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Microsoft Bends To Norwegian Pressure

Posted by kdawson on from the keeping-competitors-out dept.

Martin writes "Microsoft has agreed to change the terms of its school agreement contract with Norwegian regional municipalities, following a complaint by Norwegian open-source software company Linpro to the Norwegian Competition Authority. Microsoft 'introduced two kinds of flexibility in the agreement, that were previously missing,' the head of the company's Norway operations said. One of these 'kinds of flexibility' involved Microsoft not getting paid a license fee for each Linux and Mac computer in schools."

15 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. I don't understand by rumith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How can one demand license fees for something they don't have the right to license in the first place (in case of Mac OS X, which AFAIK does not allow redistribution)?

    1. Re:I don't understand by dsanfte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Easy, offer a huge up-front discount to the schools and sneak it into the contract. People who think they're getting a deal of a lifetime tend not to look too closely at the fine print (gifthorses and all that).

      --
      occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
    2. Re:I don't understand by badfish99 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not a fee for distributing OS/X; it's a fee per machine.

      The usual licensing terms that Microsoft force on OEMs are that Microsoft must be paid a fee per machine sold, regardless of whether it has Windows installed on it or not. Of course the idea of this is to encourage OEMs to install Windows on every machine they sell, because they can't make a saving from not doing so. If you try to negotiate a "per copy of Windows" price instead of a "per machine" price, the licensing cost goes up to the retail cost, which is deliberately inflated to make it uneconomic.

    3. Re:I don't understand by ozmanjusri · · Score: 5, Interesting
      almost nobody has actually gone to the store and bought a copy of Windows.

      It's not about individuals buying Windows off the shelf. It's about keeping the big boxshifters (Dell et al) on the Windows treadmill.

      A local grey-box assembler in Australia pays about AU$210 wholesale for an OEM copy of Vista Business. Dell pays about AU$40 for the same thing. When a basic business-capable computer can be put together for about AU$800, that difference in the MS tax between the two businesses is what's keeping Dell alive.

      Dell's selling Linux boxes now, because most of the grey-box builders offer cheap computers with Ubuntu installed, and they don't want to be left behind. But you can bet your bottom dollar they'll be shitting bricks at the thought of having to compete without that MS built buffer.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    4. Re:I don't understand by erroneus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is the perfect explanation of the "Microsoft Tax." Someone should quote this on a regular basis when someone needs to explain to others what they mean by that.

    5. Re:I don't understand by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is the result of the neoconservative movement. Anyone who speaks out for consumer rights or against ruthless business practices is labeled as some kind of extreme left communist, and here in America, that is considered to be a bad thing. In fact, under the current administration, being labeled a "liberal" is a bad thing. And unfortunately, not only do consumers wind up losing, but engineers and programmers also end up losing because of software patents and large monopolies like Microsoft (God forbid we should ever say that a business is too big).

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    6. Re:I don't understand by IdleTime · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And yest, the average American thumps themselves on the chest and proclaim with great bravado "We are #1!'. And when you try to tell them, no, not really, you are more like 23-27 on all rankings and your citizens are treated like shit. Seeing the disaster that ensued after Katrina made me think what would have happened if such a thing had happened back home. The government would have put in any form ogf help possible including the military, It would have been a huge lift of help and the people cared for and a huge rebuilding project would have followed with one single goal, to get people back into better homes and built levies that could have withstand the strongest possible hurricane.

      The worst part about the US society is that people are apathetic. As long as they get their Tv shows and celebrity news along with a healthy dose of bullshit about USA #1, they are happy. And they don't even have the imagination to think that people in other countries are better off.

      The real funny part is that many Americans I have discussed with consider the Scandinavian countries to be socialistic but fail to realize that we have as many billionaires per capita as USA does, I even think Sweden has more per capita. Not to mention that even we have a national health care system, most of the players are private and not government run. And they make good money too. My experience is that Americans are socially dumber than Europeans and have been so brainwashed that they can not believe how bad the US society is.

      --
      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
  2. OEM Inflation Reduction by Shohat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As someone already pointed out, there is a per-machine fee charged by Microsoft, mainly due to the way licences are sold in volumes to OEMs (per machine, not per copy).
    It would be very interesting to see the implications of forcing Microsoft to move away from this kind of licensing, and present numbers based on the actual Windows copy installations instead of OEM per-machine licensing numbers. While it won't change the market much and the actual number of copies installed, the updated numbers could very well indicate a market share lower than 85% for Windows.
    Just my 2c. I might be horribly wrong :)

    --
    My Starcraft 2 Blog
  3. Re:Buyer beware by gnud · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Norway should have read the contract before they signed it.

    This is not a contract that all schools in Norway, or the norwgian directorate for education entered into. This is Microsofts licensing option for schools, used by SOME schools and school districts. I dare say the schools who used this licensing scheme did abide by it. Parts of this licensing agreement has now been deemed unlawful.

    They did so only because they are a reasonable company

    Did you even read the slashdot summary? Some parts of the contract are illegal in norway. So I think Microsoft will have to change them, since our justice department is bought, like yours. FTA:

    - We made it clear to Microsoft that we were preparing sanctions, as the school agreements excluxded competitors from this market. Now that they have met our demands, we dismiss the case, says NCA(norwegian competition authority, my note) department director Jostein Skaar to Norwegian daily Dagbladet.
  4. Re:Buyer beware by gnud · · Score: 4, Informative

    Heh. Even after two previews. Since our justice department is NOT bought, like yours.

  5. I don't think they have that anymore to Dell... by rolfwind · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because Dell's Ubuntu machines are slightly cheaper than their Window's equivalents, last I heard. I don't think they would do that if they still had to pay per machine.

    Though I am sure a lot of OEMs get the per machine treatment.

    1. Re:I don't think they have that anymore to Dell... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Because Dell's Ubuntu machines are slightly cheaper than their Window's equivalents, last I heard. I don't think they would do that if they still had to pay per machine.

      Though I am sure a lot of OEMs get the per machine treatment.

      Microsoft has been specifically forbidden in the U.S. for doing per machine sold licenses as a result of losing one of the antitrust cases. I'm not sure about the bundling B.S..

  6. Same old crap M$ has been pulling for years by rwyoder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From 1991-1993 I worked for a large PC builder. While there, I learned we had signed a contract that paid M$ a fee for pre-installing a M$ OS on every machine we shipped...including the ones shipped with Novell, SCO Unix, Banyon Vines, and no OS at all. When I asked "Why the hell did we sign a contract like that???", the answer was: "Because they told us to take it or leave it." We couldn't have been competitive w/o being able to ship with M$ OS's pre-installed, and M$ knew it. So obviously, nothing has changed in M$'s behavior in the last 15 years.

  7. Re:Why does this not surprise me... by rvw · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Thanks for reminding me!

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4 456801,00.html The American Service-members' Protection Act, otherwise known as "The Hague Invasion Act". You can read the legalled-up version, as passed a fortnight ago, at www.nrc.nl/Doc/ASPA.pdf. The long and short of it is that America will use military force against the Netherlands to free any of its nationals held by the international criminal court (ICC) at the Hague.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire Enercon is prohibited from importing their wind turbines into the US until 2010 [1] due to infringement of U.S. Patent 5,083,039 [2]. Enercon claims their intellectual property was stolen by Kenetech (US Windpower, Inc.) and patented in the US before they could do so. Kenetech made similar claims against Enercon. According to the European Parliament; Kenetech seeking evidence for legal action against Enercon for breach of patent rights on the grounds that Enercon had obtained commercial secrets illegally, According to an NSA employee, detailed information concerning Enercon was passed on to Kenetech via ECHELON [1][3]
  8. Not exactly. by khasim · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's no "sneaking" involved. It's clearly stated. EVERY machine you have MUST be counted when calculating the license fee.

    No matter what runs on that machine.

    Or how old it is.

    Or what it does.

    If you do not want to go with the Microsoft contract, you may purchase retail versions of Windows for each machine. And hope that you're fully compliant. Because the fines for piracy are far more than the cost of just paying Microsoft for every single box you have no matter what.