Details of Microsoft's Settlement With Iowa

dringess writes "As reported on Yahoo, Microsoft has settled the suit brought by the State of Iowa. Individuals can collect $16 for each copy of MS-DOS or Windows purchased from 1994-2006, while Office nets $29. No proof of purchase required! Now I can finally get some money from Microsoft!" Here is our original coverage of the settlement.

Great, I'll be able to...

Afford a PS3... Oh, you said "Purchased", nevermind.

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I'm curious how many people will take the 16 bucks. I'm more curious as to whether or not Microsoft will pay up immediately, and how many checks/letters will be undelivered.

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Oh come on.. they're not going to cheat people out of $16 measly dollars. They've got no reason to. They've got billions and billions in the bank and the consequences of not complying is just not worth it.

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"Pay to the order of: Iron Balls McGinty... sixteen dollars and NINE CENTS!"

Finally getting money from M$

No proof of purchase required! Now I can finally get some money from Microsoft! I'm going to Iowa just so I can get this cash from M$.

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You missed the fine print, no proof of purchase required up to $100

Another detail of the settlement

Iowa will provide Microsoft with 1 million ears of corn per year for the next 10 years.

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So they traded .000000001% of Iowa's corn for .000000001% of Microsoft's earnings?

(Actually, according to this [hpj.com], Iowa produced 2.16B bushels of corn in 2005. An average bushel is 90,000 kernels, and an average ear produces ~500 kernels, so that's 180 ears

Cool! My turn!

I can prove that I bought a copy of Windows 98! My registration key is

FCKGW....

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FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8

Christ, is it bad that I can recite that from memory?

(Joke-buster: this is a Windows XP VLK, not a Windows 98 key)

Re:Cool! My turn!

I used to work for Gateway, Win XP CD's with product keys beginning with FCKGW were our reward for going through the XP training back in the day (Pre-launch). We were wondering if Microsoft was trying to tell us something with those 5 letters...

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F*ck GW?
But how did they know the war would be so badly done...

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You used a key for 98se? I had a patched copy that literally installed without a keycode. In a tech shop we had to reinstall win98se constantly, as long as we knew the customer owned a valid license we didn't need to get them to find their code.

If we did f

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That's for XP, not 98. :)

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Actually it was either....

Ten Digit
111-1111111

Eleven Digit
1112-1111111

Worked with ANY microsoft product that was asking for a 10 or 11 digit product code. Worked for VS, Office 97, etc...

What about upgrades?

DOS->Win95->Win98->Win2k->WinXP is $80 dollars but ditch one, claim $29 for office and use the vouchers to purchase parallels for Mac :-) They should offer a special bundle of desktop and compressor for the $93 settlement.

Or are the vouchers on

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DOS->Win95->Win98->Win2k->WinXP is $80 dollars but ditch one, claim $29 for office and use the vouchers to purchase parallels for Mac :-) They should offer a special bundle of desktop and compressor for the $93 settlement.

Why waste MS's money

All claims will be verified by WGA.

As a confirmed OO user, I dont think I will get any money. But hey two PCs I bought had 30 day trial version of the software. Does it count? May be MSFT will say, ok how about a Stored Value Card with 16$ in it that expires in 30 days ;-)

Settle != guilty

Now remember kids, the mere action of settling does not technically constitute any kind of admission on Microsoft's part. More accurately, the state of Iowa caught Microsoft and their lawyers on a day when they were feeling generous.

In all seriousness though, how does something like this happen? Will other states follow suit (pun partially intended) for similar benefits?

you misunderstand this case

Now remember kids, the mere action of settling does not technically constitute any kind of admission on Microsoft's part.

Iowa relied on the federal antitrust ruling of 2000 which already found Microsoft to be an abusive monopolist. The Iowa's case was only about how much Microsoft has to pay as a compensation for breaking antitrust laws.

Re:Settle != guilty

Well, the Federal Government says that they absolutely, positively are a monopolist. And they were convicted so it's a forgone conclusion whether they admit to it or not.

California settled a year or two (or three) ago. I got a nice shiny check for $78 dollars just for filling out a single form and mailing it in. Didn't require many details beyond the number of copies purchased.

So if there are any Iowans out there, warm up your pens. It's worth doing, not to mention very satisfying.

iowaconsumercase.org

No, Microsoft settled because the publicity was getting bad. Once settled, the website called iowaconsumercase.org was changed so that a bunch of damaging documents were hidden.

Wow...

I wish I was in Iowa. I have original discs for at least a dozen copies of Windows, and almost as many copies of Office. I'm sure I even have receipts for at least half of those.

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sell them on ebay for $10 and $20 respectively?

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Yeah, but this money from Microsoft doesn't require me to sell my copies.

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Assuming you live in Iowa, you could claim you MS refund for each license, *THEN* sell each disk on eBay for between $10 and $20.

Profit!!!

Getting money from Microsoft....

... Seems to me people should start billing MS for any time and resources they have wasted in dealing with teh software, regardless of the double standard licensing. (we, MS, get everything and you get no garentee of anything)

Hey, they got off quite cheaply

I mean, after all the suit was filed because MS abused their monopoly to charge more for their product than they're worth (or something along this lines). Ok, let's look at the competitive products.

MS-Office. Biggest competitor: Open Office. Price differen

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If Microsoft has monopoly power, they ain't equivalents. If they are equivalents, Microsoft ain't got a monopoly.

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Well, Microsoft has had a monopoly for far longer than any free operating system has been on par with desktop features. In the early and mid 90's, Microsoft was a monopoly. Microsoft has retained that monopoly even in the face of competition by erecting ar

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Microsoft has retained that monopoly even in the face of competition by erecting artificial barriers to switching away from MS.

You misspelled "By adding these things called 'features'." Hope ths helps.

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*sigh*

It's not a monopoly in the true sense. It is a market position that allows them to force their views and ideas onto the market and customers, colloquially called "monopoly".

Why is it that every time the MS "monopoly" is being discussed someone pipes

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Well, considering the trial, it seems they weren't cheap enough.

Hmmmm

Interesting to see how much some of those copies are, xp is still pretty pricey i believe and you only get 16 for it.

So what does this mean?

Does this mean that for older copies of windows, we get money for them? Do we have to send them in? Or do we just get paid for having bought older copies of windows?

Vouchers

From TFA - Companies with multiple copies can seek vouchers that will enable them to buy computer equipment and software. I assume that means Microsoft hard/software. So how does this hurt Microsoft? Nothing like encouraging vendor lock-in.

Delicious irony

Hilarious! It's almost like getting paid for using a ripped-off copy of Windows for all those years.

Read the article a little closer...

This was a class-action lawsuit not a state antitrust case. The only thing the State of Iowa had to do with it was that it was in the Iowa court system.

MS PR ploy

"Under the settlement, Microsoft will provide half of any unclaimed proceeds to the Iowa Department of Education to bridge the digital and technical divide in Iowa schools through the purchase of computer hardware and software."

Great...So the next generation can suffer too... This settlement is nothing more than an MS backdoor into the school system. Why use OSX or Linux when we have a pile of MS stuff here in this box...
100,000 copies of XP which will do longer be supported Dec 2008 anyone?

Incredibly damaging revelations?

The revelations from that lawsuit, and the private emails and memos that were entered into the record and made available on the web, must have been incredibly damaging for Microsoft to be willing to make the case go away by paying actual cash. Remember, th

I'm From Iowa, So...

The question now is how do I file to get my refund? Is there any website with any sort of directions?

Mirror Here

http://edge-op.org/iowa/ [edge-op.org]
I also have one but I am not about to publish it for a slashdotting.

Has to be cheap

$19 for an OS? Not remembering offhand, I'm sure the Minnesota settlement was considerably more. MS bought my wife and I an Epson Store refurbished scanner, cheap HP inkjet and some surplus "Linux Store" linux keyboards on the basis of our OS purchases a

Misread

"Microsoft has settled the suit brought by the State of Iowa."

When I first glanced at that I misread it as

"Microsoft has bought the State of Iowa"

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cool, my wife lived in c.b. during that time!

ragbrai is cool - go Team Angry! I've never tried it but like biking on the wabash trace

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we off-routed on the wabash a few years back when it started out of glenwood. lance is riding the whole week this year - not sure how i feel about him using it as a pedestal. i don't recommend you try ragbrai...unless you plan on taking a vacation every

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There is one, but it crashed.

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How is the parent post "off topic?"

He raises a good point. If part of the deal is you must produce the original license most people probably won't be able to do so. Microsoft would be getting off REALLY cheap.

Surely I don't need to say this but

Businesses are "encouraged" to keep records for at least the past 7 tax/fiscal years. All financially related records.

The company I work for is a small (12 ppl) firm which resells computers with win2k and msofc 2k3. Therefore we truthfully have PoP for p

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Must there be soviet jokes in every post :(

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