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Microsoft, EU Reach Antitrust Accord
alphadogg writes "Microsoft appears to have reached an agreement with the European Commission that concludes an antitrust battle that has lasted a decade, Europe's top competition regulator said today. A proposal the company offered in July to address charges of monopoly abuse were dismissed as insufficient by the Commission, as well as by rivals in the software industry. But the latest iteration appears to have mollified the EC's regulator. 'We believe this is an answer,' said competition commissioner Neelie Kroes in a press conference. 'I think this is a trustful deal we are making. There can't be a misunderstanding because it is the final result of a long discussion between Steve Ballmer and me.' The new settlement offer addresses charges that Microsoft distorted competition in its favor in the market for web browsers, by giving its Internet Explorer browser an unfair advantage over rivals."
The Register points out this interesting quote from the materials Microsoft released on the subject: "Microsoft shall ensure that third-party software products can interoperate with Microsoft's Relevant Software Products using the same Interoperability Information on an equal footing as other Microsoft Software Products."
If this actually happens, it will be a Very Good Thing for the world in general, as Microsoft will no longer be legally able to keep changing their protocols to break access by non-Microsoft software.
Given their track record, though, I don't believe for a minute that Microsoft will actually make all the information available in a clear and usable format. More likely they'll release some information that looks nice, to show what good boys they're being, then release some more information terribly scrambled, and keep most of the information to themselves, because by that point the EU will be paying less attention to them and they'll have to take them back to court to get them to do anything more.
Same old story.
And yes, I am a terminal cynic. Why do you ask? ;-)
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I don't know what's worse - the possibility that he could be so naive, or the probability that this is a backroom deal, and we are never going to know the whole story.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
'This proposed measure ensures that PC manufacturers will continue to be able to install any browser on top of Windows and make any browser the default. It also ensures that PC manufacturers and users will be able to turn Internet Explorer on and off '
And with 'search' going to be directly embedded into the applications, the 'choice' of browser is going to become moot.
"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine [...] We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again." --Neville Chamberlain, September 1938.
Go somewhere random
This only affects the browser market where Microsoft is steadily losing ground anyway. The fact of the matter is that the operating system itself is still untouched and Microsoft still has no penalty for pulling more and more functionality into the OS itself.
The problem has never been just browsers or messaging utilities or office suites or default home pages. It is about how Microsoft uses its monopoly power on the desktop to stifle competitors. This could have been handled years ago except the American judge couldn't stay awake long enough to do anything but parrot the prosecuting attorney's notes.
MS should have been broken into an OS company and an apps company long ago. But it didn't happen, and we're all still the worse off for it. Trying to change anything by half-assed measures like forcing the user to choose a browser is just not going to work.
Not by your definition of 'monopoly', no. But it is by the EU's, and since they also write the laws, that's the one MS have to work to, too.
Both of your links are reprints of the first linked article in the summary.... Neither better nor worse as they are the same....
Microsoft's ActiveSync is already on 50 million and growing Apple devices, the Palm Pre and Google has licensed it for it's online sync service. IE is old news and MS doesn't seem to care about it anymore. Now MS owns the technology that transfers documents and email over the internet between devices.
This sounds like it could provide strong legal protection for anyone that wants to use Moonlight should Microsoft start to invoke patents on non-Novell users.
Sorry, but it's not a monopoly as long as I can buy one of these [apple.com], one of these [sun.com], or even one of these [dell.com].
Believe it or not, the world does not revolve around you. The end user is not the one with no power in MS's antitrust issues here. The question is, "can Dell license OS X for inclusion on their computer systems aimed at the home and corporate markets? Can Dell install Solaris or Ubuntu replacing Windows on the systems they ship, without going out of business? No they can't, except for a few niche markets, so MS has them over a barrel. That isn't even illegal, but screwing over other markets by using the fact that they have Dell over a barrel and using that influence to control Dell to the detriment of other markets is.
Gee, too bad that quote didn't come from Apple.
I was told repeatedly, on slashdot and elsewhere, that offering a choice could never work. The script was to complicated, among other things. You can't download anything until the browser is installed, among other things. That Microsoft couldn't offer browsers which they didn't own, among other things.
After all those highly intelligent individuals convinced me that this browser ballot was impossible, I KNOW it has to be fake! Those screenshots are photoshopped, it's all a figment of some demented Euro's imagination!!
NURSE!! I need another pill, please!
Ahh, to hell with the pill. Screw all the astroturfers who spent all their time with wasted arguements.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Will anyone else be surprised when Microsoft backs out on today's agreement when they take exception to some fuzzy detail?
This is a classic delay tactic. Meanwhile the EU is conditioned to accept their misbehavior thus paving the way for more abuse.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Actually, no. They became the dominant OS because IBM used MS' OS for its PC and XT. In business, "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" so IBM's PCs became dominant. By the time Compaq cloned an IBM, DOS was the standard office OS, and hardware manufacturers used MS's OS because then their machine would be "IBM compatible".
People used MS' OSes at home because 1) that's what they had a work and 2) that's what came pre-installed on their computer.
If the CP/M guy hadn't missed that meeting, and Billl Gates' parents weren't both lawyers who worked for Microsoft, chances are your PC wouldn't be running Windows now. Microsoft owes everything to IBM.
Free Martian Whores!
Was there something in the OEM licenses that prevented PC vendors from installing 3rd-party browsers? The "settlement" spends a lot of time talking about the ballot screen for selecting browsers. But I'm not sure why another vendor could not have made their own ballot screen if they wanted. Or just install whatever browser they like.
In the past there were but that is no longer necessary. The EU did poll OEMs and ask if they were being pressured by MS before they implemented this solution. Do OEMs feel they will be discriminated against in bulk licensing if they make a different browser the default or offer their own ballot? The results of this poll were not made public, but we can infer the response based upon the EU's solution. However, even if MS does nothing at this point market forces resulting from their previous abuses will push OEMs to install IE as the default browser. This is because MS's intentional breaking of standards ala the famous "embrace, extent, extinguish" memos have resulted in a significant number of Web pages that only function properly in IE. Further, previous findings of fact in other jurisdictions have concluded this was intentional and not an accidental result of MS's actions. As a result, the state of the Web itself motivates OEMs to make IE the default and that state is the result of previous crimes.
The EU chose to make the ballot the default to minimize MS's ability to retaliate against OEMs. Until Web standards become the norm, however, any remedy from the EU will be only partially effective in restoring real competition and allowing that competition to drive innovation as it would in a capitalist, competitive free market.
This sentence sent the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. How many times have we seen people, companies, legal systems make agreements with Microsoft only to find out that what Microsoft decided the meaning meant was completely different from what the other parties, and common sense, believed the agreement meant? The Novell / Microsoft agreement of recent which was made public the day after the signing of the agreement. Microsoft said it was about patents and Novell said it was about interoperability. To top if off, Novell people said that the patent stuff was thrown in at the 11th hour so you know this bait and switch was planned from the start at One Microsoft Way( FYI, that's the name of the street their headquarters are on ).
Good to see others are feeling the same way about this too. This does go to show yet again that legal systems are not going to protect the public from Microsoft's attack on small startup businesses, new ideas and... wait for it.... innovation. A decade of playing cat and mouse with Microsoft? Even SCO is still around so forget about the legal systems doing a thing to change Microsoft's way of doing business.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Is that how they plan to advance interoperability without hindrance?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
"can Dell license OS X for inclusion on their computer systems aimed at the home and corporate markets?
Of course not. The Steve would never allow OS X on computers that are so... common.
Can Dell install Solaris or Ubuntu replacing Windows on the systems they ship, without going out of business?
Of course not, the demand for them in the market is comparatively miniscule.
No they can't, except for a few niche markets, so MS has them over a barrel.
I think you'll find it's the customers who have Dell over a barrel. They would be the ones who dictate whether or not the computers Dell sells will be bought.
Typical European Protectionism
Yeah, because when I'm being protectionist I implement policies that promote four US companies in addition to one european one that isn't a member state of the European Union I work for. I further take care to word the decision such that if that one european competitor slips just a bit in market share they are removed entirely from the solution. Also, just to cover my tracks, spend a decade convicting european companies of antitrust violations on a regular basis and handing out big fines and remedies to them.
For all purposes Windows is the only pre-installed OS.
To continue my observations of today's users, a computer is Windows.
There's only a very thin upper layer of users that understand the bits that make up a computer and the interactions they have.
Even the concept that a computer is still a computer when it comes without an OS is remote to most. (Is that possible?)
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I think you'll find it's the customers who have Dell over a barrel. They would be the ones who dictate whether or not the computers Dell sells will be bought.
Sellers are always directly accountable to purchasers and this is normal and beneficial to the operation of a competitive market. The problem with monopolies is they break that. Dell as a purchaser should have the power over MS. If M meets their needs Dell buys from them. If not, Dell buys from a competitor. Except in this case Dell has no other realistic options for the mainstream because of lock-in to Windows. As a result, regardless of if MS does what their customers want, the customers still buy from MS. All of this is legal, but it places MS in a position of power over Dell and other OEMs and when a company is in such a position of power the law forbids them from using it to make other markets less competitive.
For example, if MS makes them pay for the cost of developing Internet Explorer and bundles that cost into the cost of Windows, when there was a preexisting market for web browsers, then MS is using their power in the desktop OS market to force Dell to do something they would not do in a competitive market. At the same time, MS is hurting other companies that profit from producing web browsers. If MS convinces OEs they will have their prices raised higher than their competitors if they uninstall IE or install another browser, they're doing the same. If they continue both practices while at the same time intentionally breaking compatibility with other Web browsers, with the intent of making the Web itself reliant upon their browser, they are certainly illegally leveraging their position, and that is exactly what documents discovered by the courts showed MS's strategy to be.
For example, if MS makes them pay for the cost of developing Internet Explorer and bundles that cost into the cost of Windows, when there was a preexisting market for web browsers, [...]
The primary tenuous assumption here being that there was ever a distinct market for web browsers.
That's not even slightly tenuous when you understand how the law defines markets. There does not have to be direct sales, just profit. Mozilla makes money today by creating a web browser.
The second being that the price of Windows would have changed if it didn't have IE.
Which is not something that is necessary or even needs to be proved to hold up in court. Unless the developers working on IE do so out of charity, it assumed a bundled costs by the courts otherwise it would always be impossible to prove such violations. Just because you call something "free" in marketing does not mean economists or judges accept your claim at face value. When you do a buy one get one free sale at the grocery store, you can still sue the maker is still liable for and damages because of the second product. The same is true here. It's bundled, but since it only comes with a purchased product it is bundling.
Unless, of course, you want to argue that every single aspect of Windows's functionality introduced with and since Windows 95, is an antitrust violation ?
We've had this discussion before. Pre-existing separate markets are the criteria for abuse. Not every feature added to Windows, only those added once MS had monopoly power that duplicated the functionality of products from pre-existing separate markets. That does include a lot of items MS has not been taken to court for yet, but that doesn't mean they are not illegal.
You state that MS was "convicted" (your expertise is slipping) of leveraging their desktop OS to gain an advantage in the server OS space but you don't provide any evidence that indeed they did.
What you slept through the dozens of Slashdot articles and major news outlet coverage of the previous EU antitrust trial. Yes they were CONVICTED as antitrust law is criminal law in the US and EU. â497 million, the largest fine they'd ever handed out when MS stalled on complying with the order for years.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1016_3-5060463.html
How much market share did competing products lose?
How could anyone say? What portion of the growth MS experienced was due to their criminal activities and what was due to honest competition? Would they have been losing market share if they were not breaking the law? No one will ever know for certain.
How much market share did competing products lose?
Linux lost about 7% and other UNIX versions about 13% the same over that time period. It's hard to get reliable numbers.
Is MS now the market leader in Sever[sic] OS's? Have they ever been?
By revenue, yes they do have the largest chunk of the market at about 38%.
This is about preserving the status quo in the server space, to reduce competition by holding back MS.
How is giving all servers a level playing field and letting all of them access Windows desktops the same way, holding MS back? Are you implying they can only win market share by artificially breaking other server OS's instead of by making the best server?
It's not about increasing competition it's about decreasing it.
Yeah in Bizaaro World letting monopolies leverage their monopolies into new markets increases competition. You're one of the worst MS apologizers I've ever heard. Even if you don't agree with the laws on the books, everyone has to follow them. MS wouldn't even exist if the same laws had not been enforced against IBM in the first place. Now MS should be allowed to break them at will? Frankly, I think you're an idiot or an astroturfer.
"I think you're confused. As I've pointed out numerous times on Slashdot and the media has pointed out in just about any article about the US Antitrust case against MS it was a civil proceeding, not a criminal one and thus MS wasn't "convicted" of anything."
Nice try. While the proceedings were in a civil court, that does NOT mean that they did not violate the law. They were found to have violated United States anti-trust law and a judgement, including penalties, was granted. While the specific penalties were vacated on appeal, the judgement stood.
MS was found to have broken the law. Hours of testimony and reams of evidence were presented to a judge, which is how he made his decision. His remedy was overturned, but not his decision.
MS violated the law - you can't win your argument simply because your opponent said "convicted" instead of "there was a judgement for the plaintiff in a case where MS was the defendant".
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
just because the PC market revolves around Windows does not mean that the dell, gateway and other companies have a right to use the power of the government to tell microsoft what they can or cant do with there OS.
No it means the government can tell Microsoft what they can and can't do with their OS. Microsoft is a corporation, remember? They're a legal entity that exists because the government dreamed up such a thing and even if they weren't the government has the power to pass laws that regulate interstate commerce. Remember we the people are in charge and our democracy created these laws to stop the robber barons and trusts that were causing great harm. So we wrote laws and everyone has to obey them because it is rule by law. IBM had to obey them or MS would not exist. Now MS has to obey them. The EU basically copied the laws already on the books in the US and the US already took MS to court for this same act which MS has not stopped doing.
...they don't tell apple[sic] that OS X cant include sarafi[sic].
No they don't because that particular law does not apply to Apples bundling of OS X and Safari. The government can only punish people who break the law. Weird huh?
...the point is you shouldn't punish sucess[sic].
No, you shouldn't, but the successful are also powerful and power comes with responsibility. We don't punish companies that successfully acquire a warehouse full of dynamite, but they are subject to additional regulations because of the danger represented by the power they have. Monopoly influence on a market is like economic dynamite. It can destroy innovation in a different market if misused.
there are way to many anti trust suits against any company that does well coming from the socialist EU.
How is the EU more socialist that the US? We pay more in taxes to fund government programs than citizens in many EU countries. As for too many antitrust suits, the US has taken MS to court on this exact same antitrust abuse, our courts were just more easily bribed when MS donated piles of money to re-election campaigns and then after the election all the people running the prosecution were replaced and MS was given no real punishment. You're saying the EU should ignore their laws when companies commit crimes? Or are you saying they should be like the US and just accept "lobbying funds" and make the whole thing go away?
both microsoft and intel should just pull there[sic] products out of the EU and then see what they do. then they would come and begging for there[sic] products once they relize[sic] the other crappy options avalible[sic] to them.
Umm, yeah. That would be about the stupidest thing any corporate executive ever did. Ballmer would be fired in hours and replaced. What, exactly, do you think governments do when you break the law while directly challenging their authority? The EU would confiscate all the funds and assets of those companies for further antitrust violations and probably confiscate all their copyrights and patents. Technically the US would even be bound to honor the transfer of intellectual property rights by the treaties we've signed. Even if we didn't you want to bet China and the rest of the world bound by the same treaties would not? Suddenly all MS and Intel patents and copyrights are public domain everywhere but the US, that includes the source code. Even if the US government was a complete puppet, we'd be screwed since it would just mean US companies have to pay while the rest of the world outcompetes us with lower costs.
Yeah, I don't think you've thought any of your ideas through.
Oh, and to answer your question directly: Netscape, Word Perfect, and Digital Research. The first and the third WON court cases based on the evidence that Microsoft violated anti-trust law. I'm not sure about Word Perfect, but I believe there may have been a judgment in that as well.
The DR-DOS case should be ESPECIALLY familiar to a low ID guy like yourself, since the case and its aftermath, including the SCO debacle, have been chronicled here for years.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Nice try, but actually Norway is not part of the European Union (EU). In case you are wondering, Opera is situated in Oslo which is the capital of Norway. It's also not a really a big business (compared to many other companies here), I really sincerely doubt anyone would give a damn (except their users) if it weren't for the foul play.