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Microsoft Wins Windows XP Downgrade Lawsuit
CWmike writes "A federal judge has dismissed a year-old lawsuit against Microsoft over alleged antitrust violations for the 'downgrade' rules it set for Windows Vista and XP. The order put an end to the lawsuit filed by Emma Alvarado in February 2009. In her original complaint, she accused Microsoft of coercing computer makers into forcing consumers who wanted to run Windows XP to first buy Windows Vista, or later, Windows 7, before they were allowed to downgrade to XP. The judge rejected Alvarado's accusations, saying that the plaintiff had not proved Microsoft benefited from the downgrade practices that it created and that OEMs implemented."
I'm not a lawyer but how do you not prove that they benefited by having OEMs sell the newer version of their software before allowing a downgrade path?
Did they write some adventure game once?
As a user of Linux, OS X and Windows, Windows is still the worst. Unfortunately a lot of Linux flavours take their queue from Windows where they should be taking them from OS X.
Microsoft is under no obligation to give you a license for Windows XP if it doesn't want to. They've removed it from the general marketplace, but have left even Windows 3.1 in the MSDN subscription packages, even if those are a high price to pay for an old operating system, it's still the going rate.
What a waste of resources. This lawsuit had no hope, and the money spent would have been better off asking Congress to lower the copyright expiration standard for software.
Bribes, stupidity or both.
So this lady was suing because of what? Being slightly inconvenienced? And Vista wasn't bad at all. Especially with a new machine that had the proper drivers. All you had to do was turn off UAC and set it to classic theme and you couldn't tell the difference between it and XP. Windows 7 rocks. This lady was just trying to make a quick buck off a frivolous lawsuit.
Besides, this was already covered under anti-trust legislation as illegal tying as Vista was the unwanted product tethered to the purchase of most OEM computers. Unfortunately, the chances of this ever being enforced are slim in the United States.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Another stupid judge ruling our lives. Don't you think a judge ought to know something about the field he is ruling in before he is allowed to make judgments there? Would be nice, wouldn't it?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why can't the system have a panel of retired judges look at civil cases before a full trial to ensure it is warranted? If the plaintiff wants to move anyway when told there is not case, so be it. But the loser and the loser's lawyer should have to pay something to the winner. There has to be some meaningful consequence for the losers.
It is always refreshing to watch a master criminal at work. Microsoft, the company that has made billions by locking users with false promises on knowingly sold defective malware, stolen technology, selling crap EULAs to sell 2, 3, even 4 licenses just get a machine running and compatible, trampling implied warranty into the ground, evading antitrust prosecutions with perjured testimonies and harried, baited judges, and multiples more on jobbed stock.
And considering Vista and its rebranded shite pile win7 are complete retarded crap, and that XP still pisses all over both of them in customization, shell extensions, performance, less UI inconsistencies and not to mention that it doesn't have completely fucking shit explorer shell fuckups..
Then yes why would you want to buy a license for that vis7a junk when really you just wanted the far better more mature XPsp3/64 release before those Microscum retards ruined Windows for stupid clueless sheeple.
MS obviously doesn't want to sell XP anymore because once it gets the all morons onto the shity vis7a gravy train then it will be easier for them to force on later upgrades.
> There has to be some meaningful consequence for the losers.
Almost nobody wants to go to court. (Attorneys sometimes do because it's fun to do advocacy before the court, but most of them are smart enough to put client interests first. Debt Collection agencies also want to because they're almost never opposed, because people don't have money to fight them, but they don't even really think of it as going to court.) Courts also have pre-trial systems in place to try to get the parties to agree to a settlement before trial is necessary--pretrial conferences serve that function in most courts. A judge can look at the record and say "Are you sure you don't want to just settle this?"
Losing a lawsuit that you've spent years on (and likely paid for someone else to spend years on) is a pretty meaningful consequence for the losers.
You've also got the problem that the bigger the consequence to the loser, the less likely they are to bring legitimate claims to court.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I have a hard time wrapping idea around the concept of forcing someone [Microsoft] to sell something [XP] they don't want to sell. The idea is absurd.
And if you RTFA, you'll note that the lawsuit was about the fact that Microsoft was coercing downstream computer sellers NOT to sell XP; in other words MS was forcing them to sell Vista with the new laptops!
No, you're good if the plaintiff doesn't prove you did it.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
This is from the article:
Computer makers, not Microsoft, charged users the additional fees for downgrading a new PC from Vista to XP at the factory. However, Alvarado did not name Lenovo Group Ltd. in her lawsuit.
She sued MS for a practice of the OEM. Wrong defendant.
It's possible that she could have shown vertical market manipulation, but that might not have been relevant. Such practices might give rise to a federal antitrust suit, but she brought a state unfair practices action.
I'm no expert in the laws of Washington state, but from the article it appears that among other things she had to show that she did not receive value for her money and she failed to do so.
Welcome to the wonderful world of judges backwards rationalising and using a half-cocked excuses to cover it up. The fact that the judge missed the fact that Microsoft use Windows Vista and Windows 7 sales numbers to manipulate the market into its ponzi upgrade scheme says a lot. Behind the words he probably had some bullshit excuse like the complaint was too novel by the standards in his closed off world or it would be bad for business. I despair at the number of times I see judges flagrantly breaching guidelines and screwing over victims in the UK. It's like they go out of their way to prop up the big shots and see the whole world through centuries old and often corrupt case law.
7 is still just the same vista shit rebranded, its barely any improvement at all, same shit.
Why the fuck should people be forced to pay for crap just because Microscum-tards spent a few years building absolute fucking junk, infact I swear they probably spent more time twiddling their thumbs, and product/feature lab testing using noobtards, because I've seen third party addons made by one person and offered for free completely fucking piss all over MS designed shit!...and they hired complete fucking morons to designed its GUI/UX...I mean its FailAero GPU crap, the entire vista OS is a inconsistent pile of fucking shit, and every windows app is faster and more responsive on XP.
So XPsp3/64 is still many times better than Win7, sure it doesn't have Dx11 but who gives a crap, you seen any half assed console ports worth fucking playing with DX11.. NO! ... XP pisses all over 7 in so many ways... so I ask again why should consumers be forced to PAY and FUND a fucking monopoly by paying full price for new shit, when an OS 8+years old still does a fucking better job!?!?!
The judge here was a fucking retard!, much like the 10000's of retards who bought vis7a or had that junk bundled with pc hardware, and who will inevitably be forced to buy/upgrade to the next version through devious software development lock-ins!
fucking idiots, you get what you pay for, and soon you'll be getting screwed because of it.
The good thing is more are starting to see how Microscum does business, and uses patent hoarding to prevent anyone else from fucking them over! Linux is the Next step, it just needs more to start jumping ship on it and supporting its progress and development.
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Brad Smith, Microsoft general counsel, 2007: "Protection for software patents and other intellectual property is essential to maintaining the incentives that encourage and underwrite technological breakthroughs. In every industry, patents provide the legal foundation for innovation. The ensuing legal disputes may be messy, but protection is no less necessary, even so."
---
Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO, 1991: "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today... A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose."
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Microsoft you are going down! Best of all, your own shit developments and dumbifications are helping :)
Hmm. Your answer is too well thought out, logical, and evidence-based. Next time, please post a variation on this post.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Every OS has its zealots who thing it is the One True Way(tm). Well, if your OS is the only way to go, that must mean other OSes suck. In particular, Linux and Mac zealots tend to hate on Windows so hard because it is so dominant. They convince themselves that their OS is amazing and superior, the masses are just too stupid to realize it.
There's no reasoning with the zealots.
Your lawyer would probably get you off on an insanity plea since there's no motive.
So yea.
72.54% of Windows users continue to use XP, so it is abundantly clear that the the market prefers XP to 7/Vista. If Microsoft had any competitors they would be forced to continue selling XP in order to avoid losing market share, however their monopoly means they do not have to worry about this since there literally aren't any competitors*. They are therefore abusing their monopoly by forcing 7/Vista onto a market that does not want it. What the judge says is true and Microsoft really aren't benefiting from this since they get a sale whether it's XP or 7, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a clear case of severe monopoly abuse. I certainly feel abused because I want to buy a laptop with Windows XP but all the options in my price range come with Windows 7 Home Premium. How can the judge conclude this isn't monopoly abuse? Somebody get the EU!
*Mac OS is not a direct competitor to Windows since I can't legitimately install Mac OS on my PC. Alternatives like Linux aren't quite ready for the mainstream desktop user yet.
They don't prefer it. It's simply a nightmare to switch over operating systems especially in large businesses.
And why WOULD you want to use XP these days anyway? 7 is better than it in every way imaginable.
Microsoft doesn't sell XP alone anymore. They are not required by law to, nor would there be any reasons they would be required by law to, sell XP. Allowing people to downgrade to XP is both not in Microsoft's best interests (as they want people in either Vista or 7) and entirely for the benefit of the customers that really really want it.
Most of the world's non-embedded computers run Windows. When a company reaches that level of influence, it ceases to be just another firm and instead becomes a part of our societal infrastructure. It's certainly reasonable to hold such organizations to a higher standard than we hold smaller organizations. The power company can't "do as they want" either.
As long as Microsoft wants to enjoy the lucrative benefits of being a singular part of society's information infrastructure, society ought to have a say in how Microsoft is run.
You might argue that imposing such restrictions is "punishing success". That's hardly true. The people responsible for Microsoft's growth have been rewarded many times over. If Microsoft finds regulations unbearable, it can split itself in two smaller companies, or shrink some other way. Then, it would no longer be subject to the same scrutiny.
But as long as Microsoft
A computer should be separate from the software; as such a customer should never be compelled to buy a computer conditional on also buying the software on the device. Of course this is already covered under US antitrust law as illegal tying even if it is rarely if ever enforced.
In other news, Apple Computer has hit an all time high in the stock market...
That's a whole load of bullshit right there.
The power of your argument is overwhelming. I am compelled to concede.
I agree with your comment, all the rights are with Microsoft and so no one can do anything for that. Even if you sue it then also you wont be about to get any better results.
vegetarian army rations
um i dunno price maybe
and then you get marketing stats saying OH GEE look how good our OS is over others, when in fact it sucks ass.
Seriously im so pissed at some upgrades microsoft has done im not going to bother no more and 100% to pirating it cracked, im sick a spyware and bs.
and they can enjoy one less "customer"
If Windows cost £50 at retail I'd happily buy it but the layering into retard and bozo versions, shorter period of upgrade cycle, and stupidly high retail prices for no other reason than Microsoft can maintain its OEM monopoly really make me look favourably on pirate solutions. I still feel burned after Windows 2000 was all but abandoned and the badly designed bling and featureitis that hit Microsoft with Windows XP makes the whole thing look like a wobbling pile of cruft. As a developer I'm fed up with the ever increasing maze of API's, bloated and slow compiler tools, and documentation that's easier to search online via Google.
I'm really disappointed that Apple doesn't sell OS X for the generic PC platform. As VM technology is improving and graphics card virtualisation is around the corner dumping Windows for OS X is a no-brainer. If Jobs can stitch up deals with the music and movie industry then he sure as hell can stitch up deals with PC vendors and retail. The fact that Apple is doing so well financially and so many people have turned against Apple for its control freak attitude would suggest to any politically savvy businessman that people are happy to support Apple but the impression of greed and nannying is losing them support.
The only other option I see on the radar is if big manufacturers get behind Haiku and make it succeed where BeOS didn't. With all the quality of Apple design and none of the hairshirt community issues of Linux it could be a real winner. The only thing it lacks is good quality drivers for modern equipment and OEM deals that make it an option on par with Windows at retail. None of this is insurmountable and there's no reason why a good family of native core apps couldn't follow very soon. But, I've learned in life that something can be great, accessible, and free and nobody will buy into it for what amounts to petty egotistical reasons.
So if I murder that judge’s children, I’m good, as long as I don’t benefit from it? ;)
What an idiot.
No, if you want to buy murder of the judge from a hitman, then the hitman can insist that you first buy murder of judge's children, and then downgrade to the murder of their parent, as long as the hitman doesn't benefit from the murder of the children.
Of course selling or buying murder is still a crime in itself, while selling or buying Windows isn't so much... But that doesn't mean you're "good" in either case ;-)
Productivity = yes that thing that you gain from good design, unlike vis7a which has retarded design is so many areas and crap changes, so much so that settings and changes I could get to and make in a few clicks, suddenly becomes an effort of extra clicks all because of the crap UI layout/position/ location of settings options etc once again in the Explorer shell! how many times do I need to bring up that heap of shit.
Vista has one saving grace that works out of the box: easily starting programs with keyboard. Just hit "Windows"-key and start typing away, and it'll give you smaller and smaller list of possible programs and documents, and most of the time the program you're after will be at the top of the list after a few keystrokes, so you can just press enter to launch it.
As an example, I'm sure you know how to get to modifying environment variables in XP?. Well, in Win7, just hit "Win-key", type "environ" and select it from menu (ie. just press enter, IIRC). No more navigating stupid control panel.
The rest of changes are pretty good too after getting used to them, I especially like being able to easily set up two half-screen windows side-by-side and being able to maximize window vertically. But that "command line like" launching of programs, that's enough reason for any Linux-user to start hating XP (when compared to Win7, I mean).
The judge is either stupid or corrupt. Given the general characteristics of the species, and the fact that so many of them start out as lawyers and sink from there, she's probably both.
"Contempt of court? Why, no, Your Honour, I have contempt for you as a human being and a jurist, and I figure you just barely had enough brains to tuck the bribe money out of sight under your robe before you walked in here. And I have enormous contempt for the mouth-breathing half-wits who voted you into office. But contempt of court? Never!"
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
He made reference to bodily wastes 23 times, if anybody was counting. "Fuck" occurred 11 times as well.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I've been using windows 7 for a few months now and it's really no better than XP. I using it mainly on a Gaming box. At first I was happy to see it was able to running many of my XP games, Half-life2, madden 08 (EA is a bunch o morons too). But just as you needed to reboot XP every so often because of memory leaks. Low and behold I need to do the same thing with Windoze7. What a crock! When will the Redmond idoits learn... Take BSD and make Microsft X. Stealing good Ideas is OK, I'll pay for them....
-DML
Instead of counting as an XP sale. It is instead counted as a Vista sale, and the marketing clowns at Microsoft get to beat their chests about how well the uptake of Vista was going (in stark contrast to the bad trade press no less). Nothing builds momentum like manufactured momentum...
You do realize that copyright is what makes the GPL work?
Even if you buy your rather strange argument, the proper forum to regulate the behavior of large corporations is the government not individual random lawsuits.
As long as Microsoft wants to enjoy the lucrative benefits of being a singular part of society's information infrastructure, society ought to have a say in how Microsoft is run.
You might argue that imposing such restrictions is "punishing success"
You could also argue that society's choices - it's collective decisions - made Microsoft and Windows what they are today.
Can you think of any GPL software from, say, 10 or 15 years ago that would be much use as the basis for a closed-source app today? Probably the most popular software of that age is WinXP, and re-selling that without SP1-3 would be nigh impossible.
Personally, I'd like it if, to receive copyright protection, software had to be either published with all sources, makefiles, etc., or have those placed in escrow until the copyright expired, and likewise the high-res masters of a/v works. This way, the version in the public domain contains all the information needed to make derivative works from it. As it is, books, for example, contain the copyright material in losslessly, for the most part, even if duplicating it would be non-trivial,
You're kidding, right? The classic theme looks monumentally different in just the colors alone. The feel and the navigation are the same, but color scheme is way off. There is a noticeable difference.
Well, the Linux kernel comes to mind. The core is from the early '90s. Different parts would go into the public domain at different dates, since a lot was added to it later.
Whether this would be a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. I'm more sympathetic to new-BSD styled licences, but I can see cases where the GPL would be preferrable.
I just wanted to remark that reducing copyright terms for commercial software is a knife that cuts both ways.
> What the judge says is true and Microsoft really aren't benefiting from this since they get a sale whether it's XP or 7, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a clear case of severe monopoly abuse.
They are benefiting! It's very important for M$ to have their latest version adopted as largely as possible.
If XP would remain the market leader and Vi$ta/W7 could not gather a meaningful market share, in the near future Wind0s XP would be compared to, say, SuSE 12 or Mandriva 2011 or Ubuntu 11.04.
That would be M$'s demise.
The judge either is incompetent/dumb (and therefore shouldn't be a judge) or just plainly helped M$ by issuing a misguided ruling (whether willingly or not is not important in the aftermath).
That's why I said the environment in the US is so biased the EU should take that into account when punishing M$. It's becoming like a Banana Republic.
Alas, what's the difference?
Either a socialist party-controlled regime, an oligarchy of self-serving nobles or a corporate-controlled capitalism... which of them respects the people's will?
Actually, none. They all can be put in the same category: a dictatorship.
Have a nice day.
> And why WOULD you want to use XP these days anyway? 7 is better than it in every way imaginable.
a) My perfectly working HP scanner works well with XP, but not with Vista/W7. Clearly worse.
b) Both XP and Vista lock up with a smartcard, but XP accepts ctrl-alt-del, Vista will have to be killed with powerdown. Clearly worse.
c) W7 has a cleaner look than Vista -- that's good. But XP could be tweaked, too.
Finally, XP has been paid and it's there working... W7 has to be paid.
Why would I want to give more money to M$?
It's seems Windows XP is better than Windows 7 to me and anybody conscious about money management.
Who modded you insightful?
The US legal system is a method through which the US government finds issues to jump upon and regulate. Furthermore, the legal system exists solely because it is a function of government (hence why we call it a court of law).
Parent is also wrong; all organizations, regardless of size, should be held to the same level of regulation.Society does have a say in how every organization is run, its called a combination of laws, public ownership (stock), and political harm (environmentalists). Society should not, however, control how an organization is run. Recently, banks were told exactly how to be run by society, at great cost to society. We should have allowed banks to fail, so that new banks could take over and succeed. Instead, every US citizen is now paying for banks not failing by having their credit card interest rates hiked (mine went from 4% to 12%, but people with bad credit are seeing upwards of 30%) due to regulation telling banks how to run their organization. This is just a contemporary example of why government intervention = everyone loses.
Larger organizations may be subject to more scrutiny, but the laws should not differ simply because your company makes more money.
I can think of such opensource tools, though not necessarily GPL. SSH, which forked from open source to closed source and still has an open source fork available, is available in a more featureful closed source version, especially including Kerberos support ofr Windows clients.
As long as Microsoft wants to enjoy the lucrative benefits of being a singular part of society's information infrastructure, society ought to have a say in how Microsoft is run.
Why? You have no argument to back this up so I'm just supposed to believe you? No, I don't think so. Society was already in place by the time Microsoft showed up. We already had roads and telephones because WE wanted them, not Microsoft. So, now that they show up after the fact, use the benefits of society just like everyone else, they should be charged out the ass?
You might argue that imposing such restrictions is "punishing success".
That's exactly what it is. You're saying if it wasn't for society that Microsoft wouldn't be where it's at while ignoring the fact that WE wouldn't be where we are at either without society. It's something we were going to do anyways yet for some reason Microsoft should foot the bill because "they gots lots o' money and I ain't got none!"
Why? Because it's conceptually elegant?
These laws already discriminate based on size: small businesses are exempted from many labor and regulatory requirements. Why can't we add a class for very large corporations?
Why not? Also, you just contradicted yourself.
Why not?
You rate jumped beacuse they are trying to gouge you while they can, the only reason that rate hike happened was beacuse the government didnt put regulation into effect imediately instead of down the road. it gave them time to fuck you, but please do remember who is actually fucking you.. the credit card company
Speaking directly to your response by paragraph,
I don't understand what you mean by 'conceptually elegant'. 'Because it looks good' is not a reason to regulate. I assure you that you agree with me on this point. For example, I am against legislation allowing gay marriage because I am against the concept of any marriage. Its just a tax liability loophole, whereas people can create individual contracts to live together and combine assets in the formation of a family unit (whether or not they have children or even the ability to have children) regardless of sexual orientation so long as you don't call it a marriage contract (instead, call it an llc), therefore the concept is ridiculous (granted, there are a few tax credit/deductions that can only be earned through a marriage contract, but whoever heard of getting married so that you have a different standard deduction?). See how regulation regarding gay marriage is explicitly unecessary, as all people should be held to the same standard of regulation, just as businesses should?
Small businesses are exempt from labor and regulatory requirements because it would be both impossible to enforce and impossible to implement (both from a prohibitively expensive standpoint and from a reasonableness standpoint) in the majority of small businesses. This does not mean that our current laws are accurate or reasonable.
You seem to not understand the difference between what does exist vs what should be. I did not contradict myself. You can start a philosophical discussion about whether businesses care about customers beyond doing the bare minimum to keep people buying stuff, but in reality, without government interference, the purpose of a business is not to make money (see publicly traded company, government regulation of for detailed explanation).
Give me an explanation of why so, and I will tell you why you are wrong.
Alternatives like Linux aren't quite ready for the mainstream desktop user yet.
Yes, but 2010 will be the year of the Linux desktop; just you wait and see...
I ask whether conceptual elegance motivates your thoughts because I can't conceive of any other reason for asserting that the law must apply in a uniform manner to large and small companies alike.
Look, I'm with you on getting the government out of marriage. The rights currently conferred by marriage should be split up into individual agreements that any two people can agree to.
That said, you must be aware of how difficult it would be to remove the concept of marriage from the law. The political cost would be astronomical, and the gain would be quite minimal. So in a practical sense, the government will always officiate marriages. Because marriage is not going away, and because it does confer definite benefits, your opposition to gay marriage is an endorsement of continued inequality for one class of people. In fact, your confusion between "is" and "ought" in this instance is so plain that one must wonder whether you have other reasons for your opposition to gender-blind marriage.
You did not address my question.
You made a categorical assertion that we have no basis for applying different laws to large and small businesses. I asked you for the supporting foundational arguments behind that assertion, and you did not provide any. Again: why are we, in your view, specifically prohibited from applying different laws to businesses that dominate their markets?
I don't expect you to believe me. I expect you to agree with me. The difference is important.
What does that have to do with my argument? I'm not arguing that Microsoft should be charged double electricity rates, or that we should collect double bridge tolls from its employees.
Yes, but we do not individually exert a huge influence of the security of society. Microsoft does.
Like I said: regulating companies is not punishing success. Microsoft has two options:
One would presume that Microsoft is better off under option B that under option A --- that's not a punishment for success. It's a reward with strings. There's nothing wrong with that.
And, replying to myself: I forgot this pearl... W7 won't have a 1440x900 LCD mode, so my monitor can't run at its native resolution.
No problem, I surely can go to the maker site and download some driver... but it begs the question: why when 30~40% of all wide monitors are 1440x900?
What is M$ smoking?
(not that I tested said monitor on XP, though...)
Maybe I'm too used to Linux and forgot about these things which make Windows 7 hard to use.
As long as Microsoft wants to enjoy the lucrative benefits of being a singular part of society's information infrastructure, society ought to have a say in how Microsoft is run.
Society already has a say. They can stop buying Windows.
Comment of the year
Not quite.
I didn't say that the law must apply in a uniform manner to large and small companies alike, I said that it should. As for why, the very concept of a free market (which we currently only have in a limited state but generally agree would be a preferred business strategy here in the US, land of the anyone can do anything) requires that environmental factors regarding business are not modified by outside influences. For example, barriers to entry should only include economic (is there a market for product/service) and financial (for-profits should make a profit, non-governmental non-profits must have (private) funding, governmental for and not for profits should not compete with established organizations unless they can do so to the benefit of society; ie cheaper and better, lending institutions should not be governmentally based [so as to avoid political motivations, see no child left behind and abstinence only education]), and should not include political influences (environmentalists, religious organizations that proselytize, etc; that influence regulation. In other words, its ok that PETA exists, but PETA should not be telling BSA to get rid of fishing merit badge by funding political campaigns that promise to declare it an outrage).
We are not prohibited from applying different laws to different businesses (in fact this occurs regularly, based not on size of the business but rather the content of the business itself; for example, a shoe making factory is not held to beef inspections for mad cow). In clarification, the laws that we apply to all businesses should apply to all businesses in the same manner regardless of [business success]. As for why, there is no reasonable basis for punishing success, especially success that comes only because of a broken system (fix the system, and you don't have to fix specific situational items with controversial law after controversial law).
For example, large businesses should not receive specific tax credits that smaller businesses do not based on volume, as the incentive to produce larger volumes already exists (economies of scale/quantity discount pricing, expansion/growth/ROI for shareholders, etc). Small businesses, however, should not receive government loans at lower rates than large businesses, as small businesses have a larger risk of default, and the American taxpayer should not be one to shoulder such differential risk.
To address your last question, there are many, many reasons to provide different laws for different businesses, but being particularly good at what you do is not in and of itself one of them.
As an example, look at sarbanes oxley, an SEC regulation that has strict requirements for disclosure among all businesses, and higher penalties for fraud than previously existed. While some of the disclosure requirements are optional for smaller businesses (specifically when adherence would make it prohibitively expensive), this does not mean that small businesses can commit fraud without the new penalties for getting caught. While SOX is good for businesses because it gives (stupid) shareholders more faith in the honesty of business filings, it is actually bad for businesses because it doesn't actually make businesses any more honest. Furthermore, it makes 10k/10q filings less understandable. Meanwhile, larger businesses should have to hire more people for all of the new disclosure requirements, but in practice, they just increase the workload of their present employees. This leads to more burnout turnover, which is bad for both employers and employees, simply because a company, as you put it, dominates the market.
72.54% of Windows users continue to use XP, so it is abundantly clear that the the market prefers XP to 7/Vista.
Wow, giant fallacy in your first sentence.
If you said, 72.54% of *new computer purchases in 2010* have XP installed, then you'd have a point. You'd also have a point if the upgrade to Windows 7 was free and trivially-easy.
As-is, though, you're just spouting nonsense. Do you think this site is full of jellybrains? Did you think we'd fall for that trick?
Comment of the year
As long as Microsoft wants to enjoy the lucrative benefits of being a singular part of society's information infrastructure, society ought to have a say in how Microsoft is run.
Society does! And they vote with their wallets. You don't have to buy microsoft, there are plenty of other options but the reality is most people don't care! Just like with the browser issue, MS wasn't stopping anyone from running a different browser, other options either didn't offer compelling reasons to change or weren't marketed well enough so since there was no problem with the microsoft offering they just used it. I prefer Chrome to IE so i go and download that, i prefer Linux to Windows so - wherever possible - i use it instead, no one at MS is stopping me.
if they were actually preventing the use of an alternative then that would be a different story, but only because they are a monopoly, of course companies like Apple can do this without a problem.
Perhaps the reason for MS' occasional product downfalls is this consistent bullshit they are constantly having to deal with.
What the...? Troll? Did someone miss the sarcasm?
What an idiot. :P
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.