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EU Fines for Microsoft Approved, Off the Record
mattaw writes "The Register is carrying a report that all 25 member states of the EU have found Microsoft guilty of non-compliance, off the record. Microsoft is in line for a fine of $2.51 million per day backdated to December 15th 2004 for failing to meet the terms of the EU commission's ruling."
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Microsoft is not a human being. Although corporations are sometimes technically given the same status as a "person" for certain legal purposes (like copyright law), this is a legal abstraction and not real. Microsoft can not be "punished" like a naughty puppy.
Money is an abstraction used to medium to facilitate the exchange of goods and service based on supply and demand. It is a tool for expressing the consumer/producer relationship. If you take more pieces of paper (or bits in a computer, nowadays) from Microsoft, you are not fundamentally altering the consumer/producer relationship. Neither the demand nor the supply of the software has changed. Microsoft still demands x share of the total goods and services in the economy in exchange for it's software, nomatter how you juggle the means of exchange. Money is how we measure the relationship, but it is not the relationship itself.
Microsoft, being at the top of the OS market, will simply add the costs of the fines to the price they charge for their OS. It is not like having to sell a version of Windows without Windows Media Player is seriously going to cut into their bottom line. The consumers of Europe are going to pay this fine in the form of higher software costs (both from Microsoft which will recoup the costs in the software price, and Microsoft's competitors who will have less incentive to lower their price if Microsoft is charging more).
This "fine" is simply a tax on European consumers. It is a way for the EU to allocate a larger share of the total goods and services in the economy, and at the same time posturing that they are somehow "helping" Europeans.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition !
Despite my soon to be status of a "M$ fanboi," I'd like to try and attempt something a crowd of engineers has disappointingly failed to do. Take apart the issue and consider it in context.
I see there being two issues here, outside of MS being the embodiment of the Prince of Darkness himself.
1) MS has failed to properly document their OS this makes them evil AND incompetent.
2) This lack of documentation is what led to the demise of Real Player, WinAmp and other fine audio players.
My analysis,
1) MS has failed to properly document their OS this makes them evil AND incompetent.
My guess is that MS is just like every other software developer in the world. They don't document their code well and they don't really enjoy doing it. I suspect the fact that the reason their software is integrated so well and works so much better than competitors software (a point I would be willing to argue) is because the guys writing the Media Player can call up the Windows folks and ask them what the hell is going on.
However it's fair to hold MS to higher standards, after all they are a monopoly. Yet I'd like these standards to be applied universally. What if you were providing a service, that you that was more competitive than another offering? One day the government knocks on your door and says you need to pay offer better health insurance because you're doing so well, but your competitors need not because they are less efficient. I'd be pissed. Europe has been promoting a culture that punishes success (corps) and competition (labor laws and taxes), and if you look at their economy over the last 10 years you'll see its effects.
If MS is required to write up sufficient docs then Real Networks, NullSoft, and Apple should all be included to. Instead of whipping out the "your big and bad so we are gonna punish you" stick, why not just codify into law requirements for software development. Only then will innovation truly prosper, otherwise we will just strike down companies who may have a record of innovation. I suppose you could just force MS to go open source, but understanding open source codes without docs has proven difficult to me. Maybe I am just not as infinitely talented as all the other Software Devs are.
2) This lack of documentation is what leads to the demise of Real Player, WinAmp and other fine audio players.
Hmm. Last I checked RealPlayer fell apart around the time it started coming with Real "Lets send you daily ads and call them important messages providing no method of suppression" and Real "lets take over the download function of your browser just because we feel like it" and WinAmp fell apart because of WinAmp 3 and well AOL. Additionally, last I checked Windows Media Player isn't exactly the king of media players. iTunes (never minds it's 10 meg xml library file, helper TSRs, undocumented and un-licensable FairPlay, compatibility with only one brand of music players, and it being a required download as part of Quicktime, and bundling with OSX, does any one else find those commercials where apple blasts MS for not including a MediaPlayer, which is a lie, amusing in this context?) seems to have done just fine, fairy quickly in this supposedly impossible to penetrate market. If a program as awesome as iTunes can succeed I have a feeling the monopoly that Microsoft supposedly took advantage of in promoting their wildly successful media player, might have been well, not successful as the EU seems to claim they have been.