Time For Anti-Trust 2.0?

An anonymous reader writes, "PC manufacturer Acer is complaining that Microsoft has jacked up the price of Vista, and that the basic versions are so basic no one will ship them. Since the collapse of the Microsoft anti-trust case under the Bush administration in 2001, manufacturers have no choice but to accede, adding hundreds of dollars to the cost of each PC. With Gates now proclaiming victory over European regulators, Microsoft once again seems unstoppable. But Microsoft had drawn itself close to the Republican Party. With the Republicans now evicted from the House and Senate, is it time to look at the Microsoft anti-trust suit? Could Microsoft be compelled to lower its inflating Vista prices, or to open their tech or even supply funding to Linux-flavored Windows such as Wine? What do Slashdot readers think about the likelihood of another go at breaking up the Windows monopoly?"

Comments

Antitrust because of prices? no thanks

[EsbenMoseHansen]

I welcome high prices on w32. There are alternatives, said manufactures could just install one of those.

Now, if the prices dependent on not selling anything by w32, I can see the point, and that should be fined so heavily that they never, ever dream of doing it again.

Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks

[hey!]

I welcome high prices on w32. There are alternatives, said manufactures could just install one of those.

You are missing the point.

As a monopoly, they don't have to worry about competition in their core business when they set prices. They are probably pretty aware of the price point at which people will give up and go to Linux or MacOS.

The existence of alternatives doesn't preclude having a monopoly, nor does having a monopoly preclude the existence of alternatives. It only has to be impractical for most consumers to choose an alternative.

Antitrust is there to ensuer that alternatives are remain for the consumer by protected those alternatives from unfair competition. However, charging high prices is not a form of unfair competition. As you point out, it is good for the alternative vendors, just bad for consumers.

Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks

[Waffle Iron]

It's really too bad our society is moving away from the free-enterprise capitalism market that made the US so great so quickly and moving towards a feel-good socialistic system.

We can start fixing that by paring back on the runaway government entitlement program called "copyright". Few people seem to remember that just a few decades ago binary object files were not generally considered to be copyrightable at all. If push back against ever-expanding government meddling and move back to that interpretation, then the whole problem with Microsoft interfering with the free market would go away.

Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks

[BitterAndDrunk]

I agree! Thank Science we've had 12 years of budget cuts and tax cuts, enabling our government to pay down some of the debt and shrink the governmental beauracracy to reasonable sizes!

Those damn liberals are probably going to commit tons of funding and manpower tilting at windmills. Heyyy wait a minute. . .

Or you could look at it tinged by reality and realize split Executive and Legislative branches, not party dominance, is what keeps government small and budgets manageable.

Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks

[jc42]

I agree. There is nothing wrong with MS charging more for their product. They are not a complete monopoly seeing how Linux and OSX are both alternatives.

Actually, MS's approach is one example of a standard anti-free-market practice that monopolies, duopolies, cartels and such have used for centuries.

It's not a secret that hardly any of the distributors pay "list price" for Windows. The usual sort of anti-competitive contract is used: You get a "special" lower price if you don't sell any competing products. The list price is made high enough that all the distributors take the contract. This effectively locks out startups from the distribution channels.

A textbook example in the US is the way that so many stores and gas stations have either Coke or Pepsi vending machines, but not both. A retail outlet that tries to provide both can be hit with a higher wholesale price for both.

Some US states have outlawed this sort of contract, and in those states, you can get more choice and competition. But there are limits to how effective any but the largest states can be. With companies the size of Microsoft and Dell, such a state law is rather meaningless.

Anyway, MS's management doesn't expect to get list price for Windows from hardly anyone but retail customers trying to upgrade. The main point of such prices is to maintain the lock on retail distribution channels via "special" discounts to distributors.

With computers, a "free market" has never existed, and probably never will. We've always had one 800-pound-gorilla with the ability to lock out most of the competition, except for specialized niche markets that don't much interest the big guy. In such a situation, competition can never develop, at least not without government "interference" via pro-market laws.

Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks

[truthsearch]

You get a "special" lower price if you don't sell any competing products.

That's no longer the case with Microsoft. The reason computer sellers still put Windows on every computer is to keep their bulk OEM license price down. If they lower the number of Windows licenses they purchase the price goes up. That would then raise the price of their computers.

One of the few positive things to come out of the anti-trust case was the Microsoft "penalty" for selling competing produts.

Re:Antitrust because of prices? no thanks

[Jerry]

It's really too bad our society is moving away from the free-enterprise capitalism market that made the US so great so quickly and moving towards a feel-good socialistic system.

I would have bought that argument 20 years ago, but no longer.

"Free Enterprise" is no longer about freedom to do business.

It is NOW about NAFTA shipping jobs out of the country to the benefit of a few owners.
It is about hiring illegals to avoid taxes - again so owners can profit AND avoid paying taxes.
It is about making copyright terms last centuries, thus depriving society of any real benefit of an invention.
It is about academic researchers doing research with gov money and then personally patenting discoveries tax payers paid for in order to charge exhorbant "license" fees.
It is about health insurance companies "coordinating" benefits so that the gov pays first and they pick up the difference, but still collect the FULL premium.
It is about EULA's, DRMs, and other unholy contracts that remove freedoms which the Constitution says are "inalienable".
It is about seven mansions and other perks that greedy people aspire to, no matter how many thousands of employees lose their saving, pensions, retirements, savings and homes.
It is about having offices in one state but doing retail sales out of Nevada, to avoid their fair share of taxes, all the while lecturing Oregonians about not paying their fair share of taxes.
It is about calling your customers thieves, and treating them as such and sending out BSA thugs, with police to protect THEM, to raid your businesses for not paying for "protection".

I could go on, because the list is becomming endless. The basic problem is that an artifical legal device, the "corpus" now has MORE rights and protections that a REAL, LIVING person.

It is obvious

[kurt555gs]

Look at what M$ is pulling with Novel and Linux. This is typical M$ arrogance and disdain for the law.

They should have been broken up before, and they should now.

No one, or company should be allowed to act this way in any modern society.

Cheers.

Re:It is obvious

[drsquare]

No one, or company should be allowed to act this way in any modern society.

What, charging the price that the market will bear? If you don't like it, do what I did and install Linux.

The world would be a much better place if people looked after their own business rather than crying for the government to come and help them all the time.

Re:It is obvious

[Alef]

What, charging the price that the market will bear? If you don't like it, do what I did and install Linux.

You make it sound as if that is always a viable option. Perhaps for ones home computer, but often not for companies. In many industries Windows and MS Office is the de facto standard. Also, even when it is possible, switching a reasonably large organisation to Linux isn't exactly cheap either. Change is expensive -- especially when the monopolists are experts at vendor lock-in.

Not for a long time...

[Ekhymosis]

I don't foresee MS being being put back on the anti-trust spotlight anytime soon, not until 1-2 years. While congress maybe dems now, that does not guarentee anything against MS, especially since other priorities like Iraq or Korea looming. However, once things calm down on the international front, I do hope they do drag MS back to the anti-trust court and hopefully wrap things up before another big business friendly administration comes in and ruins it again.

Mind you, I particularly don't care much for MS, however if anti-trust can break its monopoly, I do believe that it will bring about a great revolution in software quality that will be seen for many years to come. More competition = better choices for us. =)

Submission is a troll

[Total_Wimp]

The submission takes a bunch of half truthes, wishfull thinking and hope for revenge and throws it altogether to make a stew designed to rile up the /. reader. Don't bite.

The truth:

1. OEM Windows licenses are nowhere close to "hundreds of dollars". You'll still be able to buy $500 PCs
2. Force to open to WINE?!?!?! Are you smoking crack? The judge migh, literally, laugh.
3. Microsoft has not "won" over EU regulators yet. This is only one battle.
4. Just because we have a democratic congress is no reason to look for revenge "killings." Yes, MS is a Monopoly that totaly abuses it's position in a way that's damaging to its competition, but have you heard we're at war? The new congress should look at MS again before too long, but definately not right now. They have far more important work to do.

I'm glad people are still interested in this subject, but you definately need to start looking at this realistically. This isn't so much a start as an unrealistic rant.

TW

Re:Submission is a troll

[MindStalker]

Technically just about every Republican that could be evicted was, meaning in just about every race where there was a viable contestant the Democrat (or Independant) won. Remember only 1/3 of the house is up for reelection every year as well.

Pricing themselves out of the market

[ehack]

MS are busily pricing themselves out of the market. I don't have a problem with that.

Re:Pricing themselves out of the market

[PriyanPhoenix]

It would be nice if it was true but you can only price yourself out of the market if there are alternatives in that market. Much as we love Linux, as far as most consumers and businesses are concerned, it's still not in that market.

So Vista's real rival is...WinXP. What inflated prices will do is simply delay the roll-out of Vista. Companies will almost certainly wait until their next hardware upgrade cycle at which point they will have little choice but to go with Vista anyway.

Re:Basic version? Yes, please!

[PriyanPhoenix]

Although it's true that many people can do without the bundled Media Centre in preference of alternatives and will probably experience *better* performance Aero-free, that's not all they've stripped out. Laptop users with basic may be feeling a little chilly without Windows Mobility Centre. Sure, you don't *need* it travel, connect wirelessly and work, but in this day and age of mobile communication those are pretty basic OS features they've decided to limit to enhanced editions. The other issue is that Aero is not purely aesthetic and does offer some functional usability features too. Just how long it will be until a developer of one of those Open Source apps you love decides to utilise a cool element of the Aero interface, forgetting momentarily that not everyone has it. After all, he doesn't code for Macs for exactly that reason...

Vista Only

[quokkapox]

Nobody has mentioned the fact that within a few months of release, Vista will be the ONLY Microsoft operating system you can get on an OEM PC. You won't be able to buy an XP machine anymore because Microsoft doesn't want you to. In a free market, Windows XP would become cheaper and due to the fact that it's battle-tested, will probably be more desirable for some time, than Vista.

But there is not a free market, is there? You can't buy an OEM PC without paying some sort of windows tax, with few exceptions. And the latest windows tax is Vista.

Re:Vista Only

[drsquare]

In a free market, Windows XP would become cheaper and due to the fact that it's battle-tested, will probably be more desirable for some time, than Vista.

In a free market, a merchant can choose to stop selling something if he wants to sell something else instead.

Re:Vista Only

[Ashtead]

The great difference is that there are several competing car manufactureres: If I don't like the new models that Ford puts out, I might go and look at the offerings from Chevrolet, Mazda, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Kia, Hyundai, Toyota, Dodge, Honda, BMW, and so forth. Any and all of these will offer useful models that are effectively compatible with each other, to the extent that I can sit myself in the drivers's seat, close the door, start the engine and hit the road. Only the position of switches for lights and windshield wipers will be slightly different; the gearshift and parking brake may also have any of a small handful of locations, but they will be there somewhere.

Now if I don't like the latest version of Windows, there is no real alternative. It is not that I (or my customers) have many other options. There are Linux, the BSDs, Solaris, and so on, that can do much of the same, and actually does do a number of things better but does not do certain other things at all. It is as if the only maker of passenger cars decided to offer just one new model I didn't like, and the only alternatives apart from older passenger cars that may or may not run reliably or even legally anymore, were a rich selection of limousines, lorries, big-rigs, juggernauts, buses, trucks, and dumpers ... excellent for heavy-duty and professional work and built to last, but not really the most suitable vehicles for taking the family out to a movie show.

The devil is in the details -- how many times now have I warned people against using Outlook, and set them up with the mail-client in Opera, and then the next week they come with their new mobile phone that has this cable that allows it to hook up to an USB-port, but the software making this communication work only wants to talk with Outlook, and doesn't even understand that there might be alternatives. So Opera gets pushed aside and Outlook is being used for its nice interoperability with the phone. This is the sort of thing that will make Windows continue having a large market share, indeed, a monopoly.

Re:Vista Only

[McCart42]

In a free market, buyers can choose to resell their goods once they've got their use out of them.

The justice dept is not run by democrats.

[killjoe]

The justice dept is run by the white house and there is no way in hell this white house is going to go after any corporation let alone MS.

another day, another FUD story

[Daltorak]

This story is overflowing with FUD and misrepresentation. A routine fact-check will demonstrate this. Let's pull this apart:

According to Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president of the Taiwan-based company, the issue is simply that the basic home edition of Vista, Home Basic, which is available for preorder on Amazon.co.uk for 154.99 pounds ($293), is so basic that users will be forced to move to Vista Home Premium, at 189.99 pounds ($359).

First of all, they got the prices of Vista wrong: Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is 185 GBP; Vista Home Premium is 224 GBP.

Second, price-conversion. Everybody knows that you don't take the street price of a product in British pounds, run it through xe.com, and come out with the street price in USD. Microsoft's MSRP on Vista Home Basic (non-upgrade) is $199 USD, -not- $293 as given in the article. Vista Home Premium (non-upgrade) is $239 USD. Note that the MSRP on XP Home Edition is $199 USD, the same as Vista Home Basic.

Third, Microsoft has never sold an edition of Windows with the Media Center included on the retail market, so in a way there isn't really any good point of comparison.... of -course- it's going to be more expensive than XP Home.

"The new (Vista) experience you hear of, if you get Basic, you won't feel it at all," Wong told PC Pro magazine. "There's no (Aero) graphics, no Media Center, no remote control."

Yeah well, guess what? some people just don't want or need that stuff. Actually, I'd hazard a guess and say that the vast majority of users don't want or need Media Center functionality or a remote control. That's not what's worth harping on about. Home Premium does have a lot of neat things in it, especially for mobile users, media centers, tablet PC owners, etc., but it's useless for a lot of people who just use their computer to get stuff done.

Wong also said that the manufacturer's license for Vista Home Premium is 10 percent more expensive than for XP Home.

It's also got far more functionality (Media Center, new mobility features, XBox 360 connectivity, Tablet PC features) than XP Home Edition or Vista Home Basic Edition, the latter of which Acer is refusing to sell to its customers.

"We have to pay more but users are not going to pay more," Wong said. This would mean an increase in the cost to PC manufacturers of 1 percent to 2 percent, according to Wong, in a business where the profit margin is around 5 percent or less.

Quit your bitching, Mr. Wong. If the price of Windows is going up by 10% because you are choosing to force a higher edition on your customers, you pass that price increase on to users... it's not your job as a company to absorb price increases from Microsoft.

At the top of the Vista lineup is the Ultimate Edition, which can be preordered for 325 pounds ($614) and, again, is significantly more expensive than the XP operating system it replaces.

Ultimate Edition is covers a lot more ground than XP Professional. The thing comes with Media Center, twice as many games (good ones, too, like Chess and Majongg), backup software that doesn't suck, a bunch of extra software and add-ons analogous to the XP Plus! Pack, and even a friggin' UNIX stack to boot -- and that's not even going into

Re:Why do you even use Windows?

[Sqwubbsy]

Isn't it enough that something works right out of the box? Sure, I could buy an Apple/Mac and it would work, but I'd have to live without right-click.

I don't have much against Linux. Maybe I'm not sufficiently informed, maybe my entire life could be made simpler by a switch to Linux. But for now, Windows works.

You sir, should sit in the /. timeout corner. I'm not down with all the Microsoft bashing on this thread - the topic should be modded -1 Flamebait, but you are woefully ignorant.
** Windows almost never works 'right out of the box'. If you're using it that way, then your system is already compromised.
** You can use a mouse with right button in OS X. Or you just hold your click for 2 seconds to get the contextual menu.
** You're not sufficiently informed vis-a-vis Linux. Try a friendly distro like MEPIS or Ubuntu.

I was having problems with my video camera on my Windows machine. Worked like a charm on my Mac mini. Worked like a charm with my MEPIS box.
Never could get my wife's iPod to even be seen by the Windows box. Obviously the Mac saw it. MEPIS does too.
But boy, could I play games on the Windows box.

"Linux-flavored Windows"

[l3v1]

"Linux-flavored Windows such as Wine"

W T F

Re:Hm... I was a liberal before I read this thread

[alanQuatermain]

Well, sadly I can't provide a citation for this (although hey, this is Slashdot-- citations are for wimps, right?), but I was under the impression that the deal worked something like this:

• Do as MS asks (only sell Windows, avoid bundling things MS doesn't like)-- pay in the region of $25-$50 for each Windows license.
• Do your own thing: pay full retail price.

In the post-Dell world of low-margin commodity PC's, the difference is likely to be at least $100, possibly more. Hell, there are even things like 'co-marketing' grants from the likes of MS and Intel, where the OEM gets money in return for putting MS or Intel prominently in their advertising, and I'm sure that the MS one offsets most of the remaining cost of the Windows licenses. However, when you're competing for a slice of the $500 PC market, you don't want your $25 copy of Windows to start costing $150 now. Or, in the case of Vista, $200 or more (because no-one wants the basic versions, as Acer suggests). Now, if you don't get favourable pricing, your offering either costs $700 compared to the competition's $500, or else you're going to lose money on every unit sold.

It's not the potential markup on a $1400 PC that hurts -- it's the markup on a $400 or $500 PC that hurts, because the retail price of Windows will increase that by a fairly noticeable percentage.

-Q

Re:Hm... I was a liberal before I read this thread

[cyber-vandal]

Linux would already be on a lot of desktops except for one important detail: it doesn't run Windows apps and drivers very well or at all. The inability to get round that obstacle is what has defeated every single would-be competitor over the last 11 years.

Damn right.

[Concern]

Thank you sir. Well said.

In general, the proponents "free enterprise" can't define it. In special cases, they can, but choose not to, and play games instead (i.e. talking about "free trade" rather than the end of labor regulation, which is what that really means).

Strictly speaking there is no such thing as a "Free Market" - only anarchy, where markets do not exist, and the strong rule the weak. All markets run on rules. "Free Enterprise" is lately becoming a code for Laissez Faire capitalism, a ruinous permutation of the rules that was a notorious economic and social disaster.

The more socialist policies that America has (until recently) employed for the last 50 years, by comparison, are what actually "made this country so great." You had laissez faire in South America - where did it get them? Meanwhile our bitter lessons learned from the Great Depression led us to socialist-lite economic policies that created the wealthiest nation on earth.

Capitalism is not some magic religious trinket you can wave over a society and create a utopia. It's a class of machine. It needs to be well-designed, tuned, and maintained.

For it to work, you have to foster competition through (for instance) vigorous use of antitrust law. There's no market if one participant can prevent any other potential players from entering the market. Elementary. Or are they re-writing those history books these days?

Wealth begets wealth, so the Christians say - but it's obvious that money does make money. You also need systems that redistribute the wealth (for instance, our once-great public educational system). Stratification of capital leaves you with a few people who have orders more money they can ever spend, while everyone else lacks education, leisure, and even basic buying power. And why do you care, Mr. Libertarian? Our economy is 2/3's consumer spending. Doh. It's also powered by a millions-strong, well educated middle class.

Re:Reason why they arent alternatives:

[kimvette]

People dont write programs for them enough. I believe that is the ONLY reason.

No way. For many distros, you get HUNDREDS of applications (often even THOUSANDS) right out of the box.

There are two major issues:

  - Hardware support
            Want to run that $30 inkjet? Good luck.
            Want to run that $50 scanner? Good luck. You will have to hunt down firmware and load it up (firmware which SHOULD be flashed onto the device itself in the first place but isn't)
            Want to sync your PocketPC/Cellphone/etc.? Good luck. Using your cellphone as a modem is a cinch - plug and play (easier than it is in Windows) but syncing your address book or retrieving photos is a different story
            Want to use that WiFi card? Good luck. You will have to hunt down firmware and load it up (firmware which SHOULD be flashed onto the device itself in the first place but isn't)
            Want to register your cable modem? Sorry, Adelphia requires that you run their software to register. I had to practically insult a phone rep to get them to give me the URL to register the cable modem. They don't 'get' the fact that there are operating systems besides Windows.

      - Microsoft's FUD
            PHBs believe glossy cut sheets and shiny advertisements, even if the TCO and uptime stats are outright lies.

Actually there is one third hindrance:

      - Attitudes: almost invariably the response to "why doesn't program $foo do X?" is "it's open source, code it yourself." Yeah, way to win converts there buddy!