Slashdot Log In
States and DoJ Divided On Microsoft Antitrust Success
Posted by
samzenpus
on Tue Sep 04, 2007 07:46 AM
from the all-better-now dept.
from the all-better-now dept.
Rob writes "Computer Business Review is reporting that the US Department of Justice and five States
have declared themselves satisfied with the antitrust enforcement efforts taken against
Microsoft despite a further seven States maintaining they have had 'little or no
discernible impact in the marketplace.' While the US DoJ and five States — New York,
Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, and Wisconsin (The New York Group) — reported that the final
judgments have succeeded in increasing competition to the benefit of consumers, seven
States making up the California
Group are not convinced."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
The question is simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The question is simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Your questions is ridiculous.
You always have had choices. Mac has always been there. There have always been linux shops that sell hardware. More expensive and less support, but you could do it.
How do you define "more able" to buy something? Price? Availability? Support? Number of vendors?
MS bundles products, closes interfaces, and forces new version upgrades. This is an abuse of monopoly power.
IANAL, but MS was declared a monopoly back around 2000. I don't think a judge ever declared them to no longer be a monopoly, so I assume that ruling stands.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/2479.html [ecommercetimes.com]
Parent
Re:The question is simple (Score:5, Informative)
It's documented that Microsoft has entered into restrictive contracts with OEMs so they pay per PC sold, whether or not it includes Windows. Also that Microsoft has threatened vendors (e.g. IBM) with an increase in the price they pay for Windows and used this as a tool to stop vendors from including competitors' software they don't like. Some of these restrictive deals were replaced with similar ones that look better on paper but are much the same in practice (e.g. paying a Microsoft tax on each PC of a certain 'model' that was sold, so if a vendor wants to exclude Windows they must print new name badges and manuals). A simple injunctive remedy IHMO would be to require that Microsoft sell Windows licences at the same price to all vendors, and that the licence be paid for only if Windows is included with the PC.
You are quite right about the bundling of products etc. That is another example of monopoly power. It doesn't make the complaint about Microsoft preventing OEMs from offering Windows-free PCs any less valid.
Parent
Mod Parent Up (Score:2)
Eivind.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But, the question implies that the "average user" is shopping around to get a Linux PC. As the major vendors have shown, when they offer it as an option, it rarely sells. The price benefit certainly isn't there (an average cost drop of about $5
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Between MS stagnation, price hikes, security and other high-profile bugs, and the growing (if still low) sophistication/informedness of PC buyers, plus Apple's tremendously popular brand (mostly boosted by iPods and iTunes), is MS any less a monopoly abuser? Or are they just keeping down an overwhelming percentage of a much larger demand, so the non-MS growth wo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the question, though. The question is, is Microsoft still engaging in anti-competitive practices? Are they continuing to leverage their monopoly with Windows and their monopoly with Office to reinforce each other? Are they leveraging those monopolies to force users to adopt other Microsoft products? Do they have APIs in Windows/Office/Exchange that they aren't really making public in order to stifle competition? Are they continuing to use their own proprietary standards, protocols, and file-f
Re: (Score:2)
Ah ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I don't see how the antitrust suit has had much bearing on Microsoft's behavior. They continue to act like a monopolist. Prices for Microsoft operating systems have actually gone UP, not down (despite prices for virtually everything else in their industry dropping) and their market share hasn't changed significantly in anyway -- when it has changed, it's been due to superior and/or cheaper products, such as all-in-one file servers with embedded OS, Linux, or improvements in Apple's Mac OS X.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The suggested retail price for Windows 3.1 in 1992 was $149.95
Microsoft Announces Worldwide Availability of Windows 3.1 [google.com]
Vista Home Basic Full Version [amazon.com] is $183 at Amazon.com and $139 at Royal Discount Technologies [royaldiscount.com]
Windows is approaching one billion users on the desktop - one Windows PC for every 6.5 people on the planet. Microsoft Antitrust Settlement Is a Success [eweek.com]
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Well then you could provide us a list of wrongdoing from the past, let's say, a year?
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, this has been on
Parent
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:5, Informative)
I'll start.
- Claiming Linux violates 235 patents.
- Introduce OOXML to spike ODF, and stacking ISO
- Subverting Massachusetts to prevent adoption of ODF there.
- Novell-Microsoft agreement
- Preventing alternative desktop search engines.
- Introducing Silverlight to spike Flash
- Introducing XPS to spike PDF
- Refusing to open APIs and protocols despite EU decision.
- Breaking all of their own "12 tenets' before they even got started.
There's more, but that's a good start.Parent
A R G H!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Brothers, we must join together. Let us never forget the list of endless sins that this company has perpetuated. Egregious, dastardly sins that would make their grandmothers cry when they heard them. We must continue to fight this war! Our main offensive shall be the posting of vehement rants on community-driven websites, such as Slashdot. The sheer number of these pointed essays shall bowl over our enemies in no time! This is a battle of numbers: do not feel the need to invoke mighty weapons of logic at every turn! And, also remember, your own stories of woe relating to Microsoft are worth as much, if not more, than logical arguments.
I trust you will not let me down.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Ahahaha. Seriously, dude, you should be embarassed. As I read this, one phrase came to mind "...and get to the bad part?".
Re: (Score:2)
> business activites which any other for-profit organisation would undertake.
Perhaps, perhaps not. In any case, individuals and corporations which have been tried and convicted for criminal behavior don't enjoy the same freedom of action as those who have not.
Re: (Score:2)
You've managed to gloss over anti-trust's largest problem: defining criminal behavior. Actions that are perfectly legal below a certain threshold (size, market share, popularity) run the risk of being arbitrarily declared illegal after the fact.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Now, what does that have to do with Microsoft? They have not been tried or convicted of any criminal activities. Perhaps you're confusing civil actions, ie a lawsuit, with a criminal trial. The former is two private parties (or the government acting as a private party) asking a court to rule over a dispute using laws to determine the 'winner'. The only outc
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, I know that's not a full year, in fact I got sick of searching /. just back to july, if you want to find the rest of the disgusting B$ behaviour coming out of redmond for the nine months prior to that look for yourself ;).
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Further, Microsoft is merely backing HD-DVD, they don't own it. And HD-DVD certainly isn't a monopoly either.
By the way, Microsoft did the right thing with the Blue-Jay thing. They invalidated their own patent. But, since you ahve an axe to grind, I suppose you'll use anything you can get. Valid, or no
Actually, it's quite simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just another example how much power they wield and how _corrupt_ some states in the US (and ofc elsewhere) are.
You were expecting...? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you believe market share should be the only indicator of whether injunctions have worked, and you won't be satisfied until Microsoft has some percentage (let's say less than 50%), then it really won't matter what h
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft still forces PC makers to only selling Windows PCs. If they try to sell PCs with non-Windows OS they are denied any discounts on MS products. This lowers the profit margins on a PC by a lot.
Unless you're up for government mandating that all citizens stop using MS Office, or playing games on their computers,
Re: (Score:2)
How, exactly, does the government preventing people from using a line of products from a manufacturer give the customers more choice? I'm all for, potentially, forcing Microsoft to pay for some advertising for some other options to their ubiquitous office and media applications, but forcing people to stop using them...
Re: (Score:2)
Linky? I'm sure you have evidence for this?
That is exactly what the government should do. If a company is abusing a monopoly, they should be made to suffer financially until their behaviour changes. Steps should be taken to break the monopoly and give customers more choice. If MS doesn't like it they shou
Re: (Score:2)
I firmly believe the only reason that Microsoft still has dominance in the desktop OS market is because people are comfortable with the software that runs on their OS, and they stick with it.
MS Office is the main reason people continue to use Windows. That's why Microsoft is so desperate to get OOXML made standard by ISO. They need to maintain their office document lock-in in order to maintain their desktop OS marketshare. If ODF takes over, then people would have choices about what office software to use, and they would all be able to read and write documents created with other office suites and applications. Then people could choose other platforms to run those applications on. That wou
Web standards noncompliance (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's continued abuse of its monopoly for operating systems is clearly apparent in its failure to implement web standards in IE.
Smaller browser vendors with vastly less funding have made giant strides in their implementations of CSS, SVG, mathml and DOM. Microsoft has done as little as possible to implement those standards, but somehow has found the resources and the rationalization to implement SilVerliGht, which is a stolen, bastardized clone of SVG.
Unlike 10 years ago, the world has moved past its reliance on Microsoft to embrace other vendors products willingly. No wonder IE's market share continues to fall precipitously.
A paragraph too far... (Score:2)
So then you agree with the DoJ and the 5 states that the thing they did vis-a-vis Microsoft worked? Good, glad to have that settled.
All of you whiney fan-bois and grrls should take a step back and realize what it is you are admitting when you say the stupid things that you say. If the things MS makes are 'defectivebydesign', th
Re: (Score:2)
If MS can't innovate, can't implement standards, can't make stable systems, then some other system will win. If closed source is such a bad model, then some other system will win.
The problem is that for the longest time, Microsoft has been the standard. Now that there are other possible standards out there that are becoming available, Microsoft is doing all it can to corrupt the process and prevent countries, states and other organizations from adopting and implementing those standards, using any means at its disposal, legal or illegal, ethical or unethical.
Re: (Score:2)
So then, the whole DoJ thing vis-a-vis microsoft is either working or unneccesary? Or you want it both ways?
Anywhile, what killed Netscape was trying to move into the browser/email/swiss-army-knife market. What a pig! Every modern OS distro comes with a browser. Phones have the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"First, it criticizes Microsoft for ignoring or failing to implement standards. Then, it criticizes Microsoft for participating in the standards process and implementing standards."
Nowhere does anyone criticize Microsoft for implementing standards because they simply haven't implemented standards .
The OP criticizes Microsoft for implementing a "bastardized clone" of a standard, which is not the same thing as a standard. It is the obverse of a standard.
When browser vendors all implement the s
Re: (Score:2)
Or, barring that, sitting down and dying. If they can't be a responsible corporate citizen - which I'd prefer - they should die. Even if that requires that they just get shut down by the government.
Eivind.
The DoJ has to say it worked (Score:4, Insightful)
They had Microsoft up against a wall, and then suddenly they were best buddies with Microsoft and nothing had ever really been wrong in the first place. It was sickening and another black eye for the United States, but if at any point the DoJ admits that it's unsastisfied with the results, it opens up an old can worms for the house or the senate to investigate.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Elections have consequences.
Well. (Score:3, Interesting)
A possible remedial solution.... (Score:3, Insightful)
More worrying than the monopoly is the fact that the PC burns much more power and is inferior as a platform compared to even small devices like cellphones, game devices and appliances. The failure of the OOXML fast track process shows that there is still hope, if only the whole world can act in concert. I suggest some measures to bring speedy correction in the PC industry:
1. Any component of the PC that does not conform to published, patent unencumbered standards must be taxed - this includes processors, video cards, winprinters, winmodems, audio devices, DRM chips, TCPA engines, kernels, hypervisors, operating systems, word processors etc. etc. The tax must be high enough to deter unscrupulous mfrs. to dictate their 'default' standards and abuse their positions to the detriment of the platform, the consumer and the market. A 30% tax should be levied for starters, and the corpus must be used to fund devleopment of 'free' alternatives in each segment above.
The recent network 'penalty' while playing system sounds in Vista is a case in point. Could Microsoft have got away with a 'published' audio device and driver architecture under a transparent benchmarking system? Who will compensate for the 'defective' protected media path architecture? Will the h/w mfrs freely replace their buggy cards with better performing ones? Countries other than the US must force them to do so.
2. Patents must be abolished in the PC industry - it is clear from the unholy MS - Novell alliance that even the biggest firms cannot enforce their patents, and they actually hinder innovation; and encourage cartels. The EU and several other nations do not still recognise s/w patents; the 15 year lifespan for a patent is absurd even in the h/w industry where monopolies can be built up in undre 5 years.
3. International standards need to be evolved that govern the use of the internet - it is too big and valuable to be subject to the machincations of a toothless US commerce agency. Companies that actively or passively contribute to the abuse of the internet must be punished and / or taxed. For instance, is a particular OS is the platform of choice for botnets, then the mfr. of the OS must fix the problem within a reasonable timeframe, or else open the source so the community will fix it themselves.
The proceedings in some of the standards bodies on the OOXML vote shows that they can govern the IT industry better than the anti-trust agencies. I tihnk they must be allowed to have a say, now that the US bodies have failed.
Here's some accomplishments/victories (Score:2)
2) Microsoft has allowed hardware vendors to live who offer non-Windows drivers for their hardware.
3) Microsoft has not forced hardware and software vendors to exclusively use Microsoft protocols and standards.
4) Microsoft lets the user install software on their Windows sytems such as Open Office and Firefox that competes with Microsoft software.
5) Windows users don't have to pay a 'per minute' charge to use their s
Linux on the desktop (Dell, HP, Lenovo) (Score:4, Insightful)
OEM Madness (Score:3, Insightful)
And on a slightly different note, could the fact that Windows is the only operating system that doesn't have a boot loader with the capability to load other operating systems be considered anti-competitive? Linux has had this feature for many years and even OS X supports dual-booting Windows, but Windows simply overwrites the MBR and renders all other installed operating systems to be unbootable until a recovery disk is used to repair the boot loader.
And finally, my biggest complaint about the EU and the US DOJ is that they fined Microsoft for including WMP and IE in Windows, but they have made little to no effort to "vote with their wallets" and use other operating systems. If they really found Microsoft's tactics to be anti-competitive, they could back up their statements by at least considering the use one of the many viable alternatives to Windows. Instead, they issue a fine while continuing to use Windows (hypocrites?) and make themselves look like a bunch of greedy grab-asses out to get a piece of the Microsoft pie. EU and US DOJ: actions speak louder than cheap (relative to Microsoft) fines.
Re: (Score:2)
The market for the "naked" PC is essentially that of the purchase order in units of 100 to 1000.
In the home and SOHO markets the OEM system install has been the gold standard in retail for over twenty-fi
Re: (Score:2)
As a matter of fact.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actualy I don't hold that against them as an anti-trust point. The projection of 90% is maybe a little optomistic. Vista is driving Apple, Ubuntu, and even XP as alternatives to the OS with bugs.
My dad bought a Mac. I upgraded 4 older machines of mine to Ubuntu. My wife got a Vista Laptop for her Masters classes. I found out the hard way in the first day some of the bugs. It started simply.