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Microsoft Under Third EU Investigation for OOXML
The Wall Street Journal and Information Week reported this morning that EU regulators have announced a third investigation into Microsoft's conduct on the desktop. This latest action demonstrates that while the EU has settled the case against Microsoft that ran for almost a decade, it remains as suspicious as ever regarding the software vendor's conduct, notwithstanding Microsoft's less combative stance in recent years. The news can be found in a story reported by Charles Forelle bylined in Brussells this morning. According to the Journal, the investigation will focus on whether Microsoft 'violated antitrust laws during a struggle last year to ratify its Office
software file format as an international standard.' The article also says that the regulators are 'stepping up scrutiny of the issue.'
MSOOXML.NET is the future
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
Poor Microsoft, always under attack from all sides. How is the poor little thing to survive? Won't someone please think of the corporation?
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
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Our two weapons are surprise, chocolate, and sprouts!
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Yeah, we should allow abusive monopolies to corrupt absolutely everything. That's true capitalism, fucking over the consumer at every opportunity.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So you're saying the company that bought votes in the international standards organisation shouldn't be under investigation?
Are three weapons are surprise, chocolate, sprouts, and Van Damme!
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After all the crap they pulled over trying to get OOXML standardised don't sit here and tell me they're using "standard practices". They used practically every dirty trick in the book!
GM wields influence over... what, 20-30% of the cars sold in the US? (Hey, I was right... 26.9% in 2004.) 24% is in no way a monopoly, and as such, they're perfectly fine not interoperating with other car companies, as long as they operate on the agreed-upon standards of our roads and highways, street legal laws, emissions, etc.
Microsoft on the other hand has 90% of desktops and a large number of servers under it's sway. If they make a unilateral move, they feel NO pain because of it, even if it hurts the consumers. If GM said "Screw this, we're going to force everyone to use kerosene as their fuel!", people would buy other cars. When Microsoft says the same thing, people have to do it, or not be able to share documents, etc. THAT, my friend, is the difference.
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The problem with the standard is that it is not complete as written. It leaves big gaping holes which point to closed doors; closed-source Microsoft products. And the purpose of submitting it as a standard is to have it used in places in which actual open standards should be mandatory, such as when interfacing with government. To require a closed standard (however open it pretends to be) to work with a government is to grant a monopoly. Why should the people of any nation ever pay for such a thing?
Microsoft is not a "non-EU" company. They are multinational. They operate in the EU. If they choose to stop operating in the EU, then the EU will have no power over them and they can do whatever they want - somewhere else.
Microsoft has no god-given right to profits or even to do business in the EU. They are permitted to do so because it is believed that it is beneficial to trade. When they are no longer a beneficial influence on the market, why should they be permitted to participate? Because of some standard of justice? If the market cannot sustain their influence, then their influence should be eliminated or at the least mitigated to permit the market to continue to function, or the market should be superseded by the monopoly in question. Un(?)fortunately, Microsoft cannot provide the needs of the entire UK software market (although they would like you to believe that they can) and so this is not a solution.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
EU suggested that microsoft bribe standards bodies to buy votes in favour of OOXML?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
No, it is not. It is simply faced with a single-minded regulator which takes its job seriously and isn't fazed by the fact that Microsoft is a brazen repeat-offender.
GM does not have an 80% market share in the car market. Microsoft does have such a market share in the desktop OS market. That's a big difference.What Microsoft is currently doing with OOXML is a thoroughly unethical (paying companies PR contributions to vote in favour of OOXML, offering small countries rebates to vote in favour of OOCML, and suddenly stuffing ISO standards committees with pro-microsoft members who never before had an interest in ISO procedures in their lives) attempt to continue its lock-in, which regrettably seems to have a chance or working. (see e.g. http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20080208082501776 and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/08/ooxml_eu_probe_iso/ )
I see absolutely nothing to salute Microsoft about regarding its determination to disregard fair-competition and anti-trust regulations and I support the EU in this matter. Why don't we see any US regulators step up to the plate?
Oh come on. You can't possibly be that naive.
Here's the facts:
1. Many organizations, in particular governments, are beginning to mandate the use of open file formats.
2. A potential competitor to one of Microsoft's core product lines (read: profit center), OpenOffice.org, uses ISO open file formats; ODF, and is thus of some great interest to these government agencies.
3. Microsoft cannot afford to have its Office profit center undermined either by a competing product or by a competing, open standard like ODF.
4. Microsoft creates OOXML, a document standard so enormous and so riddled with proprietary references that it would be impossible for anyone not privy to Microsoft's older formats (which are not published) to actually produce their own OOXML-compliant product.
5. Microsoft then attempts to subvert the ISO by trying to buy votes. The purpose of this is to get OOXML ISO certification, so that when a government agency mandates an open document format, Microsoft can maneuver OOXML, which can only really be utilized by Microsoft Office, by trumpeting its "open" designation.
In short, OOXML is a rather elaborate scam, involving an unimplentable format, subverting the ISO and using it to maintain its all-important Office product line from meaningful competition.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Point the first: Microsoft does not provide adequate product lines for the desktop market. They are discontinuing Windows XP (the third service pack is already what, a year late?) and Vista is a gigantic step backwards in many respects, especially performance -- even with the new service pack, as reported here yesterday.
Point the second: Microsoft's continuing abuse of their monopoly position has a chilling effect on innovation. When a new technology comes out, Microsoft either purchases and ruins it, or poorly emulates it and thus marginalizes it. Microsoft has in the past even gone so far as to wrap their functions in other functions with delay loops, and not document the originals, reserving them for their own use, so that competitors' software runs artificially poorly on their operating system! Seriously, Microsoft has done more damage to computing than all the accidentally sloppy programming ever executed.
And speaking of executed, BillyG has parlayed his theft and betrayal into a position atop the Gates Foundation pyramid. He's in control of big boatloads of money cruising around the globe. He gives with one hand and takes with the other ("Dark cloud over good works of gates foundation", title of a lovely article IIRC) and just whose pocket is he in, anyway? Certainly the USDOJ had him dead to rights when they patted him on the back and sent him off to play with all that money. No matter how you look at the situation - from a technical standpoint, or a human one - the whole damned thing is just a collection of tragedies.
The point of the previous paragraph is to point out that if you think that Microsoft is holding the world of computing together, you are fucking hallucinating, because in reality if anything gets accomplished in computing it is in spite of Microsoft, not because of it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They own most of the EU's financial computers and could easily out-last the EU itself if it ever came to a standoff.
no matter how much money you have, it is never a good idea to get into a standoff with a sovereign nation (unless you are also a sovereign nation, and then it's only a good idea sometimes).
I don't know what the EU could do to impose the rule of law on Microsoft - suspending business licenses there might be the only thing Microsoft would really notice, and even then, that's not remotely guaranteed.
The EU could invalidate all intellectual property protections for microsoft products in the EU.
Remember that the right of the corporation to even exist as an entity in the EU is at the sufferance of the government.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
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Besides point 4 does not matter. It REALLY does not matter what is ratified at ISO: Microsoft is not going to use it. They will use their own "interpretation" and "extension" of it.
So were there a software fully compatible with the OOXML standard it would be completely useless in practice. And were it to follow Microsoft extensions it would need to follow, i.e. play catch-up giving Microsoft a huge advantage.
Still Microsoft could (and would) claim "ISO standard" in sales material (as you say in your point 5).
Relax, it's just the Microsoft trolls coming out of the woodwork. Every time there's a story on the EU versus Microsoft, they come out with the same lines: "MS getting picked on", "EU grabbing for pocket money", "EU is a sheeple/socialist/communist [expletive]-place". It's really getting old by now.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Monopoly isn't the opposite of capitalism, it's the ultimate goal of participants in capitalism.
And it's where capitalism will go if left unregulated.
True enough. It would be much more reasonable for the EU to impose fines that are greater than the profit derived from the illicit actions (whether or not that would bankrupt Microsoft shouldn't be a consideration in Anti-Trust issues and it is a shame people consider it so).
If Microsoft attempts to strong arm the EU, the EU could then exert its right to seize assets. Microsoft's greatest assets are its IP and if the EU legally seizes Microsoft copyrights the same WWII agreements you refer to would cause the change of ownership to be recognized globally, not just in the EU.
Microsoft would rather give away all their european profits in fines, than lose marketshare...
If they lose a significant share, then support for alternatives will increase and lockin will decrease, eventually causing a cascade reaction causing microsoft to lose significant levels of marketshare elsewhere and be forced to fight against competitors in a more even marketplace.
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