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Microsoft Responds to EU With Another Question
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has responded to the latest round of EU requests by asking how much the EU thinks they should charge for Windows Server Protocols. The EU has stated the Microsoft should charge based on 'innovation, not patentability' and that they have 'examined 160 Microsoft claims to patented technologies' concluding 'only four may only deserve to claim a limited degree of innovation.' The EU is also starting to discuss structural remedies as opposed to the behavioral remedies they are currently enforcing. At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds?"
Q: At what point has/will the EU overstepped its bounds?
A: Is it really necessary that every Slashdot summary ends with a very polarizing question?
The EU's goal is ostensibly to ensure proper competition in the market, right? And let's face it, MS's only real competition is Free Software. Therefore, the only possible fair price for the protocol specs is free, and with free redistribution, so that it's able to be used by Free Software.
(Note that I'm talking about interoperability specifications (and patent licenses) only... Microsoft should be able to charge whatever it wants for its reference implementation.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Its bounds? The EU pretty cannot overstep its bounds - if Microsoft wants to do business here, they'll have to play by the rules, just like - and this is important - EVERYONE ELSE. If they're unwilling to do that (and I'm not saying "unable or unwilling" since it's pretty much impossible for them to really be unable), well... nobody's forcing them to do business here. There's no dog-given right to act like an arse, and our politicians haven't been bought out 100% yet (just 99%).
On a side note, it's really rather funny to see that all the hatred for Microsoft on Slashdot suddenly vanish as soon as it's Microsoft vs. the EU - then suddenly, defending a fellow US-American company suddenly seems to become more important than pointing out how much Microsoft as a convicted monopolist engaged in illegal anti-competitive tactics is hurting innovation/the industry/society.
butter the donkey
But c'mon. Clarity and lack of prejudice need to be the driving force for communication in this matter. Levels of bureaucracies only stymie potential resolution.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Imagine if the EU dumped its focus on trivial crap like software patents and applied the same reasoning to medicine patents.
Those tech companies would pull out if and only if the EU's punishment were worse than losing the EU market. For example, what would happen if MS stopped selling Windows in Europe? The entire continent would switch to Free Software almost instantly. I'll bet Microsoft is willing to put up with a Hell of a lot to prevent that from happening! And that's not just because of the lost sales directly, but also because it would prove to US businesses that Free Software is viable on a grand scale.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
So the electric company should just charge you whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it? Because, hey, if you don't like it you can always move.
Yes, unless it has a monopoly, at which point it's subject to intense regulation.
Forget the fact that the entire process is a blatant example of socialism
No, the existence of patent monopolies in the first place is a blatant example of corporate welfare. The EU shouldn't fine microsoft - it should simply definitively abolish patents in the EU and restore free-market competition. While patents exist, free markets don't.
Namely, renting access to your own data.
In other words, how much should customers have to pay to get at their own data, which happens to reside on Microsoft products?
Lets take MS's argument seriously for a moment, to see where that leads us.
Suppose there is software A, which holds the data, and software B, which accesses the data. How much does MS charge for that A-B interface? There are two possible answers to this. First, they charge 0. Then everybody should pay zero. The second possible answer is that the cost of the A-B interface is part of the cost of A,B, or both.
In that case, they are illegally bundling it, forcing users to buy access to the other product when they buy A or B, but not allow customers to use it to access competitive software. They should unbundle the interface and show that all three components are priced competitively and independently.
Whatever the piece of innovation that MS feels it should be compensated for, customers should be able to buy it without having to buy other MS products.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, the US convicted Microsoft of being a monopolist, then did nothing about it. There's clearly a problem (I don't think we need to argue about that on Slashdot.) So, is it just the idea that the great all powerful US isn't doing it that some people find annoying? Or would you rather some other "superpower" like China, India or Russia ends up having to do it (in 15 or 20 years time).
Reality needs to be faced. Your government can't deal with the wayward MS business, the EU wants to deal with your problem for you. Isn't that nice of them?
todo - The developer's equivalent of confession: "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned..."
I see that companies are sovereign powers now, and that they are able to do whatever whenever because it is their god-given right to earn money for the share-holders, yada-yada-yada. Give me a break. If MS doesn't like Europe's laws, they can go and try to sell their products elsewhere. Nothing guarantees them the right to make a profit.
Microsoft has hurt the global economy to the tune of billions of dollars in lost productivity because of security vulnerabilities, unstable software, and proprietary formats. All the while better alternatives have existed but legal and marketing efforts by Microsoft have kept them out of the public's hands. Bill Gates has used his ill gotten wealth to push patented drugs on Africa which has probably lead to massive death since generic drugs could be mass produced much more easily. The Gates foundation has also funded The Discovery Institute, the main group preaching intelligent design lies. If the EU were to imprison all present and past members of the board of directors and executives of MS and seized all of Microsoft's wealth, they would not be going overboard. They would help millions of people and control a known industrial menace. Perhaps a nuclear attack on Redmond would be going to far, but I'm not sure.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
It is only by the mandated rules of the government, speaking with the voice of all the people, that Microsoft has any rights to charge people for this at all.
It is only by the mandated rules of the government(s) that their money has any value period.
The EU cannot overstep their mandate where Microsoft is concerned.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
You do know this is part of a settlement for criminal activity right? You might as well argue that just because a cat food manufacturer put poison in their cat food, the government should not be allowed to mandate that they enact stricter testing measures as part of their punishment for breaking the law in the first place.
Forget the fact that the entire process is a blatant example of socialism...Do you even know what socialism is?
...it's just purely one-sided...It's strange how the punishment phase of a convicted criminal is often one-sided isn't it? I mean how come car thieves have to go to jail and aren't really given anything positive, like a new motorcycle?
...no matter what Microsoft does at this point the EU will just continue to abuse this implied authority that they've been granted until they can drive Microsoft off their shores or make all of the products free in EU.The EU commission has very limited authority, but it does include stopping MS from breaking the same laws they stop everyone else from breaking. Once MS stops breaking the law, their complaints might have merit.
"The EU has already overstepped their bounds."
Indeed. By granting copyright and patent protection to MS, they have interfered with natural selection. Your argument is invalid because without government, there would be no such thing as patents.
MS has abused its privileges. The people have a right to revoke them.
As others have pointed out, the cost of doing business in the EU is being regulated by the EU. That's life and if the fines/interference/etc is too onerous, Microsoft is free to abandon that market and concentrate on the US, Africa, Asia/Pacific Rim.
Personally, I'd love to see such a move coming from Redmond. It would accelerate adoption of non-Microsoft solutions in Europe. The resulting ripple effects would have some nice benefits for those of us developing stateside. :)
Myddrin
Really. Abolish patents...
By doing that you would basically eliminate free market, or at least damage it, because there would be no incentive to innovate. As soon as you designed some great product, say Slicedbread v2.1, some yahoo comes along and decides to copy most of your work and name it Slicedcheese v1.0. Because of this you would make less profit and are less motivated to work on your next project... Slicedmeat.
Come to think of it you just reinforced the quote from the parent.
http://www.streetracingwar.com/
I don't know how many times I saw this discussion. Every time US citizens see this as a direct attack on their country. Every time there are links posted to examples that european companies are fined in the same way and that they comply to the terms of EU. Every time there are posters that think it's an attack on a free market. There's no such thing as free market in any country and I don't know if anybody knows any benefits of monopolies in any kind of market.
It's a pretty standard argument: Utility A sells cheap service in area A. Everybody moves to area A. Utility hikes price of service by 10000%. Is everybody now supposed to move, or what?
In the analogy: software = service, area A = Microsoft Windows, and moving = changing platforms. For some people changing platforms is even more expensive than moving physical locations, and for others it's actually impossible (if they need Windows-only software to operate). Sure you could argue that they shouldn't have gotten so tied to the platform in the first place, but saying that doesn't actually help anything.
HAND.
If you're a company (ie, an artificial entity that exists only based on law and not any natural basis), then yes, you do exist solely by the legal grace of the real people in the jurisdictions where you conduct business.
Considering Stalin was a communist, and large international megacorporations are generally somewhat capitalist, I think you may have to repeat 7th grade.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Good for me. Then Microsoft will perish.
If they lose the EU, then Linux *will* fill the void. If it does, then Microsoft's competition in the US gets a lot stiffer.
I am same AC as top of thread.
That's the prevailing attitude in the US. It's not the prevailing attitude of EU citizens (but I'm sure a large number of Europeans would side with American stance). Microsoft is free to choose not to do business in the EU if it doesn't like this.
In this situation Americans seem to be telling the Europeans how to run their markets and economies. Turn it around: as American, how do you feel about Europeans telling you how to run your justice system (e.g. death penalty and gun control?) and health care systems? Both sides think their approach is correct and that the other butt out and mind their own business.
The government shouldn't tell companies what to charge for their products, but they should ensure that companies can compete freely and make money.
In fact, it's funny that Microsoft tries to promote their own document format because they say that interoperatibility is important and that they support open protocols blah blah blah, and then they don't release the specs for the protocols they're using in windows server, because those protocols is what make windows server succesful (because 95% of clients are windows and only windows server can serve them)
The EU cannot overstep their mandate where Microsoft is concerned.
Well considering that software patents are forbidden in EU, I don't see why EU should take the number of patents MS owns as a metric for innovation.
That sounds benign, but I think a lot of people fail to see the reach of this claim : an expert EU commission just stated that the number of software patents is completly uncorrelated to the amount of innovation a company carries. If investors and shareholders finally manage to understand this, the patent system could fall.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The "issue" of this law would be that the EU commission doesn't accept the number of patents as a metrics for innovation ? Considering that software patents are not recognize in EU I only see a coherent decision and a good law.
There are also laws in some EU countries about interoperability that aim at forbidding a company to abuse a dominant position to prevent third-party interoperability. Call it socialist if you will, but I only see this as a way to guarantee a free competition in a free market (an objective which is harldy socialist)
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Maybe it's because I don't pretend to know what I'm talking about, or maybe I am just stupid...why does ANYONE care what Microsoft charges for ANYTHING?
NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE is forcing ANYONE to use ANYTHING from Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't go around holding guns to people saying you MUST use our shit...millions of OSX and Linux users prove that point.
Why do people care what they charge? Just like any other company, if you don't like the price....DON'T FUCKING BUY IT.
Living With a Nerd
You need to get out of, lets say, the "playground mentality" and look at the realites of such an action. The basic and very obvious reason is: money.
They can't just drop the EU market because it's the same size that the US one. It's a publicly traded company and investors would very much like to know if was a fiscally sound decision (i.e. did they lose more than staying would have cost). If they don't get the answers they want the stock tanks and I doubt shareholder lawsuits would be far behind. And add to that the worldwide worries wether you can trust Microsoft with your IT infrastructure. Buyers would ask themselves: will they try the same tactics in our market? what will they demand of us to keep on selling their products? can we afford that?
Not "should intervene", it must intervene as its duty to the citizens that elected the government. It's unfortunate that the US government has failed its basic mission of protecting its people from abuse, and has now turned into the abuser.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
You, sir, are an idiot. Yes, an idiot. Let me explain what actually happened without your paranoiac comments about Stalinist Europeans. Despite the fact that most of the EU were allied with you for over half a century. Prick.
We have a large company who over the years have gained a monopoly. Congratulations! There is a problem, The US government and the EU have rules, some of which annoyingly prevent this monopoly crushing all-comers by abusing their monopolistic powers.
The US government convicts them, attempts to remedy this, faces legal challenges, and meekly cries off, having done all but nothing to fix the problem.
The EU takes a slightly different tack, and says "You broke the rules. You can't keep breaking the rules. One of the rules you're breaking the one about muscleing your competition using your monopoly so you're to 1. Stop forcing Internet Explorer, and your own solutions on everyone, let them make their own minds up and 2. Give others the information to interoperate correctly. You can charge for 2, if the patents that cover it are innovatve you can charge more. The innovative restriction applies because in europe you're not allowed to patent any and every kind of software no matter how obvious*."
So they're saying "fix your behaviour, or we'll get annoyed and do drastic things".
MS wibble off muttering and after acting outraged for a while, decide on a different tack, which is, to delay. The EU's response was, "Delay all you want. Incidentally, if you manage to delat too much, there's a time-based fine after April 3rd if you're delaying". Again, a behavioural solution.
As the request of MS, they extended the deadline to today, and MS's response is "How much should we charge?"
This is a delaying tactic again, and I think MS are going to get a nasty shock if they keep it up. Y'see, the EU WILL apply fines of 4,000,000 per DAY if MS keep it up, and even with reported cash reserves of $30 billion that'll sting. Espcially as it'll be retroactive to last August 1st.
For the next section, we've to be a bit more specific and informative.
The specs in question are technical information to competing groups allowing them to design better Windows-compatible server software, specifically work group servers. The ruling was some time back, the final appeal which MS lost was in December 2004. Yes, that's right, 2 and a half years ago.
They missed numerous deadlines to submit the information, finally coughing it up in July 2006.
The real problem here is that MS don't want to release those specs, and if they do, they want it to be extremely unattractive to actually license them. So much so that they're demanding up to 5.95% of a licensee's server revenues as royalties, which is completely unreasonable considering that the market rate for such specifications (according to IBM, Oracle, Sun as well the commission's expert, Prof. Neil Barrett, who was suggested by Microsoft.) is between 0% and 1%.
Mant of MS's other API's are available (for 0%, incidentally) at msdn.microsoft.com, so they've set a standard themselves. The ones that aren't are areas where they're using monopoly power to leverage a market, for instance, MSN Messenger had to be reverse-engineered (and that would probably be illegal in the states now!).
All the EU has been/is doing is trying to improve competition, for everyone, using behavioural remedies to attempt to correct a monopoly dominated market (as the DoJ tried, and failed, to do). All MS has been doing is delaying the inevitable to squeeze another few Euro's out of the market.
And if they keep it up, the behavioural remedy will become structural and Microsoft will not be allowed to trade in Europe as it currently stands. Which is fine by me, although it'd be a royal PITA for a while.
So do you understand what's happening now? And why you're ridiculous attitude makes you look ridiculous and an embarassment to your country ("Down with the commies" is very 50's. I suppose you still think pot is a commie drug?) ?
Also, as
Rational thought is the only true freedom
If MS decided to skip town (continent, actually) just because the court room hearings were getting rough, it would be quite sensible for the EU to freeze all their assets and issue warrants for the arrest of the executives. Once you start thinking of Microsoft as organized crime, it gets a lot easier to decide what to do with them.
Why is it that the overall consensus on Slashdot is that the US government aren't doing enough to regulate Microsoft or help stop the monopoly, but as soon as the EU government try to get Microsoft to publish their specifications for interoperability, there's a huge outcry?
:) .. Okay, unlikely.. I sort of hope not, really.
I think that, Slashdot being US based, seems to randomly hate the EU and their decisions. Quite honestly, it doesn't matter what Microsoft want here, and the EU probably don't care what economic damage their going to do to a US based company. Bear in mind that for Microsoft to release all their protocol specifications, it'd probably cost an extremely small amount of money compared to the amount they wasted* on Vista.
Considering Microsoft is a convicted monopolist and to interoperate with over 90% of the market, you need access to Microsoft's specifications, I hardly think it's unreasonable to demand MS provide access (even free access) to the specifications. I don't think Microsoft has a reason to demand that they maintain an illegal monopoly by not releasing their specifications that would merely allow others to interoperate. If anyone's dragging their feet here, it's Microsoft. I doubt a multi billion dollar company couldn't have just spent maybe a few weeks writing specifications and then released them on their devnet site. Hell, they could have bought a specifications firm to do it for them... It really isn't as difficult as they're making it out to be. The fact that their original specifications were deemed to be too low quality speaks volumes. I wonder how many of their file formats are internally undocumented other than the library itself.
And hey, if MS hates it, they can pull out of the EU. The EU could nullify the Windows copyright in the EU and we could all legally pirate Windows
* I don't mean all of Vista was a waste, but there was probably a considerable amount of money wasted on things like WinFS that have been all but dropped now
"The EU should just tell MS how much they can charge and get on with it".
But they won't. By it's very nature, a bureaucracy tends to NOT make "final" decisions - they would then find themselves unemployed.
Tha EU's response will be "It is not our place to dictate commercial terms in licensing fees. Our role is to judge whether those terms are fair AFTER the fact". This way, the bureaucrats in charge are ensured of continued employment for a few month waiting for MS to erspond, then another few "evaluating", and then probably another finding that the MS terms are unfair. Latehr, rinse repeat.
I say from my experience with US regulatory agencies, but I can't imagine their counterparts in the EU are any better.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
As is known, MS was fined by the EU for abusing their monopoly, namely, bundling MS media player (and other apps) with windows.
s oft_antitrust_case
For not complying, they were fined again. And again. And...
One of the requirements was opening up the specs so that third-parties could use the same API as MS media player uses, thus actually having competition on that part.
However, MS argued that this spec contained innovations, and should not be opened up freely, as there were costs involved.
The EU found this reasonable.
MS opened up the specs, and set a price based on those innovations.
Upon investigation by an independent party at the request of the EU, the independant party found nearly nothing innovative.
As the amount of innovation was tied to the cost, it meant that microsoft was way overcharging its specs.
This of course is not part of the deal: the cost of the specs should be reasonable, so that third parties could actually use the spec, and compete.
This is where the EU is upset about. The fact that Vista is way overpriced is not the issue here. The issue is MS abusing the wording of the ruling and the subsequent settlement of the antitrust case they had against them.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Micro
Stalin was a Stalinist, which is not anything like Communism. Stalin used communist ideals as the springboard for his new form of government. Stalin's system of rule is different from dictatorship only in that a dictator is still morally bound to do that which is best of his people. Stalin was bound by nothing.
I would ask that you stop disgracing a perfectly good form of government by associating it with Stalin's horribly corrupted form of that government. Communism is a very noble concept, and deserves the respect due to such a well-developed solution to the unsolvable problem: "which form of government is best?"
Consider yourself spoken to.
You didn't consider the possibility that different people are attracted to different headlines? If you try to assign a set of opinions to "the Slashdot crowd", you are certain to get some conflicts, simply because this crowd consists of a whole range of people, many with very different opinions.
I don't even know what point you're trying to make. MS did not invent something, but did popularize it many years ago so we should let them break the law now?
And I certainly hope that this is not your first language if you really are above average intelligence. First, anyone that wants to announce their increased intelligence to the world probably has some issues, so maybe you're not so much familiar with "modesty".Actually this is my first language and I am fluent enough in it to take note of, but not call attention to your numerous grammatical errors. This is, after all, a rather informal forum for writing. As for your statement about, "announce their increased intelligence" I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to convey. I mentioned that people on Slashdot tend to be above average in intelligence, not that my intelligence is increased by... well, whatever it is you think I was saying.
Second, what the hell is decidedness supposed to mean in your post?That is a typo that was meant to read "decides."
If you plan to label someone as a moron you should first do a spell check.A spell check should not catch "decidedness" since it is a proper, if little used word.
I still insist that bundling is not a big deal.Bundling is not a big deal. Bundling with a monopolized product is a big deal. The fact that you still can't seem to understand the significance that those are different things, speaks to your ignorance. If you bothered to read anything about antitrust law you would note that only the latter is illegal. That might be your first clue to try to figure out why it is illegal.
How many people do you know that actually use the build in CD burning functionality in XP? None? Because it sucks. What about Media player? Probably a lot more because it's not a bad product.Actually, those are both the most popular applications in their respective categories, used more than any other. Just because you don't seem to know a lot of people who use them, does not make them less popular.
I'm not saying it's great, but it is usable without much fuss.So imagine you're in business as say, a baker. Now suppose you make really good baked goods at an affordable price and are doing well, but then the electric company starts bundling baked goods with people's electrical service. They raise the cost of electricity a bit, but there still aren't any other good options, so now everyone already has baked goods and don't need yours. Now the baked goods from the electric company aren't great, but they are eatable without much fuss. So you go out of business and consumers end up eating inferior baked goods that cost them more money, even if they can't tell exactly how much.
You honestly don't see a problem with that? What about when they start adding more and more products to said bundle and driving more and more people out of business? Still no problem? What about when all innovation or advancement in those markets slows to a crawl since there are no competitors left for people to move to? Why invest when it doesn't get you any more money? You really can't comprehend how monopolistic bundling can be a bad thing for the economy and people in general?