States Seek More Oversight of Microsoft

taoman1 writes "A group of states led by California said in a court filing Thursday that ending oversight of Microsoft's business practices in November would not allow enough time to consider the antitrust implications of Windows Vista. The states want oversight extended at least through early next year. 'The justice department said in its report that while Microsoft's operating system market share hasn't dropped because of the consent decree, "it would misapprehend the purpose of the Final Judgments to rely on these facts to argue that the Final Judgments have been ineffective. Microsoft was never found to have acquired or increased its monopoly market share unlawfully." In its report, Microsoft directly countered California's claims and said, the "Final Judgments were never designed to reduce Microsoft's share in any putative market."'"

Comments

What?

[morgan_greywolf]

Didn't increase or maintain its marketshare illegally? What the hell do you call all of the RICO violations that Microsoft has been guilty of with SCO v. IBM, asking companies for 'protection money', and the thinly-veiled threats to sue the FOSS community into oblivion?

The Justice Department has clearly been replaced by members of the mafia.

Re:market share drop

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, Linux is the best thing that have happened to Apple.

OS X = Linux done right.

Re:Not a good thing

[ajs]

I'm all for making the playing field even and all, but federal/state oversight of the operating system is a bad idea. There are two valid options in the long-term. Because a monopoly OS becomes a defacto arm of the government (being able to enforce policy via changes to the way everyone, including the government, gets information and/or can communicate with the world) oversight will eventually be a must. To avoid that, Windows would have to not be a monopoly. MacOS is cutting in a bit, and given time might present a sufficient competitive force. Linux is certainly presenting viable competition on the server-side, so I don't think there's a monopoly threat there.

Microsoft has pushed the states very, very hard to prevent them from moving to other platforms. If they continue to do so, the states are left only with the need to seek oversight on what is effectively a monopoly over critical government resources.

Competition, in this case, is in Microsoft's best interests.

Re:Not a good thing

[MightyMartian]

Indeed, the better thing to have done would have been to split the damn company up. "Oversight" is such a load of crap. Just look at the troubles the EU is having trying to make Microsoft behave itself.

Re:Likely modded into oblivion

[Nimey]

Nice subject line. It seems to me that people who say "I know I'll get modded down for this..." are often modded up.

A slightly trollish comment of mine was modded up to IIRC 4 before I self-replied and pointed out how I'd gamed the system by saying that, and both were promptly -1'd.

So, proposed new rule. If someone says they know they'll get modded down, mods should do so.

Novel Solution

[MBCook]

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, they continue to abuse their position. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, government interference doesn't tend to "go away" when the problem is gone in some of the cases.

How about we try something really different.

For the next two years, any Windows ad must include the tag line (emphasized somewhere, not hidden)

The operating system you should chose for your computer

It's not outright annoying to them (as requiring "it is possible to use something other than Windows on your computer" would be). It's not arguably false (as "The best operating system you could chose" would be). It sounds like something that would normally be in an ad.

But it will get people questioning... "What do you mean chose?" And spreading that fact is about the best thing we could do.

Off the wall (compared to normal sentences/penalties)? Yes.

Other choices? How about:

We realize you have a choice in operating systems, and we thank you for choosing Windows

Department of (IN)Justice

[NullProg]

Has a conflict of interest in the case with Thomas Barnett involved.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly needs to view any DOJ testimony with skepticism.

The official, Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett, had until 2004 been a top antitrust partner at Covington & Burlington, the law firm that has represented Microsoft in several antitrust disputes.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/artic les/2007/06/10/microsoft_finds_defender_in_us_just ice_department/

Enjoy,

Re:Not a good thing

[runderwo]

Indeed, the better thing to have done would have been to split the damn company up.

And then you have 3 separate monopolies in each of desktop, internet, and office applications, since none of them would change their business practices as a result. Great idea.

No, the correct approach would have been to require Microsoft to disclose its secret file formats, network protocols, and APIs. The free market would do the rest of the work in cutting Microsoft down to size.

The message would be clear: You can be a monopolist, OR you can wield the government-granted privileges of trade secrets, copyrights, and patents against the rest of the industry. But you cannot do both!

Well, understand this....

[Mariner28]

Microsoft has admitted to stacking the Sweden's Institute of Standards (their representative body to the ISO) recent vote on approving OOXML as an ISO standard. Just weeks prior to the vote, SIS was going to vote NO, but Microsoft offered financial incentives to Gold Partners in Sweden to join the SIS and vote yes.

And it looks like they tried the same thing in Denmark.

The US DoJ report just shows that the current administration is still awarding favors to its friends by saying that anti-competitive measures have worked. Any rational person would think that MS is the same old leopard which hasn't changed its spots.

Isn't it ironic that OSS - in the form of Linux and OpenOffice.org - are starting to show that they are capable of something the US Govt is not - namely, making Microsoft run scared.

Microsoft is using fraud and bribery to make sure that the only company that can be interoperable with Microsoft products is Microsoft itself.