers.
Does that seem reasonsable? I think it does. Because if that sort of inter-operability isn't available then anyone trying to sell a competitor to Windows Server will have to convince their prospect that their (ubiquitous) Windows desktop machines will be running crippled when logging in to their proposed servers. And because anyone pushing Linux desktops will have to explain why it isn't important that they won't be able to work well with their prospect's (widely used) Windows Servers. Either way Microsoft would be using its current monopoly position as a competitive weapon, which is illegal.
Therefore requiring the API's to be published, open, and usable sounds like honest enforcement of competition laws to me. Now Microsoft had 2 whole years to come up with the required documentation.
And what did Microsoft do? They:
Now does that sound as if they were trying to comply with a reasonable request or if they were just trying to get things done their way? I think the latter.
And now that they seem to have lost traction in the EU courts and have reached the deadline they chant that "fines are not the solution" and bring in their big brother to apply some pressure. Well ... it would be a good stunt if they get can away with it, but I'm not sure if this is something we should be happy with.
What MS are after is the same fair treatment that received in US courts, they find it unbelievable that they should actually have to PROVE compliance with a courts decisions and that being found as a monopoly engaged in deliberately predatory approaches should have any punishment doesn't make sense for an organisation used to dealing with the good ole DoJ.
Its quite simply ridiculous that the EU should find a company guilty of being a monopoly that uses that position to crush its opposition AND THEN require the company to change its behaviour. This is a very childish position for the EU to take in this globalised era, sure it might have been okay back with Standard Oil and Bell to force monopolies to change, but that was a different time when goverments actually had some say in how the world worked.
The EU should clearly back down, pay Microsoft compensation for wasting their time, sign software patents into Law and give Microsoft the job of validating them.
Its either that or Microsoft would have to operate legally.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
US tells company to grow up and deal with it like everyone else.
Only in your wildest dreams as long as there's a republican in the white house.
If your memory hasn't yet succumbed to alzheimers, you'll recall that when he came to power, justice was just a few more hearings from issueing a probable breakup order that would make Judge Greens AT&T order look like THE precedent setting order of the century.
He gets sworn in on the 20th of January, and by Feb 1, justice has been told to stand down in no uncertain terms.
Then, just because 'he needs to finish this war' he gets another 4 years to play God from the sheeple. Methinks theres some confusion in his mind as to just who is God, him or the real one.
I didn't vote for him the second time, and I damned sure hope the dems can come up with a candidate that doesn't come with all the baggage the last 2 had a huge excess of, even turning off diehard deomcrats because they were actually seen as the worst of 2 evils.
So the sheeple here voted for the lessor of 2 evils, not fully understanding the depths of the ranking on a true scale.
As a senior citizen who may not have that many more elections to exersize my right to vote in, I am truely sad for my country.
And I would hope, probably futily, that washington will have the decent good sense to stay the hell out of this dogfight, its not theirs, although their past in-actions HAVE certainly allowed it to become one. Its been business as usual in Redmond for 6 years that should never have been allowed to happen IMO.
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Cheers, Gene
Oh, the EU have a whole lot of other options that might very well happen.
For example, if the US went berserk and threatened the EU with economic sanctions if poor, poor Microsoft wasn't met with a bit more forgivingness the EU could settle the case with a slap on the wrist and then ban software (and related) patents in any form, commence a continent-wide government IT switch to Linux/BSD/OS X, decree that each and every document used for conversation between/with governmental bodies has to be in Open Document format (or another open standard where apprpriate) without vendor-specific extensions of any kind and set money aside to subsidize FOSS and companies deploying/switching to FOSS solutions.
Entirely unquestionable, entirely doable and entirely a huge raised middle finger. Not to mention that a lot of ISVs would see this continent-wide switch to *nix as a reason to port their software to *nix, which would not only weaken Microsoft's position in the OS market but also take away one of Windows' biggest strengths.
In the end the result is always the same: Microsoft has to make sure they don't anger the EU enough to warrant serious action against them, even if it would save them in the short term. Microsoft is big but not nearly big enough to stand up against a continent.
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