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Microsoft Antitrust Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Dead at 76
McGruber writes "The NY Times has the news that federal judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who ruled in 2000 that Microsoft was a predatory monopoly and must be split in half, has died. He was 76 years old. 'A technological novice who wrote his opinions in longhand and used his computer mainly to e-mail jokes, Judge Jackson refuted Microsoft's assertion that it was impossible to remove the company's Internet Explorer Web browser from its operating system by doing it himself. When a Microsoft lawyer complained that too many excerpts from Bill Gates's videotaped deposition — liberally punctuated with the phrase "I don't remember" — were shown in the courtroom, Judge Jackson said, "I think the problem is with your witness, not the way his testimony is being presented."'"
It was about marketing. Microsoft controlled the default home page of anyone who used IE. This in turn helped promote their monopoly and push away competition.
They also knew that controlling standard document formats (in this case, HTML; also, see Office) meant that others would always be judged against Microsoft's offering, placing Microsoft on a pedestal. No wonder IE didn't conform to the actual HTML standards until Microsoft no longer held the de facto standard.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
He showed bias before the final judgement, and the ruling was nullified. It was the last best chance to break the back of the beast. Instead, we have had to put up with them for these last 13 years. They lied, cheated and stole their way to market domination. There are *hundreds* of companies and *thousands* of people they cheated and stole from. Not just Borland and Stac Electronics and IBM and DrDos and Broderbund. Not just FoxSoft and Adobe, hundreds of others.
Microsoft isn't in decline, however much people like you and I would like to imagine them to be. Microsoft is in its prime as the premier desktop operating system and Windows 7 established this in granite. Windows 8 has hairballs, but they are in a position where they can make a mistake or 2 and be trusted to correct it and the market will forgive them for this faux pas. The alternatives to Windows offer no stability advantages --- Linux is far from "write once, works 3 years from now" and neither is OS X. You'll find greater stability in running a Windows app via WINE that you will a native OS X or Linux app several years down the road.
.... reality bites, but reality counts too ...
Don't shoot me --- I'm not even a messenger --- sure Windows isn't going to penetrate the mobile or even tablet market simply because they are clueless and in identity crissi, but they will own the desktop market for at least a decade or 2 and it could be more than that.
No, Google Apps is not going to defeat Office let alone automate corporate documents
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
1) They were aware that if they could make Internet Explorer the window to the web, they could own the web.
2) They realized that the browser would become a platform for application programming, which would mean that people no longer would be locked in to Windows as a platform.
Those were two really good reasons for them to worry about Netscape.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Are you high? Have you ever tried to run a Windows app via WINE? It's about as stable as a drunk on a one-legged stool!
There was very little alternative on the desktop when Microsoft was convicted. However Apple has a very strong competitor in both Android and Samsung. That's the difference.
Try reading the findings of fact and focus specifically on applications barrier to entry. Moving from iOS to Android is not nearly as difficult as moving from Windows to Linux or OS9 was in 2000.
Microsoft also deliberately, not once but three times, disrupted the development of middleware that would have made the migration easier. Now whether you think that any of the middleware (Netscape, Java and Intel's cross-platform device driver framework) was crap or not is irrelevant. Microsoft did this to prevent competitive threats from arising and to maintain their illegally gained market share.
Apple have tried to disrupt Android but have failed, and they have also not prevented software that allows cross-platform development. It's all in the findings of fact which you clearly haven't read.
Ok, that's just total nonsense. Microsoft operating system and applications are, simply put, not known for their stability. I can't even imagine you typing that with a straight face.
Yeah, sure. They just haven't been able to break into the mobile device market while that market is in the process of devouring their core business. No big deal, right?
"Linux is far from "write once, works 3 years from now"
You obviously know nothing at all about Linux or computers in general. There are a TON of linux computers that were written once 3-5 years ago and still works great. The first Sony BluRay players, yup those run linux and they are over 3 years old and are running perfectly. Most Panasonic TV sets from 2005-now run Linux and the earlier sets never had a path for software upgrade so they are ALSO running perfectly 3+ years from when it was released.
I also know of servers that are out there that are running Linux from a decade ago. I have one that is 100% impossible to hack and is running a 2.2.x Linux kernel. It's at the top of a 120 foot tower and is acting as an APRS relay/Packet BBS and has been for well over 10 years now.
Write once and works 3,6,9,12 years from now works fantastically.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So buy an Android device that doesn't have those restrictions but has the same functionality. It's hard to be anti-competitive when you have several legitimate competitors. Microsoft had no legitimate competition, any pretense that OS9/OSX or Linux were a drop-in replacement for Windows was just laughable.