States and DoJ Divided On Microsoft Antitrust Success

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."

Comments

The question is simple

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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

Re:The question is simple

[gatzke]

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

Re:The question is simple

[Ed Avis]

He didn't ask whether it is possible to buy a non-Microsoft PC. Of course it has always been possible. He asked how easy it is. This is a quite legitimate question, even if as you point out it includes several different factors such as price and number of vendors.

It's documented that Microsoft has entered into restrictive contracts with OEMs so they pay per PC sold, whether or not it includes Windows. Also that Microsoft has threatened vendors (e.g. IBM) with an increase in the price they pay for Windows and used this as a tool to stop vendors from including competitors' software they don't like. Some of these restrictive deals were replaced with similar ones that look better on paper but are much the same in practice (e.g. paying a Microsoft tax on each PC of a certain 'model' that was sold, so if a vendor wants to exclude Windows they must print new name badges and manuals). A simple injunctive remedy IHMO would be to require that Microsoft sell Windows licences at the same price to all vendors, and that the licence be paid for only if Windows is included with the PC.

You are quite right about the bundling of products etc. That is another example of monopoly power. It doesn't make the complaint about Microsoft preventing OEMs from offering Windows-free PCs any less valid.

Ah ha!

[morgan_greywolf]

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.

Actually, it's quite simple...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

You were expecting...?

[clang_jangle]

The nature of our current government makes a mockery of the FTC and anti-trust regulations. How can we reasonably expect anti-trust regulation from a federal government which is almost entirely composed of corporate henchmen?

Re:Oddly enough...

[speaker of the truth]

Yes they still do certain things, but many things have changed. And yet you haven't mentioned what they do differently.

Web standards noncompliance

[wombatmobile]

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.

The DoJ has to say it worked

[tbannist]

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.

Re:Oddly enough...

[Eponymous Bastard]

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

Re:Oddly enough...

[ozmanjusri]

Well then you could provide us a list of wrongdoing from the past, let's say, a year?

I'll start.

1. Claiming Linux violates 235 patents.
2. Introduce OOXML to spike ODF, and stacking ISO
3. Subverting Massachusetts to prevent adoption of ODF there.
4. Novell-Microsoft agreement
5. Preventing alternative desktop search engines.
6. Introducing Silverlight to spike Flash
7. Introducing XPS to spike PDF
8. Refusing to open APIs and protocols despite EU decision.
9. Breaking all of their own "12 tenets' before they even got started.

There's more, but that's a good start.

A R G H!!!

[mattgreen]

Whenever I read a story about MS I'd always feel something change within me. It was a sort of nervous tremor, a rush of energy over me. However, it would be gone as quickly as it came. Normally, I don't think too much about it. But after reading this list, I was thrown into a blind fury, consumed by unadulterated rage the likes of which I have never unleashed from my mother's basement. Raising my fist high, I stabbed in the general direction of Redmond with a force of approximately 4.76lb of sheer brutality. The resulting shockwave from my outburst surely disrupted the evil Redmond campus, if but momentarily.

Brothers, we must join together. Let us never forget the list of endless sins that this company has perpetuated. Egregious, dastardly sins that would make their grandmothers cry when they heard them. We must continue to fight this war! Our main offensive shall be the posting of vehement rants on community-driven websites, such as Slashdot. The sheer number of these pointed essays shall bowl over our enemies in no time! This is a battle of numbers: do not feel the need to invoke mighty weapons of logic at every turn! And, also remember, your own stories of woe relating to Microsoft are worth as much, if not more, than logical arguments.

I trust you will not let me down.

Linux on the desktop (Dell, HP, Lenovo)

[Dark Fire]

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.

Re:Oddly enough...

[rtb61]

OK. Lets add blatant lying about xbox fault rates, and defective design in order to extend their monopoly. Then just a few weeks ago paying off one of the studios to drop blu-ray. Then there are all the WGA lies about it working in the face of continual failures. Then the advertising about performance and stability of vista just a few weeks before they supply a performance and stability service pack. Add to that cheating on their taxes by off shoring patent royalties. Lets see, there are the crazy claims that M$ can use GPLv3 code with out being bound by GPLv3. Also there was the mother of all adware patents that uses "context data" from your hard drive to show you advertisements and "apportion and credit advertising revenue" to ad suppliers in real time. There was also that whole blatant blue jay patent theft thing.

Yeah, I know that's not a full year, in fact I got sick of searching /. just back to july, if you want to find the rest of the disgusting B$ behaviour coming out of redmond for the nine months prior to that look for yourself ;).