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The MS vs. DOJ case arguments end
BlackICE writes "Ding dong the witch is dead-The trial portion of the case is over, and now both sides will have about a month to prepare closing statements. Expert opinion seems to be that the government will win, but what the final outcome will be in terms of reforms or injunctions is still up in the air. " Reports have also been hinting at settlement talks as well - maybe that will get everything over with sooner. Of course, following this comes the appeals, so my kids should be somewhere in grad school by the time this really finishes.
No matter how the case ends, it's caused huge changes since the day it was filed. As the article points out:
"Microsoft has already changed its behavior," Kovacic said. "They've backed off some of the contested practices. Their competitors have been emboldened to do things they may not have done before the trial. The government has gotten a lot of what they wanted. The company is not swinging away like they used to."
Corel's CEO, for example, has described the anti-trust trial as creating a window of opportunity that allowed Microsoft competitors to push onto the Linux platform without fear of retaliation. And perhaps most importantly, the trial has educated the public to Microsoft's tactics. The public no longer takes it for granted that Microsoft products are best, or that Microsoft controls the future of computing.
Personally, I hope the trial lasts another 20 years. As a lawyer, my recurring fantasy is that Judge Jackson will find Microsoft in violation of the anti-trust laws, then take another year or two of proceedings to decide what to do about it, which is entirely possible.
With a violation ruling in place, the sharks can unload on Microsoft in follow-on cases, where Microsoft's violation will be taken as established as a matter of law (through a little-known provision of the Clayton Act), leaving only the amount of damages to be decided in those cases.
Decades from now, I suspect the legal historians will regard as Microsoft's biggest mistake the decision to butt heads with the government rather than cut a deal early on. The Clayton Act's provision requiring the violation to be taken as established in other cases kicked in the moment the trial itself started. From that point on, not even a settlement could get Microsoft out from under that requirement.
pem@televar.com
OK, I'm in.
Whoa there. There is a different (as many other posters here have kindly pointed out) between the ways that different corporations can maintain and improve their market share. Remember, it's not illegal to be a monopoly, but it is illegal to gain monopoly power by illegal means, or to use monopoly power (even if acquired legally) to act in restraint of trade. With that in mind, let's consider some legal ways for companies to increase market share:
Here are some illegal ways:
I'll admit that the anti-trust laws are not the most clear-cut in terms of what is legal and what is illegal. This made sense when the laws were drafted, because markets can change rapidly and we don't want to rewrite large laws like this every year to take into account market changes and entirely new markets. Like many other laws, the question is ultimately the intent of Microsoft, and I don't think anyone at this point can argue that Microsoft's intent was only to have a good, clean competition and provide the best products for their customers.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I'm as happy as most Slashdotters at the thought that Microsoft might get slapped on the wrist, but contain your enthusiasm, guys - years down the road, you could be next.
Imagine it's 2008 and everyone uses Linux, which is free (as in beer). Imagine some entrepreneur raising a case that this "predatory pricing" prevents him developing a new OS and narrows consumer choice. Some bureaucrat might just go for it... and once again we'd have know-nothing governmental noses in our world.
I'm no coder, just an end-user who's switching to Linux because I finally got tired of the proprietary brittleness of Microsoft's stuff. (With a lot of pain, of course, but with gain too.) Government action against Microsoft isn't the answer to anything. The answer is to LET the Microsofts make their billions - let them become fat, stodgy and arrogant. Because this sows the seeds of their own destruction. Resulting in their ideal target buyers, guys like me, becoming dissatisfied and escaping when smarter, more creative people build something like Linux. And the Microsofts start to die.
In a webbed world, top-down government is unnecessary, and relying on it to "solve" our problems just perpetuates this outmoded system known as politics. Let's hope it's not many more years before the mass of people realise this, and strip back governments worldwide into the minimal scraps of social plumbing they should be.
- Read fiction at www.espressostories.com
Well, monopolies per se are not illegal. Microsoft is not in court because it is a monopoly, it is in court because it abused its market power.
Legal: Crushing your competitors and establishing an unassailable strategic position though better products, service, distribution and aggressive pricing (provided you make a profit).
Illegal: Crushing your products by threatening their distribution channels with retribution, effectively "cutting off their air supply.". Using your monopoly position to scare off potential customers with vaporware. Buying the competitors is also a no no.
Really, it's not asking too much, IMO. The law simply requires that you don't do things expressly for the purpose of cutting off your customers' access to competitors; the customers must be free to decide what is the best product for them.
The "free market" is not some kind of a benevolent god put there for our protection; it is simply a computational mechanism for setting prices and distributing resources. Like any other mechanism, it only works when used within certain parameters. That is to say, the market only operates freely when its users are constrained to work within its operating limits (example: forming a cartel damages market operation). Saying DOJ should back off of Microsoft is like some DOS weenie saying that you are limiting his programming freedom by not allowing him to write into another program's address space. Literally, it is true, but nobody with any sense really wants to live in a world like that. A good operating system shoots down proesses that misbehave, for the good of the other processes on the system, and for the ultimate good of the users and programmers of the misbegotten process.
To say that the "free market has a nice way of settling this stuff out" is naive because the "stuff" in question damages the operatoin of the free market.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
1) Microsoft did, in fact, produce Windows.
2) The Sun rises in the east. Or is that the west? In either case, it makes Java.
3) Bill Gates is a gigantic prick. But hey, so is everyone else in the biz. Go Woz!
4) If you're a high executive at a major corporation, it's a good idea not to write emails with any meaningful content. Ever.
5) OJ did it.
6) Corporate types in the computer biz are like corporate types everywhere else. Cute and cuddly!
7) You will cooperate with the state with the good of the state and for your own survival. Cooperation will be rewarded. Insubordination will be punished. You will be released into society after confessing your crimes. Do you have any heart conditions I should be aware of?
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