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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.
On a somewhat different subject there's also this article: Nasdaq hacked through MS security hole
Yes, I have seen this argument before and I pretty much buy into it. Microsoft seems to be pointing at Linux and the developments that have happened since the DOJ first filed this suit. It seems like a thin distracting tactic that Jackson is not likely to buy, but Microsoft seems to have realized that they can't win the case inside the courtroom, so they are taking their message to the outside world in some desperate attempt to sway public opinion in their favor.
Anything that has developed since the DOJ first filed this motion should not have any bearing on this case. What happened up to the point of the case going to Federal Court and the evidence presented in the course of the trial are of course what the judge will weigh in making his decision.
Microsoft knows they will lose on Jackson's decision. Microsoft appears to be trying to influence public perception to the point that it may benefit them in the appeal.
The issue is not if Linux or anything else is a real competitive threat to Microsoft's dominace of the home and business desktop. The issue is if Microsoft used the _fact_ of its overpowering market share of the pre-installed commercial desktop OS business to illegaly position its other products at the expense of its competitors.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the DOJ has a very strong case that this is in fact what did happen. Microsoft twisted arms left and right to make sure that IE was the only browser pre-installed on systems made by major suppliers. Then they went a step further by claiming that the OS was an integrated component of the OS itself, further entrenching IE into pre-installed systems and squeezing Netscape further out of the market it once dominated.
Didn't Dell, Gateway and a bunch of others come out and describe the tactics Microsoft used? Isn't it odd that all of a sudden these major players are beginning to offer Linux systems, now that Microsoft's illegal practices have been brought out into the open and they can't continue to threaten to raise license fees or cut discounts?
God, I'm not sure what will come of all this. Part of me wants Microsoft to pay dearly for their sins. Another part of me wants Microsoft to transform into a better company that makes decent products at reasonable prices and has ethical business practices. I guess as long as there is fair competition, Microsoft is stopped from continueing its dirty tricks, I'll be satisfied.
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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