Microsoft Finally Bows to EU Antitrust Measures

Rogue Pat writes "Microsoft ended three years of resistance on Monday and finally agreed to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission. Competitors will be able to buy interface protocols for 10.000 Euro to make their software work better with Windows. Moreover, Microsoft won't appeal the 500 million Euro fine any further."

Comments

Microsoft should have payed the fine

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had started paying it initially, with the decrease of the dollar and increase of the euro, it would have saved them a lot of money.

Re:Microsoft should have payed the fine

[truthsearch]

They aren't two completely independent companies. And the issue for investors isn't directly the small hit to Microsoft's purse or which division of the company pays. But rather their choice to fight for market share at just about any expense. Often times playing friendly is more profitable long term.

Took long enough...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think the saddest thing here is that it seems to take us three years to enforce a judgement against a major corporation, and even then the reporting in the media is all written as if Microsoft have kindly agreed to co-operate and not as though they've been forced to accept the judgement of a court that found they had done wrong and ordered them punished for it. If legal systems are this slow, it's no wonder people get concerned about the power of megacorps and that we see everyone from Big Software to Big Media taking some pretty major liberties with things like antitrust law.

Re:Took long enough...

[mgblst]

If I have a secret, I don't care what the antitrust european court says, it's my secret, they shoudln't take that nor my money away for me.

If you are in the US, then this is damn hilarious. The US, where toture has become accepted practice to obtain secrets.

Microsoft can keep there secrets, but it is going to cost them. They are free to get up and leave Europe, I am sure we will do fine. The simple fact is, that if they did that, then a huge amount of effort would be put into getting Linux as a perfect replacement. This would weaken Micrsofts stronghold on the rest of the world as well.

Re:Took long enough...

[orcrist]

but couldn't microsoft essentially say that their software was no longer allowed to be purchased or used by any country in the EU

So let me get this straight. You think Microsoft could tell a sovereign nation what they are "allowed" to do within their borders?

Re:Took long enough...

[NoOneInParticular]

Yes, MS could do this, and force the EU into a quick migration plan (well, after the EU government has declared MS's copyright null and void in the EU). After this they can witness MS stock plummet to 5 bucks overnight, while any linux firm quadruples their stock price. Then, the MS execs should better prepare to fence off the lawsuits from stockholders as they are facing interesting days in court and possibly jail.

And that's just the first day. Soon it will become obvious that international companies with branches in the EU need to migrate away from MS as well if they want to keep their software homogeneous in their enterprise, subsequently forcing, in time, US national companies that are working with these internationals away from MS. In a year it would be over for MS.

not good enough

[polar red]

It's simple : we need the complete interface specifications for free, when you buy the operation system to use on your desktop.

So still refusing to comply

[Anonymous Coward]

So yet again they're still refusing to comply, they've just dropped the price and announced they're now complying when they're patently not?

This is no different to when they paid the last fine and announced they'd finally given in to the EU demands and offered the documentation at 50k with restrictive license.

So they drop the price a little, and the restrictions a little, but so what? It's the same game. The EU needs to force compliance here. Or they'll play this game forever.

Whence the chipper tone?

[the bluebrain]

So Microsoft simply caved, and will now co-operate fully with all comers, and will comply with the letter (if not the spirit) of the ruling?

Balls. They've just taking the fight to the next level, that's all. The expression "cold, dead hands", comes to mind, when contemplating any usable spec belonging to MS.

Microsoft still wins

[m2943]

$10k is peanuts for commercial companies. It even is peanuts for open source companies. But the fact that there is any fee at all means that the information is not public, and this will likely exclude open source competitors, which is what Microsoft wants most of all.

Fortunately, there may be workarounds: people can write small binary-only Microsoft compatibility plug-ins which plug into larger open source applications that eventually can replace Microsoft's applications.

Re:Microsoft still wins

[anarxia]

Or write a "reference" implementation. It's no substitute for documentation but it will help those that cannot/will not buy the specification.

Re:Microsoft still wins

[Anonymous Coward]

$10k is peanuts for commercial companies. It even is peanuts for open source companies. But the fact that there is any fee at all means that the information is not public

Well, no. E.g. You have to pay a fee for most public documents (say, court records), but you're free to redistribute them. If they're copyrighted, you can still write your own documentation/description of the information and distribute that. (Remember folks, copyright only covers the expression, not the idea itself) Take the Linux kernel and POSIX for example. Linus originally said his OS wouldn't be POSIX-compliant because he couldn't afford to pay for the spec. Today Linux is pretty much entirely POSIX-compliant, despite noone (except Linux-FT?) having ponied up the cash. This is because POSIX has been re-documented in plenty of other places.

So the pertinent question isn't really whether there's a fee or not, or even whether there's a copyright on the docs or not. The most important question in my mind, is whether the info will be available under an NDA or not.

Re:Paid for the dinner

[Corporate Troll]

No, it's most probably because Microsoft paying for the meal could be interpreted as bribery.

I still don't understand ....

[Alain Williams]

will we be able to use this in an OSS project ?

What restrictions come with the specification that we pay 10,000 Euros for? If there are restrictions on what we can do with the knowledge gained, then we can't use it. M$ could argue that publishing code written using their spec is the same as publishing their spec and so everyone who reads the code has to pay 10k Euros.

Until this is explained in full: we need to hold back on popping the champagne corks.

How good will the spec be? If it is anything like the OOXML one then there will still be huge holes. M$ is smart enough to only publish in the spec the bits that have been reverse engineered: this allows it to claim that it has revealed a lot without adding anything to what is known by the rest of us.

Only 10,000 euros!

[Richard W.M. Jones]

So after years of illegally leveraging their monopoly to drive others out of business and drive up the price of software and goods, their "punishment" is to charge people even more. This "justice" things sounds great, wish I could get some of that!

Rich.

Re:We told you so

[boule75]

Absolutely, mod this up !

Nelly Kroes from the EU just declared Victory to retreat faster. Please read and link the EU press release, there (English only): http://www.europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/1567&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

- Any decisions as to wether Microsoft complies will be made by an English court, some day, with a rule probably but which one nobody knows. But - by Jove ! - those rules have just changed... More delays, more legal battles, more defeats for the good guys.
- They have not settled about the fees... Or has Reuters more information? Or more disinformation?
- The press release if filled with patent-talk (with consequences) even while software patents are still not recognised in the EU. In this respect, this IS a full blown victory for the huge patent troll that is MSFT, because the commission plays by US-UK rule.

Conclusion: the US corps rule the EU through proxies. It's as simple as that.

Next: more GM food, getting rid of all those bees, enforcing all those patents on living things created long ago. "Someone patented a one-click, so I patented a gene. And _I_ earn money with it! Waaaaa!!!"

Re:Only one taker

[mabhatter654]

no, Samba won't, because of this INFORMATION having any terms at all, they should not touch this with a 100 foot pole. The EU sold them out is what just happened. Samba already has BETTER documentation than Microsoft, they were advising the EU on what was necessary versus the line of BS Microsoft was trying to feed the court. Samba only needs about 50 pages of specs to make their implementation complete... this ruling could potentially open Samba up to legal problems because now M$ could claim Samba didn't buy or abide by the license.

Microsoft WON this case by wearing down the court, the EU didn't effect a punishment that will actually hurt M$ and the ruling will be twisted in M$ favor for years to come. The EU LOST the case!!!