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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 part of their "Embrace and Extend" strategy. Embrace any popular technology by making your own free version, then extend it in a way that's incompatible with other operating systems or office software, thus creating a lock-in and even greater dependency on the core products - OS and Office.
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.
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. "
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!
Judge Jackson put up with all kinds of crap during the antitrust trial that would have garnered normal people punishment for contempt of court. One of the more ridiculous examples was when Microsoft execs presented a forged video as evidence in the trial. Not only was the video doctored, it was doctored in a bad, amateurish manner, just like their software. Even at the time it was a puzzle why that went unpunished. Now we can see that was just standard operating procedures for M$.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
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?
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.
So you're saying WINE emulates Windows a bit too well?
"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.
But is this really any different than Apple using it's digital music player (iPod) or digital music store (iTunes) monopolies that were in the 90% marketshare range to push into the Smartphone and digital video and eBooks markets?
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.
I think there's a fair point to be made that Apple has definitely leveraged monopolies it has had to enter new markets in exactly the same way Microsoft leveraged it's operating system monopoly to try and take browser marketshare.
Not exactly the same unless you have proof that Apple interfered with Amazon or Google or Microsoft when they set up their music stores. Or that they tried to block Sansa, Archos, etc from making or selling their music players. Or that they prevented Nokia, Motorola, Sony, from setting up their own music stores; incidentally I had a Verizon music store on my dumb Verizon Motorola way before iTunes/iPhone. It was $4 a track and I could not play the track outside of my phone.
This has become pretty prominent with eBooks in that they are being investigated for illegal market manipulation, but this isn't the same as anti-trust legislation used against Microsoft. In fact, one might argue that if Apple had been properly and correctly investigated for anti-trust violations it may not have ever engaged in eBook price fixing that led to increased eBook prices for consumers in the first place.
Are you implying that MS was improperly investigated?
I really don't think there's a reasonable argument that Apple is somehow different from Microsoft, it clearly has had monopolies in some markets, and it clearly has leveraged those monopolies to gain advantages in others, sometimes abusively so.
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. If MS had simply packaged IE with Windows that might have been okay. Threatening OEMs that MS would raise their prices if they installed Netscape was abusive. Working with Intel to undermine Netscape was abusive.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.