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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."
In Soviet Russia, Microsoft probes YOU!
... in Russia, Microsoft would launch the probe! /Slashdot has been lying to me....
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?
When I read TFA I nearly had a heart attack, as NYCL posted something which has nothing to do with the media industry!
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
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.
Because antitrust is about enforcement of competition rules as to create a free competitive market. WTO is concerned about barriers to free trade and the promotion of better competition. They basically have he same objective in trade.
It is false that Microsoft is taxed or that money was a motivation for these policies. At least on the EU side the large fines occured because Microsoft refused to comply with the moderate sanctions and played stupid. It was the first company ever which did not comply with a ruling.
And don't forget that the US let them off the hook, just because Bush was reelected.
In fact competition authorities don't get money or staff for the imposition of fines but rather strong lobbying and a lot of work. They would prefer to arrest offenders but criminal sanctions are not at their disposal. Deterrent fines is all they can issue and the way Microsoft communicates demonstrates that they do not show any respect.
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"
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.
NYCL posted something which has nothing to do with the media
Huh? Microsoft products are delivered via media just as much as Sony's (for example) are. Even if you were using "media" as a weird synonym for "entertainment" (or "culture") it would seem to be as much applicable to Microsoft as to the companies NYCL usually takes an interest in. In fact even if you meant to say "music industry", Microsoft would be more than tangentially involved.
Nah. My interest in this one is just a sporting one. Microsoft v. Russia? You gotta love that one.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
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").
In the red corner, weighing in at 190 lbs, Prime Minister, former President, and Leningrad's Own Senior Judo Champion Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!
In the blue corner, weighing in at 240 lbs, Steve Ballmer, CEO and Chair Thrower, looking radiant in his Polonium-laced wrestling gear!
Two men enter the ring, only one leaves alive!