New Blow for Microsoft in EU Row

twitter writes "The BBC is reporting on a stinging rebuke to Microsoft and their last defensive move in the EU anti-trust trials. Boston district court judge Mark Wolf accused Microsoft of trying to 'circumvent and undermine' European Law by requesting Novell documents. The story reminds us that last month, a federal judge in California denied subpoenas of Oracle and Sun for the same reasons, that a New York judge is currently considering a request against IBM and that Microsoft will be appealing their March 2004 conviction next week and may face millions of dollars of fines a day. New complaints were made just two months ago."

Comments

I still don't get it

[7of7]

I know that Microsoft has a genuinely shady past in terms of business practices, but the "new charges" seem to be awfully weak to me. From TLFA "as well as the bundling of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Server with its desktop and server operating system respectively." Now I could be wrong, but last time I checked every OS comes with a Media Player. At some point you just have to wonder what the real point of these suits is if they're not going to call MS on its real bad business practices and will instead throw questionable charges at Microsoft. That's an awfully weak case IMHOP.

Re:I still don't get it

[trewornan]

Well Al Capone had a shady past but the authorities couldn't prove much of what they knew so in the end they went for the weaker charge of tax evasion. Tax evasion was something they could prove and still a crime - that they would've liked to get him on many other things but couldn't is a side issue.

Go EU! If they can nail these bastards on any charges, good for them.

Re:I still don't get it

[TubeSteak]

At some point you just have to wonder what the real point of these suits is if they're not going to call MS on its real bad business practices and will instead throw questionable charges at Microsoft.

The definition of "real bad business practices" depends on what part of the world you're in.

http://tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=business&s=risen03 3004

In simplified terms, American antitrust, like much of our country's regulatory philosophy, aims to create a level playing field on which all companies, small or large, can compete; the focus is on protecting consumers through ensuring competitive markets.
...
  In Europe, antitrust laws focus less on consumer protection than on competitor protection; the ability of companies to compete, regardless of whether their existence helps consumers, is what's important. From the European perspective, a near-monopoly market share is almost always a bad thing; furthermore, even if a big company is playing by the rules, it has an obligation to make sure it doesn't crowd out smaller competitors.

Since Microsoft Windows has 9x% of the marketplace... pretty much anything MS bundles with Windows is going to limit competition in the marketplace.

And I don't think the Europeans are specifically hating on MS. I imagine that if Apple had 9x% of the market, the regulators would get on Apple's case over all the bundled apps in OSX.

Re:I still don't get it

[Foofoobar]

Yes but not every media player comes with an OS.

When was the last time you were able to buy Windows Media Player in a store? How about online?

Aside from that, have you tried to remove it from the system lately? You can't. You can route around it and divert away buit it's as bundled into the kernel as Internet Exploder is.

Re:I still don't get it

[shawb]

The problem isn't so much that they are a monopoly, but they are using their monopoly in one market (OS) to leverage power over competitors in another market (media player.) Being a monopoly is not in and of itself a bad thing, but using the power that comes with being a monopoly to stifle competition is a very bad thing in a capitolistic market.

Re:I still don't get it

[j_s_summers]

What media player market? The last time I checked, Real Player and Quicktime were both FREE products. If you think that there's a media player market, then isn't also a text editor market? There are companies that sell text editors (notetab, textpad, etc). Should microsoft stop including notepad and wordpad with windows?

Re:I still don't get it

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

they were actually convicted of (ab)using their monopoly position in the desktop pc operating system market to gain market share in other markets.

Re:I still don't get it

[mrchaotica]

But the fact remains that there is really nothing stopping anyone from NOT using Microsoft products. Everyone is free to choose whatever OS they want. Of course, most of the "good" applications only run on Windows. Is that MS's fault? No.

Yes, it is Microsoft's fault because they used illegal business practices to get that monopoly. It is Microsoft's fault that I can't make use of the public library's downloadable media (which uses Windows Media DRM), despite the fact that it was paid for with my taxes! It is Microsoft's fault that I can't access most streaming video on the Internet because the companies providing it chose to use WMV, and did so as an effect of Microsoft's monopoly.

Re:I still don't get it

[Dcnjoe60]

Apple releases a poor port of their QuickTime player for Windows and assumes that's enough. Their goal is to keep users frustrated enough to jump ship and switch to OS X so QuickTime "simply works better". Guess what? Switching platforms is not an easy proposition if you have a lot of investments in Windows software, even cross-platform apps like Photoshop or Flash.

Ummm, wasn't it pointed out in the earlier trial that the poor port of Quicktime was because Apple ported it to the then published Microsoft media specs, whereas Microsoft's own media player used undocumented APIs? Wouldn't that qualify as the abuse you are looking for? Well, at least the courts thought so.

Where's the abuse from Microsoft? Have they made these players perform poorly on Windows? Have they made it difficult to install these apps? Does Windows Media Player hijack file formats without asking the user first? The answer to all of these is no. Microsoft's media player meet the needs of media distributors and this is why it's used widely on the internet, not because it's installed with Windows (you can actually uninstall it by the way, it's not linked to the OS in the same way IE is).

Has Microsoft made it difficult to install third party media players? Yes. You can't even fully uninstall Microsoft's media player, only make it so it's not the default, but the guts are still there. Does it hijack file formats without asking? Only after doing an update.

As for Microsof't media player meeting the needs of media distributors, thankyou, you just proved the monopoly case. The only reason it became popular is because prior to that there were several options. It was only after Microsoft bundled media player with their OS that it became widespread (prior to that, you could download it seperately). The only "need" it met was that media distributors new it was now installed on every windows pc and didn't have to worry about any other format. The fact that Microsoft controlled the OS is what allowed this to occur at the expense of other media formats and vendors. If Microsoft had bundled Quicktime with Windows, then it would have been the default. The difference being, that they didn't license Quicktime (or Real), the came out with their own product and by using their monopoly power took over the media market.

That is why, with the exception of DRM, there hasn't been any real innovation with Windows Media Player. There is no competition, so there is no reason innovate. And for the record, you cannot fully unninstall Windows Media Player. The core DLLs and hooks are still there.

Face it, there are better players than media player. There are better encoders and formats than media player. There are better interfaces than media player. The only thing that makes it the standard on windows is not that it meets media distributors or users needs, but that it is bundled with Windows.

Remember, long before the EU got involved, the US courts declared Microsoft an illegal monopoly. The remedies to the findings were challenged and later changed, but not the original ruling. The fact that the EU has come to the same conclusion shouldn't be a suprise. It's not "slashbots" or the courts who are destroying Microsoft. It's Microsoft collapsing under it's own weight.

Re:I still don't get it

[NoOneInParticular]

Media player market: both the actual player and the ability to play content (codecs). RM has its own format that it tries (tried) to license out, and now MS tries to get a monopoly on that market by (a) making its player standard, (b) making sure that most content will be published in the MS codec, and (c) dissallow other players (especially for other platforms) to make use of the MS codecs. No question marks, profits are at (d). MS owns all.

MS is smart and its plan is good. Many simple minds here at slashdot would see problems with making any of steps (a) to (c) illegal, while at the same time would cry murder when they can't view any content without licensing from MS. Every step is seemingly innocent, the end result is simply that MS has another monopoly: on playing and distributing audio and video no less.

The EU does see the plan and simply decided to stop MS at (a), while at the same time making it more difficult to implement (c) by mandating that MS opens up his protocols. It has never been about the player, always about the codecs: the player simply carries the payload.

Re:I still don't get it

[Registered Coward v2]

In simplified terms, American antitrust, like much of our country's regulatory philosophy, aims to create a level playing field on which all companies, small or large, can compete; the focus is on protecting consumers through ensuring competitive markets.

Actually, much of our regulatory philosophy is to support existing companies and keep out new competitors by introducing barriers to entry; this neither protects consumers nor ensures competitive markets. Regulation keeps sugar prices high; limits the number of barbers (we license them yet no one has ever died from a bad haircut); and limits taxi medallions to keep the number of cabs down (ever wonder why someone will lend millions to a cabbie in NY to buy a medallion? Since NYC controls the number of medallions the collateral is rock solid even if the cabbie is a poor credit risk; VA limits who can pickup and drop off at IAD and DCA). I don't think paying higher prices makes a consumer better off.

Nor is a monopoly automatically bad even if they force others out of the market - if they keep prices below where a competitor can enter the market and make money then I spend less than I would in a more competitive marketplace - and I am better off since I can save or spend the difference.

In Europe, antitrust laws focus less on consumer protection than on competitor protection; the ability of companies to compete, regardless of whether their existence helps consumers, is what's important. From the European perspective, a near-monopoly market share is almost always a bad thing; furthermore, even if a big company is playing by the rules, it has an obligation to make sure it doesn't crowd out smaller competitors.

Which is why EU consumers are generally worse off than American - my European friends pay significantly more for everything, from clothes to cars than I do, and generally make less as well. Look at the row over Tax Free shopping. Germany, for example, used (not sure if they still do) to force stores to sell at the same price and limited operating hours - that helped the small stores but not the average German. No wonder Germans and other Europeans, when they have a choice, shop at WalMart, Corte Inglais, and other large stores that offer lower prices. If the EU ever really embraces competition over protecting entrenched interests they will spark a social and economic revolution (whether that is good or bad is open to debate); if they don't they will lose out to those who do.

Re:I still don't get it

[PPGMD]

Windows Media Player is a value added application, adding or removing it doesn't increase or decrease the price of the Windows product, because you are paying for Windows itself. WMP is paid for by users purchasing Windows Server 2003 to stream the content, and users paying for the encoders to encode the content in a streaming format.

It's the same business model that Real Networks, and Apple use.

Also the OEMs and users have spoken, they don't want Windows XP N, user expect their computer to work out of the box to play some of the more mainstream media formats, and OEMs don't want to take the time to slipstream another media player in the box. The only people that really want this are seething at the teeth Microsoft haters (a very small percentage of computer users), and Microsoft's competitors (the biggest one, Real Networks, had their shot and lost).

This EU business is take two of the monopoly lawsuits, companies like Netscape and Real Networks put out crappy products, and lose to Microsoft, and then try to get an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft. The users didn't jump ship because Microsoft put the product with their OS, they left because your product was utter crap (in the case of Netscape crashing every few minutes, and Real, their server product was even worse).

Re:The EU justice system

[baywulf]

Whether the EU system of justice is fair or not, those are the tradeoffs of becoming a multinational corporation. Corporations have no loyalty to any particular country... they jump around mixing and matching whatever tax systems or legal obligations suit them the best. So why should we Americans give a damm what Microsoft's legal troubles are in the EU system.

Re:The EU justice system

[alphasubzero949]

So why should we Americans give a damm what Microsoft's legal troubles are in the EU system.

For the same reasons we should be giving a damn about Microsoft in the first place. They're still a shady monopoly who got away with murder in the U.S. If MS can bully around the EU legal system, they have carte blanche to pretty much do whatever they damn well please.

No news is good news

[babbling]

Be happy. There's only one way this whole thing is going to end, and that's with the EU dropping or getting soft about the action against Microsoft. Some might say I'm being cynical, but does anyone seriously expect Microsoft to ever comply? The current fines don't seem to be enough, since Microsoft have chosen to just keep pretending they're fixing the problems instead of actually doing anything.

It might be next month, or it might be years from now, but the EU will eventually cave and give in to Microsoft.

Re:No news is good news

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Why? Why not just escalate the fines until MS notices? Or jail a few people for (the EU version of) contempt of court?

Displace and distend

[spisska]

It's refreshing to see that Microsoft's legal strategy of 'displace and distend' is finally running out of gas. Stretching out and distorting legal proceedings through any and all means is exactly how they ended up convicted of but unpunished for abusing a monopoly position in the US. Europe, thankfully, is no such pushover.

It's also refreshing to see that US states (CA and MA) acknowledge that, not only do their state laws not apply to the EU, but that they as states are obliged to protect the legitimate interests of companies located in their states against corporate behaviour that has already been found to be criminal on both sides of the Atlantic.

Microsoft broke the law and has been twice convicted for it. They have, however, paid no price for doing so and have not changed their business habits whatsoever. They are still embracing and extending, they are still moving into new markets to undercut and squeeze out rivals with the help of their OS, and they are still treating market regulators as contemptible wretches who can be outlasted, outspent, and buried under the collective output of an extremely high-priced legal team.

Re:The EU justice system

[Antony T Curtis]

IANAL...

But as far as I know, in a trial, you are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
When it comes to an appeal, you are presumed guilty until proven innocent.

It is the defendant's duty in an appeal to prove that the findings of fact and final judgement in the trial are wrong.

For Microsoft, the trial is already over. They have been found guilty. This is an appeal, they have to either subject themselves to remedies or prove their innocence.

Re:The EU justice system

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can say is : Guantanamo.

If you were on trial, would you like to know what the charges were? Would you prefer the privilege of being presumed innocent? Would you like access to legal representation?

Americans no longer have the right to bitch about human rights or democracy (if they ever did); the sheer, galling hipocracy will merely encourage the rest of the world to hate them more.

Also, as other posters have mentioned, US law is utterly irrelevant outside of US juridiction. You can't pick and choose laws when it suits you, as has been done at Guantanamo.

Re:The EU justice system

[trewornan]

Why don't we just seal up our borders and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist?

The rest of the world would be delighted if the US did exactly that.

Re:The EU justice system

[shrik3]

Why don't we just seal up our borders and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist?

Because your SUVs would run out of gas.

Re:A Mindshare Monopoly - Not a Traditional Monopo

[Pecisk]

Yeah, right...

Microsoft *have* PC desktop monopoly, period. It is nothing wrong with that. Problem is - they have used all their monopoly power and benefits what they have because of that to...crush competition in semilegal ways, but mostly, with problems of compability for them (t.i. competition).

It is illegal and really *should* be illegal. Personally I don't give a damn that Microsoft has bilions, that it has very big market cap. I simply don't use their products, because Linux *for me* works. OS X works. Windows - very rarerly. And ALL I want is God damnn compability in protocols and several very popular file formats (MS Office).

And all these years I have wondered - why they are so resisting to share their stack with other world? They want to be only ones? Then screw them. If you mess with my life such way, I will mess with you, Microsoft.

I don't care about mindshare - it is still very hard to find very good and clever specialist to configure or even fix Exchange (I don't say anything how it is good or bad in usage, but for IT guys it is usually nightmare to support it in serious envorement). It is still very hard to find solution to rare problem of drivers, Office, any out-of-date software. It is hard to configure different apps to use different libraries in Windows. For me, Windows mindshare is just one part of IT. If IT specialist doesn't know other things than Windows, then...he will be clearly lost at some point of his career.

So, no. Microsoft has monopoly on several very important markets. It abused its position so often that I even don't believe they can be pushed to change a little bit in rational way. And its brainshare is very lofty and unconcrete mess.

Re:Why not subpoena in Europe?

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

i'm saying that companies dont have ethics or morals, their primary function is to maximise profits.

if a company believes following certain ethical or moral guidelines is the best way to maximise profits, thats what they'll do, but they'll be doing it in order to maximise profits, not to be moral or ethical just for the sake of it.

Re:DAMMIT.

[Plunky]

The court then replies: So what? European courts have their own mechanisms. The only basis for your demand is that you don't like the outcome of those mechanisms and want an American court to interfere with the European proceedings. It would improper for us to grant you that wish.

and I am left wondering if there isnt a little resentment (maybe not the right word) on the part of the judges in the USA - Microsoft were convicted there and seemingly paid off the politicians to get out of being punished. Thats a slap in the face for the judiciary and I can't see them going out of their way to assist Microsoft weasel out of a deserved punishment again even if it is in a different jurisdiction.

Re:The EU justice system

[Tom]

Why don't we just seal up our borders and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist?

Because you'd be back in the stone age within a decade. The US is the largest importing nation on the globe. 90% of what you can buy at your local Walmart was not made in the US. Not to mention, of course, that you'd all be crying and whining three days after your oil reserves run out.

Re:Why not subpoena in Europe?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Ethics is big right now in MBA programs everywhere (that wish to keep their accreditation). Otherwise, the easiest way to profit is just kill the person next to you and take what he has. Oh wait. That is illegal, immoral, and unethical. Every company has a culture, and within this culture are norms of behavior that define what is "OK" to do. Ignore your companies cultural norms at your own risk. These norms make up an ethical system for that company. Sometimes this works, other times you get Enron or Microsoft.

Re:The EU justice system

[guet]

Maybe next time try not picking up a gun and getting caught in combat.

Many of these people were not in combat or anywhere near it. For example the UK citizens who were snatched in Pakistan or others rounded up by the Northern Alliance. They were suspects, not proven combatants, but they were tortured all the same.

were in bed with an Iraqi dictator while criticizing the "human rights" behavior

Are you purposely wallowing in hypocrisy or do you just not know that the US (+ UK + many others) supplied arms and backed Saddam during one of the most bloody wars of the 80's (Iran/Iraq war), and only turned against him at the end of it when his delusions of grandeur became an irritant? Millions died in that little sideshow of the Great Game. Seen the photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam on a trade mission? The very same Rumsfeld who architected this bungled attempt at an occupation. The same one who will lead you to invade Iran too, with disastrous results.

I suppose you hate the French as well as the UN - I'm surprised and dissapointed at all the narrow ignorance I read on predominantly American sites like this one. The UN is corrupt, and needs to be fixed, however the likes of John Bolton aren't going to do it, and this kind of posturing about UN corruption isn't going to help either - the current US administration is riddled with corruption, are you complaining as vociferously about that?

Most of them hate America out of jealousy and spite.

I'd be willing to bet you know no-one who hates America. You are in no position to judge their motives; in order to understand you'd have to be a little more frank with yourself and accept that an empire has its costs, amongst them the enmity of those you have subjugated.

Will the EU give in to Mircrosoft?

[Savage-Rabbit]

It might be next month, or it might be years from now, but the EU will eventually cave and give in to Microsoft.

I don't think so! It is in the interest of the US to maintain the Microsoft monopoly just like it was and still is in their interest to maintain other monopolies or market dominances such as the one Boeing had over the commercial airliner market. It turned out to be in the interest of the European Union to crack the Boeing dominance, Airbus is wiping the floor with Boeing on a number of levels these days, and that example showed alot of people over here that the US corporations can be defeated even if they are supported by the US government. It is in the interest of the European Union to crack Microsoft's stranglehold on the European market since that will only boost their own software industries if they play their cards right. Despite the dismissive attitudes of US neocons toward Europe as a place to do business the European Union is still a market of 460 million people and as such it represents a very significant source of revenue for Microsoft. Threatening this revenue gives the EU considerable leverage against Microsoft and since MS is a US corporation the EU has little motivation to be kind to them.

The real point

[LaughingCoder]

At some point you just have to wonder what the real point of these suits is ...

Hmmm, Microsoft has a big pile of money. Everybody wants it. That would be the real point.

Nonsense.

[jotaeleemeese]

If your "big corporation" is full of prgramming cowboys you can't extrapolate that to all the other big corporations.

There are many corporations that document properly their programms, including detailed API information.

I would expect thisto be the case in a software development company like MS.

Re:So in the Shiny Tomorrow...

[aussersterne]

The decaying European economy? The world is moving to the euro and away from the dollar. That's one of the reasons the US invaded Iraq: it was about to become the first major oil player to switch away from dollar-based production and tie itself to the euro, and the US couldn't afford to cede that.

Europe isn't acting like a prostitute, it's acting like the consumer protector that the US has never, ever been, much to its shame.

Re:Microsoft Shrugs

[nickco3]

I dont understand why MS doesnt just say "Ok, fuck you" and withdraw from europe.

You've got this backwards. All the Microsoft products being withdrawn from Europe is the EU's nuclear option against Microsoft, *not* the other way around.

Microsoft would probably survive such a move, albeit in some reduced form. Gates and Ballmer certainly wouldn't, the shareholders would have their heads on a pole.

RE: MS can't win. And they know it.

[carrier lost]

I respectfully disagree with this comment.

I think Microsoft is fighting tooth-and-nail to withold the information necessary to interoperate seamlessly with Office (particularly Word and Excel) and Windows. Once that information is out, Samba, Open Office and a ragged horde of other smaller, free applications will slaughter those two cash cows and Microsoft will be mortally wounded.

"They simply CANNOT produce those docs. They most likely don't exist."

Enough of this documentation exists so that newer developers can create newer versions of Office which interoperate with older versions. That's all that's necessary.

Just my opinion, anyway

MjM