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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."'"
The initial IE was purchased from Spyglass for a small sum plus royalties on sales. Needless to say they were screwed. When Microsoft later claimed it was an integral part of the operating system, Spyglass claimed the royalty on a basis of Microsoft's Windows sales. This was settled out of court, but some damn fine cars were seen driving the roads of Naperville, Illinois, soon thereafter.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
To be fair to the judge, he was the victim of a focused smear campaingn by MS. MS was fighting for its life and did not scruple at using every dirty trick it could.
MS complained about several interviews that Judge Jackson gave with journalists, in which the judge uttered some blunt and unflattering comments about Microsoft and its icon, Bill Gates. The judge said that Gates had a Napoleon complex, that Gates's "testimony is inherently without credibility," and he likened Microsoft's behavior to that of street gangs and drug dealers.
However, the judge's interviews and comments were made after he had heard all the evidence and the cases were closed. He decided that MS was not telling the truth, and that was his job. His only mistake was in granting the interviews before he issued his final judgment.
The judge was careless, certainly, but his decision should have been allowed to stand.
"A main differences are that you don't have to use any or all of Apple's ecosystem. You want a digital music player that's not Apple; buy someone else. You want music that's not iTunes; buy someone else. You want some OS other than Windows when you buy a PC from Dell, HP, IBM, etc; No."
That argument doesn't make sense because Linux, Unix, OS/2 and Mac OS were all available as alternatives during the anti-trust investigation. Microsoft having 90% of the market didn't change the fact 10% was comprised of alternatives, just as Apple having 90% of the portable media player market didn't change the fact 10% was comprised of alternatives. There were alternatives available in both cases, they just weren't used as much. You didn't have to use Windows, the problem was simply that most people did, just like you didn't have to use an iPod, or iTunes, even though most people did. It doesn't matter that Dell/HP didn't supply non-Windows machines, that was never an issue in itself of the original anti-trust investigation - there were plenty of stores that only sold Apple media players because of exclusivity agreements, but again, it's not really relevant to the fact of what really got Microsoft hauled in for, which was almost identical to what Apple got away with.
"Are you implying that MS was improperly investigated?"
Not in the slightest, I'm saying that Apple wasn't correctly and properly investigated, which is kind of why I typed exactly that.
"The problem is "absusive". Monopolies can exist; where companies like MS were sued was how they treated partners and competitors. It isn't abusive to offer an advantage like vertical integration."
I think you may have a rather one-sided pro-Apple view of the world. Have you forgotten how Apple treated Adobe effectively killing off Flash? Have you forgotten how Apple was rapped by the European courts by not charging fair pricing to the UK market on iTunes music? Have you forgotten how Apple is currently being run through the courts because of the way they acted with eBooks against Amazon? If you think Apple hasn't engaged in abusive practices then you've been living under a rock. Some of what they have done is frankly arguably even worse than what Microsoft did - they killed off Flash which was akin to killing off Netscape, and then went and fixed eBook prices and the like on top.
You're only looking at half the picture, you're blanking from your mind rather important incidents of abuse by Apple that are rather well documented. If you blank those out then of course things look different, but if you live outside the reality distortion field and in reality like the rest of us then it's kind of hard to miss the blatant similarities and contradictions.