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States and DoJ Divided On Microsoft Antitrust Success

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-better-now dept.

Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that the US Department of Justice and five States have declared themselves satisfied with the antitrust enforcement efforts taken against Microsoft despite a further seven States maintaining they have had 'little or no discernible impact in the marketplace.' While the US DoJ and five States — New York, Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, and Wisconsin (The New York Group) — reported that the final judgments have succeeded in increasing competition to the benefit of consumers, seven States making up the California Group are not convinced."

9 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. The question is simple by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you more able today to buy a computer without a Microsoft OS than you were 4 years ago?

    1. Re:The question is simple by gatzke · · Score: 5, Insightful


      Your questions is ridiculous.

      You always have had choices. Mac has always been there. There have always been linux shops that sell hardware. More expensive and less support, but you could do it.

      How do you define "more able" to buy something? Price? Availability? Support? Number of vendors?

      MS bundles products, closes interfaces, and forces new version upgrades. This is an abuse of monopoly power.

      IANAL, but MS was declared a monopoly back around 2000. I don't think a judge ever declared them to no longer be a monopoly, so I assume that ruling stands.

      http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/2479.html

  2. Ah ha! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, now we know which states Microsoft has the most paid lobbyists in.

    Seriously, I don't see how the antitrust suit has had much bearing on Microsoft's behavior. They continue to act like a monopolist. Prices for Microsoft operating systems have actually gone UP, not down (despite prices for virtually everything else in their industry dropping) and their market share hasn't changed significantly in anyway -- when it has changed, it's been due to superior and/or cheaper products, such as all-in-one file servers with embedded OS, Linux, or improvements in Apple's Mac OS X.

    --
    My blog
  3. Actually, it's quite simple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For Microsoft it's just a business decision. If the fines for not complying are smaller than the loss they would face by complying, then they won't change anything and just pay the fine. This has happened in Europe, where they had to pay hundreds of million of dollars and elsewhere.

    This is just another example how much power they wield and how _corrupt_ some states in the US (and ofc elsewhere) are.

  4. Re:Oddly enough... by speaker+of+the+truth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes they still do certain things, but many things have changed. And yet you haven't mentioned what they do differently.
    --
    Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
  5. Web standards noncompliance by wombatmobile · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft's continued abuse of its monopoly for operating systems is clearly apparent in its failure to implement web standards in IE.

    Smaller browser vendors with vastly less funding have made giant strides in their implementations of CSS, SVG, mathml and DOM. Microsoft has done as little as possible to implement those standards, but somehow has found the resources and the rationalization to implement SilVerliGht, which is a stolen, bastardized clone of SVG.

    Unlike 10 years ago, the world has moved past its reliance on Microsoft to embrace other vendors products willingly. No wonder IE's market share continues to fall precipitously.

  6. The DoJ has to say it worked by tbannist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Really the Department of Justice deliberately bungled the law suit, and now they have no choice but to claim it's a success till the bitter end. The last thing they want is yet another investigation into official mismanagement and White House interference in a anti-trust case. Immediately after Bush was elected they pulled all senior DoJ staff off of the case and left only a few inexperienced lawyers (from that Bible School they're so fond of hiring from) on the case.

    They had Microsoft up against a wall, and then suddenly they were best buddies with Microsoft and nothing had ever really been wrong in the first place. It was sickening and another black eye for the United States, but if at any point the DoJ admits that it's unsastisfied with the results, it opens up an old can worms for the house or the senate to investigate.

    --
    Fanatically anti-fanatical
  7. Re:Oddly enough... by Eponymous+Bastard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Would you count tampering with ISO approval process for OOXML to standardize something only they can implement as furthering their monopoly? Suddenly they can keep locking in documents from government bodies that require an ISO standard file format

    Seriously, this has been on /. all week

  8. Linux on the desktop (Dell, HP, Lenovo) by Dark+Fire · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is it possible that the reason that Dell, HP, and Lenovo are now offering desktop PCs with Linux has little to do with Linux and it's merits and more to do with the fact that the antitrust enforcement against Microsoft is about to expire and is up for review/renewal. OEM bullying to lockout competitors was one of the biggest complaints against Microsoft. But since the big 3 desktop PC vendors are selling Linux, the measures slapped on Microsoft have obviously worked and are no longer needed.