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Microsoft Meets EU Antitrust Deadline
An anonymous reader writes to mention a News.com article, which reports on Microsoft's attempt to meet the EU's requirements in their ongoing antitrust case. The updated documents that Microsoft has delivered, they hope, will put off the leveling of a several-millions-of-dollars-a-day fine against the OS maker. Whether or not the documents have accomplished that task will not be known for several months yet. From the article: "The commission set a deadline of July but delayed it until a court proceeding finished in December, 2004. In July, 2006, the commission fined Microsoft $357.3 million for dragging its feet, on top of a fine of almost $646 million in 2004 for its initial violation. In a statement calling the submission of documents a 'milestone,' Microsoft said it had completed the review and editing of some 100 documents, which number 8,500 pages."
Well, as expected..
Almost a year ago, Microsoft released documents to the EU, which later responded with an epigram similar to, "There is indeed more page volume, but the content is still worthless." As much as I'd like to believe Microsoft is still not contributing to what they were required to do, you can only stretch the English language so far, then the fluff becomes thinner. There may actually be something within those pages this time. Maybe.
Just maybe.
The updated documents that Microsoft has delivered, they hope, will put off the leveling of a several-millions-of-dollars-a-day fine against the OS maker. Whether or not the documents have accomplished that task will not be known for several months yet.
Being that they have already dragged their feet for years on this, they should be required to pay the fine (or at least a percentage of it) into escrow (which can bear interest for the benefit of the EU citizenry). Once the documentation is judged to have met the requirements of the EU regulators, the money can be returned.
Not sure if it would be possible, but I think it would help dissuade MS from future delay tactics.
Slashdot meets dupe quota. The number of duplicate stories is now 1,000,000. Slashdot spokesman and frequent poster Zonk called it a 'milestone'.
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I am disappointed.
I would expect a company with sooo much money to have been able to "persuade" a government much sooner than this. Right or wrong, respect should be given for effectiveness, and MS seems to be dragging it's feet in this regard.
I didn't know it was possible to meet the same deadline twice. Oh, its a dupe.
The documents were submitted in Office 2007 format, with extensions that only run under Vista. Next month, Microsoft will announce the fast adoption of Vista by the European Commission. After all, if the commission is buying so many copies, it must be good. Soon, thereafter, they will announce a record adoption of Vista by leading open source developers.
Moo Ha Ha
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
If I were them, I'd tell em to fuck off and pull all plans for copies of Vista in Europe and disable all other Windows OS's in the next forced update as well as add protections. Then they can run all the third party crap they want. What a bunch of stuck up assholes.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Tm
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Does anyone know what things (protocols, file formats, whatever) the doucments that Microsoft have given the EU and/or that the EU has been asking for actually cover?
Personally, I'd increment the fine by an order of magnitude each time they do this. Last time it was a million euros a day, this time should be ten million a day. Either that, or the EU should just seize Microsoft's European property on the grounds that Microsoft has clearly neither any intent of paying nor of complying with the law.
(This isn't just a Microsoft thing. I'd say this about any company that perpetrated deliberate malpractice to get ahead. I can't understand why British Airways was allowed to bankrupt Freddy Laker and conduct several attempts to cripple/destroy Richard Branson. Sometimes I think the Romans err'd in wiping out the Druids - they would be so much more effective at bringing these corporations in line than the courts are being.)
In Capitalist West, Microsoft emails new EU Antitrust laws to you!
But as a dissident or competitor you know how it will end.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Well, there were two fines already: one for antitrust violations and another for failure to comply. Second one was also deadline. IOW, the article should be titled "Microsoft Meets Second EU Antitrust Deadline."
And I suspect that is not last dead line M$ is going to push up to its limit. Because, as of now, if there is something wrong with submitted documents, M$ wouldn't have time to correct raised issues and would breach the deadline.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
You're talking about the world's largest, horribly coded software. Of course most of the content in documents are worthless. If we're going to nitpick about the content of documents, we should go after the U.S. tax code.
"Whether or not the documents have accomplished that task will not be known for several months yet"
By which time Vista will be in the market, making it difficult to recall if MS is found to be still in breech of the ruling.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Stating the obvious will *not* win you any karma around these parts ... but then you posted AC so it wasn't karma you were after.
Msft won't ever supply what the EU is actually asking. Msft prefers to play games, and waste time, while bill is working in the background to undermine the EU's authority.
Here's some news for you: The EU is NOT Europe. And in fact the worst piracy rates are in those European nations OUTSIDE the EU.
The EU won't EVER be satisfied by what Microsoft supplies. It's just a way of damaging Microsoft and by implication American interests in Europe, so that the EU can "catch up" with its own pathetic software industry.
If this were the case, there would have to be some European-based alternatives to Microsoft software that had to catch up.
Perhaps you could tell us what these are?
Microsoft has complied with all of the EC decision except the interoperability documentation, one of the squabbles is what the 'license terms' should be for the interface info - MS doesnt want it to be free, and heaven forbid GPL-friendly.
Novell has now validated MS claim that the interface info is indeed license worthy, notice they are paying royalties, so now MS can say to the EU that Novell found their license terms "Reasonable and Non Discriminatory". The Novell deal will undermine the EC ruling, and ensure that anyone wanting to interoperate with MS will need to license and pay royalties (and NOT REDISTRIBUTE).
Novell sold the community out, why did they pay MS for the interoperability info that the EC was forcing them to hand over? The deal was about interoperability after all, but that may be worse.
--10scjed IANAL,AFAIK
I thought you weren't suppose to "edit" documents before you submitted them to the courts. Isn't this called evidence tampering?
In what other industry would the government (ANY government) have the right to force a company to release its trade secrets to its competitors in order for them to 'compete'?
/. but true nonetheless -- Microsoft developed these technologies, and is now being forced to hand them over to their direct competitors. Where's the incentive to innovate if you can't capitalize and have your intellectual property protected? How would you like YOUR work handed over to YOUR competitors?
Do drug makers have to release their formulae to their competitors to release competing (or even complimentary) products?
Does Boeing send their engineering specifications to Airbus? Does Ford have to send the documentation on their latest engine design to General Motors or Volkswagen?
Microsoft is the "American Dream" -- it has produced more millionaires than probably any other company in America. How many other companies have generated so much money for the American taxpayer coffers -- from the taxes on everything they consume, to every employee they hire world-wide.
How many businesses 'live off' Microsoft technologies? (Every software company in the world that develops any kind of software or system based on the Windows platform -- that's who.) How many workers across the entire planet work faster, easier and better because they have access to Windows and Microsoft Office?
Probably the wrong message for
Devil's advocate OUT...