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California Microsoft Settlement

Posted by timothy on Sat Jul 19, 2003 06:11 PM
from the settling-for dept.
Microsoft Government The Courts News
Lord Prox writes "From news.com.com: A California judge on Friday gave preliminary approval to a landmark settlement under which Microsoft will pay $1.1 billion to settle a class-action suit that claimed it overcharged consumers for Windows. More Townsend and Townsend and Crew is info from the law firm here. Also note... you get vouchers in settlement good for buying computer related items, not just Microsoft products and/or can be traded and converted to cash!"
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  • In exchange for the $1.1 Billion (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:16PM (#6481143)
    California agrees to a ten year, $10 billion Microsoft contract.

  • Overpaid ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:16PM (#6481144)
    A California judge on Friday gave preliminary approval to a landmark settlement under which Microsoft will pay $1.1 billion to settle a class-action suit that claimed it overcharged consumers for Windows

    I pirated a copy and feel ripped off !!

    • Re:Overpaid ? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NotQuiteReal (608241) on Saturday July 19 2003, @07:34PM (#6481457) Journal
      I am sure I purchased Microsoft products during the covered period. I don't recall feeling ripped off, nor do I remember anyone making me buy the products.

      Somehow, I suspect lawyers, or someone other than the alleged abused, are getting real money out of this deal and not silly coupons.

      • nor do I remember anyone making me buy the products

        When you're a monopolist (and by you I mean they), the rules change. The justice system isn't fair to you anymore. The going refrain changes from "innocent until proven guilty" to "it's better to screw one company than risk letting them screw the entire marketplace". And it's most likely a correct approach.

        Monopoly is a boon and a curse.
      • I don't recall feeling ripped off

        Yes, Microsoft Public Relations is very good at their job. Besides, everyone else is doing it and paying that much, it must be the right price. At work, we're holding out as long as possible before Licensing V6 exactly because we feel it's a rip-off.

        nor do I remember anyone making me buy the products

        Well, my laptop only came with Windows ME preinstalled. The last desktops my gf and her grandfather bought from BB came only with ME or 2000 preinstalled.

        However, th

  • MS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Klimaxor (264151)
    That's good and all, i'm glad to see they are trying to do something about it...but..why couldn't the price been just a little more? $5 to $29 is not going to make up for the companies who have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on microsoft products through the last 10 years or so. It's ridiculous.
    fp?

  • Dammit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Realistic_Dragon (655151) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:18PM (#6481156) Homepage
    I wish i didn't live in a sucky country which wimped out of nailing Microsoft to a target and announcing open season. Is it too late to organise a class action do you think? They must have commited another antitrust violation today or something, or do they take the weekends off?

    Here's hoping that exactly none of this money is used to buy upgrades to Windows XP.

  • Convenient (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sirmikester (634831) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:18PM (#6481157) Homepage Journal
    Cnet says : Two-thirds of the unclaimed money will go to California public schools in a mix of donated Microsoft software and cash grants."

    Microsoft should make it a habit of getting sued by states so that it can spread its software into the schools more effectively. I'm sure that the cash is also tax deductible. You go Bill!

    • Cnet says : Two-thirds of the unclaimed money will go to California public schools in a mix of donated Microsoft software and cash grants."

      I feel sorry for the students of the public schools in California. I was a student there myself over ten years ago. Everytime something like this comes down, the state pulls that much from what they give to the schools. When Loto first came around, all of the politicians stood behind it because of all the money that would be pumped into the school system. The next

      • Do you really think that ANY of the software currently in existence will resemble the software running when today's elementary students graduate from highschool?

        There were HUGE changes in the last four years, but the current evidence is that the rate of change is still increasing.

        • I don't know about that. Windows has had the same basic user interface since 1995 (windows 95). While the core technologies have changed (9x codebase to NT), the look and feel haven't changed that much. As far as the end-user is concerned, I don't think the GUI will change that much in the near future. Maybe when Longhorn is finally finished it'll have a new codebase and some different methods of searching for files on the PC, but I bet someone who has only used Windows 95 will have little trouble learn
        • Hey, when I started elementary school in 1981, computers in school were unheard of. You MAYBE saw a CPM machine. Then the Apple II came out. I remember playing with Apples clear into the 8th grade. I had a PC at home, and most of my friends had Commodore 64's. I programmed in BASIC, porting programs from Apple BASIC and Commodore BASIC to my IBM BASIC box.

          When I started high school the district bought a roomful of PC's networked with Novel Netware. Anyone else remember the big leap (around 11th grade) from DOS based Word Processors to Windows based? Hell I still remember the vulcan-neckpinch commands needed to operate WordPerfect. At this point I was writing device drivers in C for DOS. (Gasp, I still have the reference manual for all of the interrupt handlers for DOS 5 and 6.)

          In college I had to buy a Macintosh. Claris Works was my friend. My junior year they suddenly switched to PC's. I was on Coop an had to navigate MS Office. And just when people started to get good with NT, Linux came out. I moved on to scripting languages and SQL.

          What have I learned from all this? Basically how to learn. Everything else is just details.

  • The real reason MS settled (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They didn't want to risk having to deal with a Governor who's also a Terminator.

  • Cash is king (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (209368) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:27PM (#6481192)
    A California judge on Friday gave preliminary approval to a landmark settlement under which Microsoft will pay $1.1 billion to settle a class-action suit that claimed it overcharged consumers for Windows.

    Isn't it great when you're so rich you can break the law, then simply reimburse the people you scammed when, sometimes, they notice and react ? How many people got ripped off and never got their money back because they didn't have the time or energy to fight back big bad Microsoft ?

    Did the hordes of people who wanted to buy bare computers but couldn't find any, and had a Windows license forced down their throats, get their money back yet ?
    • Did the hordes of people who wanted to buy bare computers but couldn't find any, and had a Windows license forced down their throats, get their money back yet ?

      You and your friend there should start up a case, then. News flash -- ordinary people don't want a computer that starts up with the informative message, "PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK."

      Sarcasm aside, most geeks (like me, and perhaps you) that don't want to buy Windows know enough about computers to put one together from parts. Or at least know a fello
      • most geeks (like me, and perhaps you) that don't want to buy Windows know enough about computers to put one together from parts.

        Can you put together a laptop ? I can't ...

        And if some laptops on the market today come without OS, or with *nix/Linux preloaded, it's rather new and it wasn't the case for a long time.
      • Well, it used to be when you bought your spiffy 386 computer with windows 3.1 preloaded, they actually gave you the installation diskettes, along with the license. You could reinstall the system to your liking, or if you didn't like windows, you could sell your copy of Windows 3.1, or at least *Give* it to someone who could use it. Try any of the above today where some image CD comes with your new p4/XP box/laptop that automagically fdisks and formats your HDD to factory.
      • most geeks (like me, and perhaps you) that don't want to buy Windows know enough about computers to put one together from parts. Or at least know a fellow geek who will do so for free or cheap.

        Microsoft made it so expensive to buy comodity hardware that was preconfigured that they have trained up their doom. How many enemies have they made? Too many and all knowledgable. They have trained me and many other to know just how shitty their stuff is and how not to need it. I will gladly help others to avoid

    • It's kind of like those rebate deals, except instead of taking the time to fill out a form and mail it in, you have to hire a lawyer instead. Reduces the number of people who actually apply to get their money back by a _lot_!
  • This shows yet another advantage Linux has over Windows, no one has to pay any overcharging lawsuits. Then again, you wouldn't get free money with Linux...
    • More advantages:

      You can get sued by SCO!
      None of your friends will know how to use your computer - security by fucking obnoxious UI!
      You'll miss out on all the latest games!

      etc. etc. etc. :-p

      </sarcasm>
      • You can get sued by SCO! None of your friends will know how to use your computer - security by fucking obnoxious UI! You'll miss out on all the latest games!

        As far as games go, the REALLY good ones are ported to the consoles.

        And while I may be missing out on all the latest games, I'm also missing out on all the viruses too.

        Besides, Linux is fun to play with on its own.

  • Price of Windows (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rmohr02 (208447) <mohr.42 @ o su.edu> on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:32PM (#6481220)
    So Microsoft admits that they overcharged for the price of Windows--does this mean that the price of Windows will now go down?
    • Settlements rarely place blame, or the defendant has almost no reason to settle.

      It's more likely that the settlement says nothing about why the money is being distributed.

  • California's in the hole, people... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tinrobot (314936) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:36PM (#6481241)
    Don't forget, California has a $30-40 billion dollar shortfall this year. They're stuggling to find any source of cash they can... I'm sure they settled because they need an infusion of cash NOW...

    Remember... when you can't walk away from the deal, there's no negotiation.
    • California's in the hole and Microsoft is evil. I say we kill two birds with one stone. California's budget shortfall is 30-40 billion dollars; Microsoft has about that much in cash. We'll never get it just by settling lawsuits $1 billion at a time, especially when 2/3 of it isn't real money anyway.

      Everyone meet tomorrow afternoon in Sacramento, in front of the State Capitol. We'll then caravan up I-5 to Redmond. There's more of us than there are of them. We can take them. Once we get the money, we'
    • This is totally off topic, but look at the report at CAFR [cafrman.com].

      In short it says: "The State of California at the State-level has approximately $63.39 billion of the taxpayer's money it is not using, i. e. surpluses equal to $1,790 for every man, woman and child in California or $7,158 for a family of 4. This does not include all the additional surpluses that exist in the school districts, cities, or counties in California."

      This is not made up - the information comes from the California State Controller's Of [ca.gov]

  • Odd (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 0spf (574535)
    MS Dos is included but not Windows 3.x.

  • Judge declares M$ dividend! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mnmlst (599134) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:37PM (#6481245) Homepage Journal

    Is this some kind of attempt to get M$ moving on the rumoured increases in its' dividend rate? Were the California shareholders just excessively impatient?

    Of course, after living in California a few years now, I can assure you that you had better be a Microsoft-sized company if you expect to survive here. The place is insanely litigous, the State Senate and State Assembly routinely pass absurd legislation that inflicts high costs on companies gullible enough to do business here, and the cost of living is driving this place into a two-tiered society; the wealthy and those who serve them.

    Consider this just one more warning to other businesses tempted by this fabled "market of 34 million consumers". Chalk up this settlement next to hundreds of others, the recent tripling of workman's compensation insurance premiums (which is driving out hundreds of small companies and manufacturers), and the recent brilliance of our state government regarding taxes. The state's income tax system is very "progressive" meaning that high earners are heavily taxed and lesser earners are not taxed at all. Our brilliant legislature recently opted only to increase the income tax rates on the high earners. This is the very approach that got us in such a budget mess in the first place. The low earners vote for dozens of unaccountable spending programs that are paid for by the high earners. When the high earners get clobbered (read NASDAQ collapses onto Silicon Valley), the state government goes begging to support all those programs. Eventually, the state will be entirely populated by a wealthy few, some inland farmers, and those who serve the wealthy and depend on government programs to cope with the uniformly high cost of living. At least the ailing public schools will have a few copies of Windows 98 "donated" by Microsith. Be sure to check out microsith.com!

    Hey Californians, last one out, turn off the lights!

    • Re:Judge declares M$ dividend! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Alan Cox (27532) on Saturday July 19 2003, @07:04PM (#6481351) Homepage
      Just do what everyone else does, make it abroad import it sending all the money back out of the US and fold if anyone sues you.

      Its not just that foreign jobs are cheaper than US or EU jobs, is that there is a patent, liability and general law driven economic incentive to move everything offshore except lawyers
      • Just do what everyone else does, make it abroad import it sending all the money back out of the US and fold if anyone sues you.

        Look, I used my dividend to buy three or four nice boxed coppies of XP and put them on Ebay. They came from abroad, cost me nothing, yet still I do not prosper! Everyone just laughed at me and now I'm stuck with this sucky software. What't to do?


    • From the article:

      Microsoft isn't the first technology company ordered to pay large sums after finding itself a class-action defendant. In 1999, Toshiba settled a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit that arose from claims that the company had sold notebooks with defective floppy drives. Immediately after the settlement, the same lawyers that pursued Toshiba sued Compaq Computer, Emachines, Hewlett-Packard, NEC and Packard Bell NEC.

      Anyone notice a pattern here? Some time ago I received a notice in the mail

  • Microsoft sued for copyright infringement [ibiblio.org] over Windows XP shutdown music.

    And On-Topic:
    Software Giveaways should be assigned no value in a legal settlement!

  • Settlement Administrator Using IIS 5.0 (Irony) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hillct (230132) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:49PM (#6481299) Homepage Journal
    I love it. Part of the settlement administration website, managed by Rust consulting Inc. [rustconsulting.com], "... a class act in claims administration", located at http://microsoftcalsettlement.com/ [microsoftc...lement.com] is run on Microsoft IIS 5.0. I havn't seen the exact language of the settlement yet (does it cover Microsoft OSs more recent than Win05/98?) so it's hard to tell whether Rust Consulting Inc. will be filling out their own forms on their own website to claim their settlement coupons for their overpayment fot the OS running their website (or notifying their histing provider to do so).

    -- CTH

  • What Idiots Negotiated this Deal? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Saturday July 19 2003, @06:57PM (#6481325)
    1. Overcharge by $40/copy.
    2. Agree to refund $5 to $29/copy.
    3. Profit!
  • $100 discount on each copy of the Linux kernel that they use in the future. And we will sell it to them at $101 a copy.

  • There goes linux... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BrookHarty (9119) on Saturday July 19 2003, @07:14PM (#6481390) Homepage Journal
    Two-thirds of the unclaimed money will go to California public schools in a mix of donated Microsoft software and cash grants. Although the maximum value of the settlement is $1.1 billion, Microsoft could end up paying as little as $367 in cash, which is what it would owe to California public schools if no vouchers are claimed. If all vouchers are claimed, Microsoft would be required to pay the maximum, but schools would then get nothing.

    Long paste, but I have 2 concerns.

    1. Are the software calculated at RETAIL. Very bad if they get to use these prices. Here in Redmond, if you have a buddy who works for m$ you can get stuff for dirt cheap, 15 bux for keyboard cheap.

    2. This would just give all the schools Microsoft windows to run on all its desktops, with a copy of office and maybe even .net developers tools. Wheres linux or bsd in the mix?
      • And for that matter, where's Pepsi Cola or Sprite in the mix? Both just as related to a Microsoft settlement as Linux or BSD.

        A microsoft os on a computer means 1 less linux/bsd os on a computer. With strings attached.

        Those strings could be, per user/cpu licenses, support contracts, and upgrade contracts, and even the cost of the media. Microsoft already stated that opensource software and linux are microsofts main Enemies [slashdot.org].

        Nothing is as free as it seems, when it comes to microsoft.
      • This would just give all the schools Microsoft windows to run on all its desktops, with a copy of office and maybe even .net developers tools. Wheres linux or bsd in the mix?

        1. The school gets an overpriced Dell junker.
        2. Cluefull andministrator plugs it into the local Debian mirror. Dell Software sent back to M$.
        3. Computer works, other concerns are forgoten.
  • Subtract result from Microsoft assets.
  • Windows 95 has fallen out of support and besides that, most people have gotten a new PC since then with ME or XP handcuffed to it. 98 is falling (has fallen?) out of support and even that has been largely replaced by newer versions (like it or not). How many people still hang on to their old licenses after the software is trash? There's gonna be like 10 claims from geeks swiping the license from granny's computer. Everyone else has trashed 'em or just don't give a crap about 16 bucks.
  • Many years ago Bank of America lost a class action lawsuit for some dubious practices. For example, make a deposit and write a check the same day. Odds are, the check will bounce and incur a hefty overdraft fee. After BoA settled I received a letter stating I could claim my portion by filling out the enclosed form, etc. etc., and I would receive vouchers good for banking services at BoA. Excuse me? What makes you think I would ever again trust them with my money?

    I'll bet some lawyers made some serious money in the case, though.

  • ...converted to...? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    .

    "...can be traded and converted to cash"

    Better hope the settlement money can't be converted into campaing funds!

    (Inside joke. You have to be a Californian to understand what Gray Davis is going to do with that money.)

  • See The Bigger Picture (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Wp8gFSiO (687987) on Saturday July 19 2003, @08:49PM (#6481754)
    Townsend and Townsend and Crew, the law firm that filed the suit, described Friday's ruling as "the largest recovery of a monopoly overcharge ever achieved in the United States and the largest recovery ever achieved under the antitrust laws of California."

    Uh, yeah, and like most of these types of lawsuits, the trial lawyers get the bulk of the spoils and the consumer gets peanuts. The firm partners all get to build new wings on their homes and the consumer get their $5 to $29. Big consumer victory, what a joke. Sorry, but my contempt for what the legal profession has become overshadows anything wrong Microsoft might have done. And of course, the geeks applaud this outcome, because they can't get over their hang-ups on Microsoft without seeing the bigger picture, which is how out of control lawsuits have become in American society and how the legal system has become a tool of legalized terror against businesses and individuals. You need not look any further than what the RIAA is engaged in. Think about that before you yell "yeah, fsck Microsoft!"

  • I have an idea! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mike Schiraldi (18296) on Saturday July 19 2003, @10:40PM (#6482222) Homepage Journal
    Cool, man. When the tobacco companies were getting sued left and right a decade ago, they should have negotiated a settlement where they donated cigarettes to schools.
    • "Get Adobe to port linux to photoshop."

      I think that would take a little more than a billion dollars ;) Though, the I hear the GNU team did make an operating system out of a text-editor, once...so an image manipulator may not be all that hard! ;)

      (This post is funny. If you don't think it is, buy yourself a sense of humor.)

    • Re:Yup (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ceejayoz (567949)
      They don't want to go and spend $500 million restructuring everything, replacing all their Windows software with Linux software that may not be written yet, and training their endusers, probably.

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