Slashdot Mirror
Russia Launches Anti-trust Probe of Microsoft
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Russia's state anti-monopoly service said on Thursday it had launched a probe of Microsoft over cutbacks in supplies of its Windows XP operating system in Russia.
The agency said it thought Microsoft had violated antimonopoly legislation by cutting delivery of Windows XP operating system to Russia both separately and pre-installed on personal computers, as well as in its pricing policy on the product.
It said it would consider the case on July 24, 2009."
When I read the first two words I nearly had a heart attack, since the other launches lately have been NK testing missiles.
In Soviet Russia, Microsoft probes YOU!
... in Russia, Microsoft would launch the probe! /Slashdot has been lying to me....
After so many other countries are getting on the whole anti-monopoly bandwagon, why should Russia be left out of the money?
The Russian state anti-monopoly service is itself a monopoly.
And you cant bring the Parker Brothers game into Russia for fear it might contact the anti-monopoly service, creating a huge explosion.
Talk about Goliath versus Goliath. The successful monopolist versus... the slightly less successful monopolist who can rewrite its own legal system. Time to invest in popcorn.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
While Microsoft obviously engages in a lot of monopolistic practices and I strongly dislike them for this, Russia's reasoning seems rather flawed.
While yes, it sucks that Windows XP is being EOLed for a lot of people because Vista is worse than XP for many users (IMO anyone with less RAM than the 32-bit addressing limit because if there's anything modern that sucks more than Vista, it's 64-bit XP), products getting EOLed is a fact of life. I can't see any reason why EOLing a product would be monopolistic.
Hell, if anything, it would be just the opposite - EOLing a popular product in favor of a less popular product is going to drive people towards the competition.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Well, Chutzpah is a word derived from hebrew. The best english equivalent is "audacity", and it comes out as this. You can translate it here and hear what it sounds like.
(Too bad Slashdot will inevitably mess up any attempt at a foreign language. The word comes out like this: "ÑмÐÐоÑÑÑOE")
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I always thought bundling useful tools with an operating system(i.e. IE) was a poor example of leveraging a monopoly to corner a market. However, discontinuing support for old products to FORCE new ones on customers, that is leveraging a monopoly in an anti-competitive manner. This is a much more reasonable case to take against Microsoft's more shady practices.
So in Russia it's illegal for a company to sell a 10 year old product, even though that product will be 2 versions old this year? If we could make legal demands to sell retired products I'd still be eating Ninja Turtle cereal today.
The word comes out like this: "ÑмÐÐоÑÑÑOE"
It translates it to Swedish?
If you're referring to EU fines...they are absolutely insignificant pocket change for EU budget; they wouldn't even make a difference to most of its individual memberstates.
In this case the amount of money would be similarly insignificant when it comes to contribution to Russian budget. OTOH...there are certianly few individuals who could forget the whole deal for some favours. That's how things work in post-soviet countries.
In anycase, the claims are bogus, almost everybody runs pirated software in Russia.
One that hath name thou can not otter
It appears that the European efforts have triggered a new trend whereby EVERY country a multinational corporation operates in that isn't its native country can start engaging in the MoneyGrab(tm) technique. I mean why let all those euros or rubles leave the country? Why not have companies come in, sell products, and then since you can't tax the hell out of them due to the WTO and the ensuing trade wars, instead just trump up some charges over being too succcessful and "tax" them that way.
Can someone explain to me why this isn't a WTO issue and why these kinds of taxes... I mean fines aren't regulated under the trade agreements?
And don't tell me how they're just trying to stop the evil monopolies. I'm fine with them fining the shit out of Microsoft for bad behavior as long as they're willing to donate 100% of the proceeds to charity. It's not about the behavior, it's about the money.
Please enjoy all the virus, spy-ware, add-ware, Trojans, and key-loggers included at no extra cost.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
My mom works at one of the research institutes in Akademgorodok, a major research center near Novosibirsk, she along with hundreds of others have been running pirated windows/office/photoshop/matlab for as long as I can remember. This time it seems the government is serious about the crackdown on illegal software. Each lab director got a direct order to either provide every scientist with lisenses for every piece of software or install linux. Well. they all have been running Ubuntu since yesterday. So far so good.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
If I were MSFT, I'd be worried about the weak rule of law in Russia. It is highly likely that there is pre-determined outcome in the mind of the Russian officials running this case and any 'investigation' will be a show trial leading to that pre-determined outcome.
I have visited Russia many times. Might makes right. It is a system that breathes on graft and corruption.
So in Russia it's illegal for a company to sell a 10 year old product, even though that product will be 2 versions old this year? If we could make legal demands to sell retired products I'd still be eating Ninja Turtle cereal [flickr.com] today.
What, Fruity pebbles isn't good enough for you? What are you, a communist?
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
WTF? That car's older than my dad, and he's in his seventies. And guess what? You can STILL get parts for one! Try getting any parts for Windows 98, that's not even 10 years old. I have older t-shirst than that.
Now please put the chair down, Steve.
Free Martian Whores!
XP is a 9 year old OS. Even auto makers are only required to support the parts for their cars for 7 years
In the US and Europe, automobiles are heavily regulated to meet certain standards, and software is not. If a 9 year old car is many times safer, more reliable, more fuel efficient, much better looking, and more easily fixed than the 2 year old car coming from the factory now, and the new car is just a total dog, and if community outrage was so high that people would only want to buy the old car, and this was the only auto maker available to buy cars from then damn straight the community would be in the moral right to demand that company continue to support the old car model until the choice of a car that was as good or better came along.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist both in the US and Europe. If there was more competition, and Vista was a dog, people could turn to another company for better service. But they can't. They turn back to Microsoft and demand XP. They are, allegedly, trying to control the supply channel by strangling supplies of XP and hoping this will force demand to Vista, which will make Vista look better as sales go up. They have an image problem with Vista and they are using their monopoly power to try to fix it. If this was a competitive market and Linus and Mac OS had 33% each, We could just switch to one of them and Microsoft would have to compete.
Once you are a monopoly, 99% of the business book is thrown out the window. Everything comes down to, "when you take an action as a monopolistic company, are you abusing your market dominance and reducing choice for the consumer?" A car maker to tried to do this without monopolistic power would shoot themselves in the foot for cancelling a profitable product line just because they want to sell more of another. The American automakers did just this, by trying to sell more trucks and SUVs when the future trend was towards smaller fuel efficient cars. Now GM and Chrysler are on life support, and Hyundai is making out like a bandit. Competition would have done that to Microsoft to, but there is none, so they have to follow different rules. If they don't follow those rules, any and all governments need to slap their greedy hands.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
We didn't know you had interests other than fighting the RIAA?
Well as you know my professional life is largely about fighting for the good guys, against the bad guys. This story comes as a welcome relief from my normal activities.
Microsoft v. Russia?
This is rich.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Yiddish, actually.
A better equvialent is "nervy gall".
Chutzpah is when you murder your parents, and then throw yourself on the mercy of the court because you're an orphan.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
We're corrupting him! The poor fellow...
Absolutely. As soon as I saw the headline -- "Russia Launches Anti-trust Probe of Microsoft" -- the first thing that came into my mind was that this was a perfect story for Slashdot.
The only thing missing was a subhead: "Software Giant Accused of Cheating Natalie Portman".
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You make a really good point.
It's quite easy for a third party to manufacture compatible parts for an automobile. There's a huge and thriving industry based on exactly that premise.
Not so for proprietary software. Many vendors go to significant lengths, both legally and technically, to prevent this. Microsoft is a good example.
So when Microsoft says "we will no longer support this product" it's not like there is someone else who can take over that support. It's abuse of a monopoly position that has been deliberately engineered. Not cool.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Amazing how people's attitude towards Free software changes once they learn the true cost of opening pictures with Photoshop and typing memos with MS Office. I do wish people came to Linux voluntarily but after 20 years of unrestrained piracy only threat of heavy fines can make people give up what they have come to believe is rightfully theirs.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
"Chutzpah" is better translated as "naglost'", definitely not "smelost'" ("bravery").
Yes, like 64bit OS will stop people from opening that attachment or downloading Antivirus2015 and running it.
Also, people will code 32bit apps, because they are more compatible (runs on both 32bit ant 64bit systems), while 64bits is only useful if your app uses a lot of RAM or CPU. There is no point for a 64bit CD/DVD recording software, media player and browser. 64bits can be useful for games, photoshop and video editing software.
If I understand correctly, to make a 32bit app from 64bit (or vice versa) you need to recomplie it, it's not like you need to rewrite it.
It's "Academy [of Sciences] town" in Russian.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.