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

Not a good thing

[OS24Ever]

I'm all for making the playing field even and all, but federal/state oversight of the operating system is a bad idea. Is it just MS you want to oversite, or is it the computer OS so you can start regulating what people use, or charging taxes because regulation doesn't come free.

Just seems like a big Pandora's box of things would be opened up.

Re:Not a good thing

[gfxguy]

I hate MS for what they've done in the past, but the free market is working and I'm getting a little sick of the government interference. Vista's adoption has been really slow, consumers aren't all that hyped for it, more and more people are discovering MacOS and liking it.

Sure, Windows still has the major share, but I don't think anything the government's done has been what has decreased the overall share. Actually, quite the contrary... while on one side they had all this oversight, on the other the U.S. government has been one of the biggest buyers.

People are getting sick of MS all on their own. As long as we keep harping about it to our friends and families and keep introducing them to alternatives, and getting our schools and churches and places of business to try alternatives, we're fine.

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:Not a good thing

[gfxguy]

I am a libertarian, in fact, but that doesn't mean that I completely disagree with government interference in a monopoly.

So sorry your favorite OS has not taken over the world, but you don't get to use the government to do it. Now look at this topic - they want oversight of Vista, the OS, this doesn't concern anything else MS may be up to, just what it's doing with it's OS.

And MS HAS lost market share to MacOS (and perhaps fractionally Linux), and it did so because of the free market, not anything the government has done.

Don't confuse this issue with MS's other business practices unrelated to the OS itself.

Re:Not a good thing

[Coryoth]

There are so many barriers to new entrants. Is it any wonder linux took of in the server market where MS didn't dominate. It's worth noting that Linux only gets by in the desktop market, where application base is one of the largest barriers to entry, because of its open source nature and the surrounding philosophically motivated developer community. MacOS X gets by via legacy support -- that is, they were once big enough and had a large enough application base, and remained strong enough in niches (such as graphics and design) that they've managed to keep an application base. Newcomers that didn't have either of those advantages (including BeOS and NeXT) got crushed regardless of superior quality. The only way NeXTStep got anywhere was by rebranding as MacOS and dragging the Mac developer community along kicking and screaming.

Breaking into the desktop market is very hard indeed, and the barriers are ridiculously steep. We're just very lucky that a couple of special cases happened to squeak through -- and note that even having gotten past the barrier to entry and getting onto the field, application base remains an exceptionally powerful obstruction to actually managing to compete. Linux and MacOS may be on the field, but it is still far from level.

Re:Not a good thing

[bigpat]

Sorry if this upsets all you libertarians but real life has a way of doing that. A free market is one that has rules that everyone has to follow. A thoughtful libertarian understands that government has an important and proper role in setting rules for the marketplace and enforcing them on everyone equally. I think it is right that government authority should be imposed when any company or individual has achieved a monopoly of control over the market and it is good that elected representatives should make sure that a monopolist doesn't use that market control to keep others from competing or to prevent others from getting goods and services at a fair price.

Liberty and Freedom are not equivalent to anarchy, and you do a disservice to everyone by perpetuating that falsehood.

market share drop

[ohearn]

"The justice department said in its report that while Microsoft's operating system market share hasn't dropped because of the consent decree,"

No, but it might drop because Vista has been the best advertizing that OS X and Linux could ask for.

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:What?

[stinerman]

If Microsoft is a monopoly by virtue of its market share, why isn't Intel?

Because, AFAIK, Intel hasn't tried to use it's monopoly in processors (and I doubt that they have one) to get a monopoly in another area, say chipsets.

Under current law, you can have a monopoly so long as you don't use that monopoly to gain a monopoly to another market. Microsoft used their desktop OS monopoly to get a browser monopoly and then a media player monopoly.

Likely modded into oblivion

[Pojut]

Because of a seemingly "pro-microsoft" stance this may show, but why are people and the government so up in arms about the monopoly that Microsoft has when absolutely NOTHING is being done about broadband ISPs, phone companies, oil companies (well we all know the answer to that one) and the RIAA/MPAA?

One thing I'll never understand ...

[BrianRoach]

There is one main thing that maintains microsoft's illegal monopoly: interoperability.

If the settlement had said "You (M$) must make your file formats and server protocols (exchange) available", there would be a whole lot more folks not needing to buy MS products because there would be other viable* alternatives.

* Yes, I know about (and use) OpenOffice, Evolution, etc ... but none of these offer 100% interoperability which is really important when it comes to business. And people use their home computers for work at least on some level. I can't rely on Oo to properly format an important word doc - I always email it to myself, open it at work, and often need to tweak the formatting a bit.

- Roach

Re:One thing I'll never understand ...

[BrianRoach]

MS Office doesn't offer 100% interoperability. Funnily enough. Similar amounts of tweaking required there between versions.

And you don't think this is by design?

Why else would everyone need the latest version?

- Roach

About The Best Thing The Fed And States Could Do

[Greyfox]

Rather than saddling Microsoft with some sort of corporate herpes, they should make it easier (or possible) to consider non-Microsoft operating systems for federal and state contracts. They could also mandate that all state and federal business be done using open file formats and open protocols. That would go a long way toward encouraging alternatives right there.

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,

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.

Re:Oops

[Guppy06]

In most states (including California), the attorney general is elected separately.

Maybe Microsoft's problem is that, like you, they have no idea how their own government works, to the point of bribing the wrong people?

Really, people, you can't change your government for the better if you don't know how things work as they are.