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Microsoft Antitrust Case Arguments Finished
Well, it's been going on for 11 months, but the DoJ and Microsoft's attorneys finally gave their closing arguments yesterday. Now Judge Jackson will put on his thinking cap and issue a preliminary ruling, hopefully within the next few weeks. The Washington Post has the full story.
Picture the (former) US telephone monopoly.
Now picture people getting so fed up with them that they, as volunteers, build their own parallel phone system and let anybody use it for free.
Now picture the phone company arguing in court that that is competition, hence they are not a monopoly...
I recently worked on a project, we came up with a cool system for modular multimedia components for use with education.
We were approached by Microsoft for a deal. I referred my manager to the many documents explaining how anyone who goes into partnership with MS usually ends up *much* worse off.
They also wanted us to dump the Unix servers and use an NT server farm!
After much pleading to my bosses, they refused the deal. At this point MS bought our biggest customer and then proceeded to starve us of cash to put us out of business.
It worked. I don't see anything that can happen to them as being unfair.
It is simple - just make them document all network
protocols and APIs.
This would preserve Microsoft as a corporation and
would allow a reasonable amount of competition.
More importantly, it would set a precedent for the
future on how to preserve competition. If someone
truly comes up with a novel new protocol, they can
get a patent.
The only thing consumers really have to fear is
Microsoft illegally tying one product to another
with an undocumented network protocol; for example
the Office 2K collaboration features which ONLY
work with NT. Or the secret Front Page
extensions. Microsoft has clearly laid this out
as a probably tactic (see the Halloween document).
Microsoft has the resources to stay ahead on a
level playing field like this. SMB has been
reverse-engineered and yet people still use NT
server...
Mark
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Your assertion that "even if they did break a law, it's a stupid law to begin with" holds absolutely no water. I happen to think having to stop at a red light is outdated and stupid, too. I think I'll start running them from now on. Let's see how far that gets me. The fact of the matter is, the antitrust laws in this country *are* specific and to-the-point. If they weren't, there would be countless cases prosecuted under them every year. I don't see too many going to court, do you?
Microsoft broke the rules. Now it's time to pay up.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
_Jail_ actual people. Send a personal message of that nature. This wouldn't harm any theoretical capacity of MS to innovate, wouldn't mess up the industry with largely hypothetical troubles of government code auditing and checking, but there are two major positive reactions:
- it would be a real wake-up call to these morons who figure that corporations get to be as sociopathic as they like, because nobody is accountable
- Microsoft is already suffering rot, and would collapse at the loss of its main sparkplugs.
A company has a personality, which is similar to the personality of its leaders. Microsoft's leaders are criminals, so Microsoft's personality is criminal. Remove the leaders and leave everything else, and eventually there might be leaders there who actually care more about producing products than they do about killing competition. The same programmers, artists, writers and possibly middle managers would be perfectly at home with the new personality. Never mind fussy legal corporate sanctions, which everyone is terrified about anyhow (a terror, mind you, orchestrated by Microsoft itself, and likely not worth the hysteria it gets). Instead, just nail the _people_ and send specific guilty-as-hell _people_ to jail. I think it is certainly likely that they can be reasonably charged with obstruction of justice due to their blatant attempts to subvert, lie to, and 'hack' the US judicial system....Most of us code because a tool we need doesn't exist, or isn't good enough. A breakup of Microsoft doesn't change this at all.
If anything, it might galvanize the open source community .... all of a sudden the spotlight would be equally distributed, less FUD from Microsoft, and less time spent deflecting stupid questions like "but who can we sue when something doesn't work?"
Werd.
"Microsoft has done some really innovative things in the past. Without Microsoft, where would we be in the OS business today? They kinda were in it from the beginning....waaaay back with MS-Dos. I remember running MS-Dos on the PCJr. and it was cool back then to have a command prompt. No, for all of their faults, Microsoft has contributed in a major way to the advancement of computing."
I sure hope you are being sarcastic, although I didn't detect that in your post. Because otherwise you are making me feel really, really old, and usually only my wife... well, skip that.
But the general point is that personal computer hardware, OS, and software development were going on when Bill Gates was still in grammer school. If Digital, to name just one possibility, had taken their blinders off for just a few minutes and released a reasonbly-priced desktop PDP-11, which they considered and rejected twice, for example...
Now this doesn't negate what bg accomplished, because he _did_ recognize the potential of what was going on and he _did_ negotiate a contract (for MS-DOS) that took IBM to the cleaners. Those aren't insignificant accomplishements and shouldn't be treated lightly. But bg and M$ didn't by any means invent the personal computer.
sPh
"Is this a joke?! Look at where we are in the OS business today: the mainstream is hardly a step beyond the 70s in some ways, and mid-80s in others. I just can't believe this. The 90s are almost over and it's still an uphill battle to introduce 80s technology into the mainstream."
How many times have I wished for a PC OS with 10% of the features of TOPS-20? Or Multics - that should be perfectly possible on today's hardware. But MS-DOS froze the state of the art at 1981 8-bit computing.
Again, I don't blame bg for doing what he did - how many of us would have passed up the chance? RMS maybe, but probably very few others. But still, the wasted potential is awesome.
sPh
Either OSS is a viable alternative on its merits or it is not. If OSS's success were dependent on the success or failure of MS, we'd be screwed. The beauty of OSS is that it will succeed for those who need it, want it, love it, etc, regardless of what the rest of the world does.
> They never prevented Netscape from being installed.
... ummm ... bundled, unremovable browser ... to go out and download another ... browser. Hmm.
Wrong. They did exactly that by threatening to revoke Windows licenses or significantly raise prices for manufacturers who wanted to install it.
They paid bounties to ISPs who dropped Netscape Navigator, too.
Oh yeah, but of course that wasn't forclosing distribution because average Joe user was just expected to use his
The last thing we need is a precedent for government harrassment of the software industry. The idea that Microsoft should be punished for out-competing its competition is ludicrous. Given the number of alternatives there are to Windows, and given that both sides give their browsers for free anyway, I fail to see how Microsoft has done anything illegal in this matter.
Even if they have broken the law, we're talking about antitrust. Antitrust law is the most vague, overreaching, intrusive law that can be imagined. It literally gives the Feds the power to harrass any company that manages to get a large market share. And it gets reinterpreted every few years, so there's no way Microsoft can possibly predict which things are and are not illegal.
I don't deny that Microsoft is sleazy, but sleaziness is not a crime. Laws should be specific and to-the-point. If the best charges they can dream up are antitrust charges, that tells me that either they are innocent of any real crime, or there needs to be new laws to address the specific types of crimes they have committed. But to twist antitrust law to cover whatever activity the current dominant player in a given industry is without warning is a very bad thing. There was no way Micrsoft could have predicted what would be considered a crime, since the things they are accused of doing have been done by many other companies with no legal repercussions.
I just hope Microsoft gets off the hook. Even if they broke antitrust laws, they don't deserve to be punished.
Ah, yes, if Microsoft was broken up, the baby MS' would still be strong. They just won't be able to use anti-competitive practices to keep their products being used. They'd have to be ethical. And an ethical company is not any "enemy". I think that if MS was broken up, the Baby Bills would just be a normal competitor, not an enemy.
Linux and Windows side by side. Is that to good of a dream to imagine? I'd love to be able to take Linux and Windows as well as other OS's and compare them side by side and use whatever is technically the best for the job I need it for. Right now, Microsoft products I don't compare. Because I refuse to use products by a company that is unethical. That's not to say that Windows *would* be better then Linux. But at least I'd give it consideration.
-Brent--
Bingo!
That's what Microsoft is being charged with. And that's why they are guilty. The hardest part will not be to get a guilty verdict, which I think is pretty much settled, but to "cripple" Microsoft enough so they can no longer say that.
That's the difficult part. Because a guilty verdict means nothing if Microsoft is able to continue acting as they have before. A little $1 billion dollar fine means nothing to Microsoft.
They have enough PR strength to "change" the outcome of the trial on the eyes of consumers. And Jesse Berst will do his part to convince everyone that a guilty verdict really isn't what it seems to be.
Microsoft went into this trial not caring if they lost. I think they realized that it really didn't make any difference whether they lost because they knew the government couldn't do enough to "hurt" them and the could make the consumer think that the government was just a "big bad bully".
-Brent--
They may be great OS's. And may be able to compete with Windows. But when Microsoft tells the OEM's that they have to only preload Windows or suffer higher licensing fees, then Microsoft has forced the OEM's to either preload other OS's which isn't a large part of the market *now*, although it could be later, and not be competitive with other OEM's, or not preload other OS's, in which case the other OS's can't compete.
They may be great OS's, but if Microsoft prevents them from being preloaded by OEM's, they can't compete. Only a monopoly can force that. Microsoft couldn't do that if they had only a small share of the market. The OEM's would laugh them out the doors. So it doesn't matter how many OS's there are that can compete in the Microsoft market. If Microsoft is involved in anti-competitive practices then they are guilty. And that's what the trial is about.
-Brent--
That's an A+ start to a sig. I'm going to have to remember that. :-)
-Brent--
In Microsoft's case it's more likely that some cash will change hands and Dell will quit preloading Linux.
-Brent--
I completely agree with almost all of this post, particularly the spirit of it (see my post a little further down, re: microsoft punishment).
:)
:)
But I have to point out a couple differences, especially the house-renting analogy (which is a good one).
"If I say you can rent my house only if you agree to also water the lawn once a week, it's up to you to accept the exchange."
What happens if it is more like...
"IF I say you can rent my house only if you agree to have only dogs as pets, it's up to you to accept the exchange."
Still looks pretty good, but what if -every- house in the area where you have to work has this agreement.
Then you have a problem (unless you are a dog person). Basically then there can be no cats in this city, which is unfair to my cute little cat
I suppose one could then build their own house, but that is at great expense.
Or, as is happening now, if the market for houses which allow cats is large enough, perhaps a new house-builder will form up (linux cat houses) and build lots of houses for cat-lovers to live in.
But then again you run into the trouble of, hey, what if all the land zoned for housing is taken up
Rezone... (or perhaps take dog-only house owners to federal court).
Of course, how a discussion about operating systems and questionable marketing strategy turned into a discussion of house pet merits, I don't know.
as always my completely uninformed, kneejerk opinion which fluctuates hourly.
i am sam i am. i live in a cave.
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
No, I do *NOT* worship Bill[tm] or his Empire[r].
... all Open Source (of some form)!!
Actually, I severely DISLIKE Microsoft, however my loathing for MS is less than my love of Open Source.
I think that a guilty verdict would do more damage to OSS than it would do good. Think about it - if they were found guilty, then the DOJ would put in place jurisdiction to level the playing field for other competitors.
But what "competitors" would such laws help to leverage into the market? Sun, IBM, SGI and Apple come to mind to name a few...
However - consider what tactics these companies are using to combat Microsoft - Open Source of course! Look at projects such as Apple Darwin and Linux4SGI
If MS *WAS* found guilty, then the DOJ would put in place laws to help companies such as Sun, SGI etc.. get a more equal footing.
But this would be at the expense of OSS!! No longer would OSS look as much of a good looking alternative to combat MS's monopoly - and I'm sure many of these companies will dump their OSS projects when they find themselves on a more equal footing with MS - it would be back to normal business practises (and no OSS.)
In fact, looking at the growth of Open Source and corellating it to the growth of MS's monopoly - you see a trend - as the monopoly grows, so too does OSS. I'm not a statistician, but I'm sure theres some truth to this relationship.
Then again, I would still be happy to see MS found Guilty - my point is that if they ARE - we shouldn't just jump to the conclusion that it will be good for us (the users/consumers).
everyone here keeps referring to microsoft being "punished".
my question: is a breakup really "punishment"?
i mean, you wind up with the interesting position that microsoft claims that their monopoly on O.S. doesn't help them to foist their applications on people; but then again they claim that having the O.S. and applications be different companies would be somehow bad for them. How?
The obvious answer is that if microsoft can't use it's 90+% market share to leverage its other products, the other products won't be used, or else MS will be forced to promote the products on basis of their own merits, something they've up to now only done occasionally. But microsoft won't admit this, of course. interesting to wach their minds at work.
Claiming that microsoft would be somehow be hurt by a split down the middle is, in fact, admitting that their strongest asset is their monopoly.
I hope that MS gets cut up, just because that would free me from the "microsoft guilt" of using MSIE4.5 for macintosh. Although the "AOL guilt" of using netscape is pretty much worse, so whatever. A MS breakup would help _everyone_; it would destroy MS's more worthless products, force them to make the others better, and generally restore choice to things. My only regret is that it wouldn't really hurt microsoft's OS business; but that seems to be doing a pretty good job of destroying itself.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The need to win isn't just an ego thing, though. If the DoJ wins, it would bolster the other existing (and future) civil lawsuits against Microsoft. Billions of dollars in damages are at stake.
---
Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What I read in (today's?) paper here in Albuquerque was that he donated 170 Gateway computers (presumably with 'Doze installed on them) to some schools around here. So now we get a generation of kids growing up, thinking that Windoze is "normal". Is this education, or indoctrination?
---
Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
In all seriousness, I actually looked up to the top of your post to see if Gerald Holmes had written it.
Some MS defenders sometimes claim Microsoft has done innovative things in the past, but does anyone ever cite an example? And when they do cite an example, is it anything later than the 1970s? Geez, I'll concede they made some fun BASIC interpreters back then; I used to use their ROM BASIC on 65xx, and I was impressed that they had quite thoughtfully made parts of their program jump through some pointers in RAM, so that you could change the pointers and hack how their BASIC worked, even though it was in ROM. That was neat. But since then? Not a goddam thing.
Is this a joke?! Look at where we are in the OS business today: the mainstream is hardly a step beyond the 70s in some ways, and mid-80s in others. I just can't believe this. The 90s are almost over and it's still an uphill battle to introduce 80s technology into the mainstream.
Good god, so many wasted years... it's so sad...
Well, that settles it: you're intentionally writing satire. There's no other explanation. Gerald Holmes has met his match.
Ok, I'll say one nice thing about something Microsoft has done in the 90s to advance computing: the inefficiency of their products has created some large markets for certain types of hardware -- RAM and hard disks would cost more today, if it weren't for MS. They've influenced the hardware industry. But don't ever forget: it was at our expense. Don't ever think that it was somehow "free."
Well, it has been publically very obvious since 1989 at the absolute latest. Insiders may be able to trace the roots back earlier....
I agree with you there. I don't wanna see 'em broken up either, and figuring out the astronomical compensatory damages would be next to impossible. But there's one thing you left out, which must not get overlooked: we also need criminal indictments against the individuals who are responsible. Criminals should not be allowed to anonymously hide behind corporations.
---
Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yes, and usually when a user decides to buy a computer with one of those OSes, they end up paying for a Windoze license anyway due to per-processor licensing, or MS deals with OEMs that penalize them for selling competing products.
BTW, I'm typing this message on a PC that is running OS/2 Warp. I never even booted the Windoze that came with it, but the company had to pay for it anyway. Smells like a monopoly to me...
---
Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If a manufacturer wants to, say, put all his help pages into HTML, how can he do it? He can't, unless there is a standard browser built into the operating system.
No, you need a browser somewhere on the system. You emphatically do not need one particular browser, though. That's why the W3C HTML standards exist, to allow an HTML document to be displayed by any browser that wants to.
Easy method: during OS installation or afterwards, the user installs a browser that registers an IBrowser COM class. Until this is done the HTML help isn't available. If the user has no other browser he can elect to have MSIE installed as the default, but if he prefers Netscape he can skip MSIE and install Netscape. When Windows needs to display an HTML help page, it uses Microsoft's own COM facilities to instantiate an IBrowser object and uses that to display the help pages. If Microsoft has written standard HTML, the pages display correctly enough. And yes, I know about ActiveX. I tend to dismiss it, since I haven't seen any use of it on Microsoft's help pages that couldn't be duplicated using W3C-standard HTML tags.
No, exactly relevent. When Netscape screws up displaying of the help pages, who do you think gets the support call?
First call would be to Microsoft. The first question they ask is "What browser are you using for help files?". When the user replies "Netscape.", the response is "We aren't Netscape. Call them.". Since the HTML source is readily available, Netscape can look and see whether it's standard HTML or not. If it is, Netscape has the bug and they fix it. If the HTML isn't standard, then Microsoft created the bug and they get to fix it. Simple, no?
Why, in particular, do you oppose a browser versus any other aspect of the OS such as, say, Notepad? I mean, if you don't like it, don't use it.
Because Microsoft hasn't made it impossible to not use Notepad. They don't claim Notepad is part of the OS, and force it's use for editing certain files. They have made it impossible not to use MSIE for certain things, even when alternatives are in fact available and Microsoft themselves created the means to make use of those alternatives. All Microsoft has to do to let any browser be used for their help files is interface to their own browser in exactly the same way they tell everyone else to interface to it for viewing HTML pages.
I'm not a lwayer. I haven't followed the evidence in the trial. I have idea of the legal merits of the government's case. Even so, if this were a jury trial instead of a adminstrative law procedure, and I were on the jury, I would have been deeply offended by two things Microsoft did that were widely reported. First, there was the misleading videotape -- even if Microsoft is right and the tape was factually correct, entering into a court of law and submitting evidence of "the same PC" before and after IE's removal with a tape that can be proved to have shown two different PCs would seriously damage their credibility with me. Next, in a grandstand move, to put up an empty sheet of graph paper and claim it was the analysis done by the government's expert economist is likewise insulting. The lawyer can call into question the accuracy and thoroughness of the witness without recourse to an obviously phony grandstand ploy. That was done for the court of public opinion.
All of this said, while I long to see Microsoft broken up into seperate companies, I remain completely ignorant of the actual legal issues and quality of evidence in this trial. I have no idea what will happen, although I eagerly await the results...
A lot of folks seem to be confusing the term "monopoly" with "owning 100% of the market", and so see alternatives like the free unices, BeOS, etc as proof that MS doesn't have a monopoly.
Sorry, but that's not the legal definition. Even if it were, when this all went to trial Microsoft certainly had a monopoly on OS preloads on x86 PCs -- that monopoly which they illegally used to leverage the success of their IE browser at the expense of Netscape, in clear violation of a consent decree Microsoft signed when several on-line service providers sued over the MSN icon on the original Windows 95 desktop.
(These things are never as simple as the press makes them out -- remember the audience the press is writing for.)
-- Alastair
Comparing this to the telephone breakup of the 80's is very worth-while. The US gov't broke up AT&T Bell into Long Distance (AT&T), and seven (I think) regional local telephone companies (Bell South, Bell Atlantic, etc...). This breakup was supposed to end AT&T's monopoly in the telephone carrier business.
Did it work? In short, no. Only after a bit more legislation (the Telecom Act of 1996) have we begun to see some serious competition as far as local and long distance telephone companies.
The Microsoft case has some similarities, in that Microsoft controls the OS market (analogous to the telephone wires of AT&T), and it has used that control to dominate the software market (analogous to local & LD telephone service). OK, maybe weak analogies, but stay with me. Both companies used their monopoly to prohibit competition in another related market.
But there are differences, too. Specifically, AT&T's monopoly was complete & absolute, mostly because of the prohibitive high cost of entry into the market. To sell a competitive telephone service, you'd have to literally string up your own wires & lease your own land all over the country. That's not the case with Microsoft. They have some scant competition (MacOS, *nix, etc), and there isn't the high entry cost.
I think the government remembers the mistakes they made in breaking up AT&T, and all the hassle they had to go through to get the Telecom act of 1996 through (12 years after the fact). So, my guess is if they do break Microsoft up, they'll do it with a vengence. I predict (& hope) that they separate the OS development/marketing/sales structures from the application development/marketing/sales structures, forming at least two different companies in place of Microsoft.
But that doesn't mean Microsoft will disappear. Look at AT&T and all the Baby Bells -- they're still alive & kicking, they're just not making as much money as they used to. That's probably what will happen to MS as well. So, the Linux/OSS community will still have a common enemy to fight; that enemy just won't have as many teeth as before.
-- Mid
N.B. -- for a lengthy discussion of the Bell Telephone System, see the MIT HyperArchives
Yes, and No. The problem is that a few years ago when microsoft was first on trial, it was rulled that microsoft could not bundle anymore software into windows than they already had. Given a browser is an important thing to bundle into and operating system distrubution, but it is not the operating system itself. Microsoft is trying to get around that language by saying that the browser is an intergral part of the operating system and cannot be removed. Bundling is generally a good thing, and I generally appeciate it when any operating system bundles packages that I like to use with their operating system. But Microsoft was banned from such practices, thus making it illigal.
You switched from Linux TO Windows? Your a sick man... I do have to admit that netscape has had some major instability issues since 4.0. But I would recommend you try 4.61 (not 4.60) its amazingly stable, it accually made a IE to Netscape convert out of a MCSE friend of mine.
Sure, and you need a wordprocessor to read many other documents. An operating system consist of a kernal, and hardware interfaces and a shell and or GUI (though a GUI really isn't part of an operating system.. but I'll let that slide). Please before you make any arguments about what an operating system consist of go to school and take a class on operating systems, I promise, you will learn a lot. (and no I havn't taken such class but plan too as soon as I can).
I don't know whether it's true that Einstein said that the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest, but I'm proposing a rival: inertia, specifically corporate inertia.
... do most business users need a 600MHz chip in their desktop PCs? Ha! (Do most business users need a *three* hundred MHz chip in their desktop PCs? Again, Ha!, but not as loudly. The PC Magazines usually advise readers to get 'current' technology (that is, not bleeding edge, but the Good Stuff nonetheless), even though in many / most cases that is overkill overkill.
... having a market preponderance shows that the sum of decisions (some good, some bad, some neutral) which affects your product favors your product over the competition, for the moment. Markets are always.
..."
MS knows how to encourage it and profit from it, but that's their deal -- being clever is hardly a crime.
If the businesses you deal with (say the clients at the agency I work for) all use MS applications and exchange their documents in less-portable formats because they don't see that this could ever be a problem ("Well, everybody has Word, right?!"), then one of the costs of doing business with them is remaining compatible.
Besides this (fairly reasonable, I say, though misguided) trend to keep businesses MS-only, there's also a knee-jerk reaction of the Newest Fastest Highest variety
Same goes for computer companies. If they want to toady up to MS and agree to, say, exclusively offer MS operating systems on their machines, or agree to *not* install Netscape (or whatever), that's their deal. If I say you can rent my house only if you agree to also water the lawn once a week, it's up to you to accept the exchange. VA systems and a number of others chose not to take that deal; this limits their appeal to some customers and increases it to others. Choice, choice, choice.
So when people complain that other OSes are not 'competitive' with MS Win9X or NT, it's important to point out that 'competing' is not the same as 'winning'
What surprises me is the vitriol and glibness with which large-scale intervention and oversight is accepted when it comes to MS. A lot of (even semi-positive) posts on MS start "Now I hate MS as much as the next guy, and I'd like to see Bill Gates thrown onto a pile of punji sticks then torturously baked, but
Live and let crumble, I say.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
There seem to be a lot of opinions here on how best to subdivide Microsoft, right down to how many people should be in each of the resultant divisions.
Consider that this means some sort of arbitrary decision by an outside authority, if such a breakup were actually to be effected.
How far down the line would you like that kind of control to be exerted? If you own a business, do you have the right to organize it the way you want? I say yes. 'Size of business' is not a factor, morally, and it *shouldn't* be one legally, either. In fact, if you don't have that right, you don't truly own it at all, because ownership carries the right to organize according to the will of the owner.
(A brief aside: this does require context. Mowing a profanity into your lawn will probably have ill effects on your neighbbors, but how you organize your home- based programming business inside your house oughtn't. So I am not saying that MS must be allowed to hang deer carcasses upwind of Seattle, only that a company has the right to decide what it peacably does with its own assets.)
just thoughts,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Pity these guys who work for the Gates, at least on this score (they are raking in the dough, but man this has to hurt them when they realize they're whores in the worst sense of that word). They have to stand up in front of a judge who has seen their clients lie, and get caught incontrovertibly in that lie. Moreover, their witnesses have said such things as "I don't know what 'piss all over'" means, and so forth. Then, of course there are the astroturf campaigns. What can they say in reply? It seems like the only place to go is claim that your opponents are doing it, because the opponents are saying the opposite of what your client is saying.
What else can they come up with? "This case is motivated by jealousy." True, possibly: the DOJ might never have initiated proceedings had Ellison, Barksdale, McNealy, et al not pressured them to. But that of course has nothing to do with the merits of the case. Plenty of evidence points to the fact that MS has not only pursued the "top of the heap" location, but has used dirty tricks to stay there.
Their clients have treated the rest of the world with contempt; they have treated the judge with contempt, and they have treated consumers with contempt. What do you say to defend such a client? I, for one, am glad for the fact that IANAL.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
"Windows 95 has shipped with a nice little app called FTP.EXE since day one."
:).
I agree, its a nice little app. Fine for you or me, but if you think a typical Windows user even knows ftp.exe exists or is able to use it, please re-estimate the problem a little
One of the most common questions I get when helping MS friends with new computers is "what is a directory?" They don't even know what an "exe" is because Windows Explorer hides file extensions by default. CLI tools usually aren't even on their horizon for a few weeks, and typically require line by line help over the phone to use them for a while. Just finding a file after it's downloaded provides a challenge to many. They aren't stupid, just totally inexperienced.
I don't think this situation is healthy or good, but it is reality.
I agree with you that the browser bundling is a poor argument. Every OS distribution needs a browser enabled after installation, so that, if nothing else, the browser of choice may be downloaded easily. It's also good for making system upgrades and security patches available, and of course help resources. Whether the browser belongs in the OS, or in the file manager application, I don't much care as long as it's fully replaceable and easy to get working.
But I think Microsoft put it very well when they suggested we need a hall monitor here. Microsoft has bullied and bought out its competition in a fashion destructive to an entire industry. To the point in this case, they illegally leveraged their desktop monopoly in order to supress competition in applications, it doesn't get any clearer than that.
I wouldn't break MS up, I prefer a single large target, clumsy from it's own weight. Microsoft might be smart enough to break itself up if the DOJ doesn't do it for them. What I would do is insure that Microsoft ceases and desists from threatening to stop sales to distributors if they carry competing products. If possible, that should be made criminal, with Mr. Gates personally responsible for seeing it doesn't happen. We don't need to tolerate bullying in business. We can't if we expect free market to mean anything at all. We want to select for quality of product, not weight of gorilla.
call me optimistic, but i think the US government is going to do the right thing on this one.
As bad as some parts of the government have been to us, the judiciaries always seem to come through, and i'm looking forward to the break up of M$.
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Disclaimer: I like GNU/Linux and the GPL. However, I'm /not/ trying to bait anyone. :)
Isn't the case supposed to be about the state of affairs when the trial first started? In that case, no OS you could possibly name would come even near qualifying as "competition" in the eyes of the average end-user (and no, most end-users are not hackers, for those with very odd perceptions indeed).
As far as *BSD competing for the.. desktop? The BSD brothers are direct descendants from the original UNIX. The first of those three projects began in what, 1991? I think if they were going to capture the desktop of all places, they'd have "caught fire" by now. In the very early 90's NetBSD was certainly more functional than GNU/Linux, if only for the fact that the kernel had just been written, while UNIX code has been around for quite some time.
GNU/Linux still isn't much of a threat to the desktop market. Most Linux "desktops" I know of that are made by a computer company that your average end-user would even know about (that is to say, VA and Penguin Computing do /not/ count) don't even have modems on the things thanks to silly "Winmodem" policies (just see Dell's site for an excellent example).
GNU/Linux and *BSD are making significant inroads on the server side, and GNU/Linux is shaping up to take on the desktop.. But it's not happening.. yet. The hardware companies will have to fall further into line first. And they're, quite honestly, being sissies right now for the most part. Afraid to get into the pool because the water might be too cold.
It's more like a jacuzzi, though, if you ask me. :)
~ Kish
Anyone with any rationality has to conclude that MS is innocent in this case. The DOJ picked the wrong case by focusing on browsers. A browser is a natural extension of an operating system, for the simple fact it is such a useful tool. If a manufacturer wants to, say, put all his help pages into HTML, how can he do it? He can't, unless there is a standard browser built into the operating system.
Of course, MS semi-screwed up too by even getting near the fact that the browser can't be removed from the OS. Of course it can. What they should have focused on (which they did for awhile, I believe) was that it's an essential part of the OS because they want to actual use the tool in other standard parts of the OS (heaven forbid!)
Of course, Slashdot is the wrong place to bring rational arguments regarding MS. :)
On a somewhat different subject there's also this article: Nasdaq hacked through MS security hole
Now the verdict here could make things very interesting indeed for the software world. For all of its evils (Windows included), Microsoft needs to have a verdict delivered against it. I do not mean this as a "down with MS cuz it sux" remark. Microsoft has done some really innovative things in the past. Without Microsoft, where would we be in the OS business today? They kinda were in it from the beginning....waaaay back with MS-Dos. I remember running MS-Dos on the PCJr. and it was cool back then to have a command prompt. No, for all of their faults, Microsoft has contributed in a major way to the advancement of computing. However, in the last 3-5 years or so, maybe longer, maybe shorter, they moved away from more of the pionering and development into the arm twisting business. The arm twisting business, unfortunately, is a bad business to be in. Microsoft got caught. I've worked in one of the larger electronics superstores, and it was no secret to us that MS had made certain deals with manufacturers and if the certain conditions werent met (IE latest edition of a certain browser bundled, or LACK of another browser bundled) then those companies would loose the right to either A) discounts on the MS stuff, or B) access to the MS stuff altogether. Using scare tactics, MS controlled certain manufacturers (before the products hit our stores, MS didnt bother with us except to make sure we obeyed licensing). For this Microsft must pay.
./ers!
But to what extent? The breakup of the company? I dont think so. Fines? Yes. Say, lost profits to certain companies, punative damages to make sure they dont do it again. Deep punative damages. Splitting the OS part of MS from the Apps? I just don't know. I think it would make for a worse picture in the future in that area, not a better one. I think that with a forced split, the company would end up still working together, although not a closely as it had been. And what could the government do then? More fines. I'm just not convinced on the splitting part. I'm interested to see how others think the verdict should go. Could spark up an interesting debate.
But I'm done rambling for now, I do still need to get that sleep, been up for too long. Later
-Captain Keen
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Sounds like you subscribe to the "good enemy" concept--you know, a good enemy is one you have to stretch to your limits to beat. The problem seems to be that Microsoft can't be beaten by playing fair, i.e. competing on the merits of the product. This is because Microsoft DOESN'T compete strictly on the merits of their product (how could they?), and the kinds of "cheating" they engage in really make the most of their company's other advantages: they have the resources to seriously influence buying patterns through FUD and "creative benchmarking", they have the bucks to acquire competing technologies so they can incorporate or eliminate them, and they have the market clout to set defacto standards or to "embrace and extend", i.e. subvert, negotiated standards, as the Halloween documents revealed.
Against these fairly awesome forces, the open-source community has what? Good sense (individually), good processes (generally), great code, and personal motivation. These are important things, but they noticeably don't include good marketing, solid representation in standards-creating bodies, and political clout. Yes, I said political clout: Microsoft would have been slapped down hard years ago if another organization with serious pull had gone after all the legal wrongs they've done.
I agree that the open source seems to need something to rally against, but I don't think the Evil Empire is exactly it: open source began because people wanted code that was good, and free. So what they're rallying against is code that is bad, and/or expensive (and closed-source). Microsoft is a putrid example of all these things, and as the largest such example is an easy target, but if Bill Gates had stayed at Harvard and become a lawyer or something there would still be bad expensive code out there, and I believe the open source community would be just as fervently creating alternatives to it. In fact, I think the open source community will be continually pushed to better things as long as they remain the underdogs: almost any individual company could fill the "good enemy" role. If open source "wins", and closed source becomes the anomaly instead of the rule, then I think the community would struggle to redefine itself. But I don't see that happening soon, and breaking up Microsoft won't bring this about all by itself.
Jenny
I think we'll all agree that the tech world evolves extremely rapid. For a company, keeping up-to-date costs heaps of money. Small wonder then that everyone is falling asleep over this trial. Strange that the DOJ doesn't seem to have taken this into account. Anyway, this could in theory have been settled quickly: 1) MS didn't have an internet policy to speak of, in fact, even tried to 'replace' it with their own MSN. (ridiculous as it sounds) 2) Netscape did have the correct amount of vision here and rose very fast among the hi-tech companies. 3) MS sees everything evolving, takes an existing product, puts on some fancy buttons and gives it away for free. (how's that for unprecedented) Now what would their motive have been here? The Netscape-AOL merger isn't proof of existing competition, it's a result of anti-competitive practices. The unethical business practices have been _here_, not afterwards... I mean, even installing an NT service pack gets you IE shoved down your throat nowadays...And which reasonable administrator puts a browser which has become so bloated on a critical server? (Although the time when Navigator fit on a single floppy is long behind us too now...)
Microsoft: "... We will concede that Mr. Gates is a deity of extraordinary power and has been very 'innovative' in the area of computers. But the economic loss would be immeasurable if we were to kill him. We recommend breaking up into four seperate units - four horsemen if you will, who will ride fourth bringing Office, NT, W2K, and The Road Ahead to everybody!"
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Many have written in that, in a way, Microsoft is not guilty of the crime of anticompetitive behavior against netscape by integrating their own browser into the operating system. I repsectfully disagree, and argue that their punishment, in this case, did fit the crime, and that the government, though it punished Microsoft harshly for its actions, is justified.
"Huh?" you say. They haven't been broken up, at least yet. They may even win the case.
Well duh, people, look at all the news about Linux, and ask yourself how well Red Hat would have done if it weren't for the trial. Would there be Calderra and I-toasters for general sale at Best Buy now? Would there be the emphasis on alternatives? Would Dell have the guts to sell and support Linux on their systems?
Yes, Microsoft has payed dearly for its crimes against the public-loved Netscape. And it's punishment isn't over yet. The trial IS microsoft's punishment, and they are guilty, guilty, guilty as the trial goes on. Don't be fools, this was the point. Breaking up microsoft, as the company often says, would make them just another player in the market like Sun or IBM. But they are already on the road there! They have lost their way, propelled by our legal system that punishes the guilty and innocent alike. Think twice before predicting the outcome next time.
As most of us know already:
The crime was arrogance.
The judge, jury, and executioner is the justice system.
And the punishment is a trial that will wreck you.
Only God can save them now.
-Ben
That's what I wonder... so the government wins. Microsoft has used unfair business practices and is a monopoly of sorts? What happens then. A telephone style break up where MS is broken up into a bunch of smaller division. The IE division the 9x division, the NT division?
As much as I am anti-microsoft... their dominance and accidental leadership seems to push the opensource commmunity to better things. Without the dominance of Windows, would a great Linux desktop environemnt like KDE or Gnome exist... I think not. The open-source community almost seems to need something to rally against...
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