The History of Microsoft's Anti-Competitive Behavior

jabjoe writes "Groklaw is highlighting a new document from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (PDF) about the history of Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior. Quoting: 'ECIS has written it in support of the EU Commission's recent preliminary findings, on January 15, 2009, that Microsoft violated antitrust law by tying IE to Windows. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first time that the issue of Microsoft's patent threats against Linux have been framed in a context of anti-competitive conduct.' The report itself contains interesting quotes, like this one from Microsoft's Thomas Reardon: '[W]e should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take more advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps.' It also has the Gates 1998 Deposition."

Comments

Brings me back

[mc1138]

I remember one of my first computer courses in school where we were taught computer history. I still remember the professor telling us about the early days of Microsoft and how it didn't take long for them to start ripping off ideas, only to then buy the company that was suing them.

Re:Brings me back

[aoteoroa]

BTW I still stand behind the principle that having IE with Windows is not anti-competative. If that were the case then Red Hat, Apple OS, and others would be anti-competitive. . .car companies are anti-competative because they come bundled with radios,

You can remove and replace the stock radio from your car and it wont break the car. The problem with IE wasn't just that it was available for free but you could not remove it.

Re:Brings me back

[Noren]

Which Disney was involved in the passage of the Copyright Act of 1790, which allowed 14 years with an optional extension for a second 14 years if the copyright holder was alive? Or the Copyright Act of 1909, which doubled that to 28 years renewable for a second 28? Blaming everything on Disney is /. trendy but ignores history.

Re:Anyone else notice

[jabjoe]

Listen-to/watch him on the 1998 Deposition. No amount of charity PR is going to make me think he is a good honest man. He is not someone to admire or even respect. It's not ok to do anything you can get away with to make money. Becoming rich doesn't make everything ok. If I was religious man I would point to old text on camels, the eye of needles and damnation, but I'm not, but what I'll say is society couldn't function if it was filled with people like this.