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Microsoft Loses EU Anti-Trust Appeal
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Mon Sep 17, 2007 07:15 AM
from the sucks-to-be-them dept.
from the sucks-to-be-them dept.
Kugrian writes "Microsoft has lost its appeal against a record 497m euro (£343m; $690m) fine imposed by the European Commission in a long-running competition dispute. The European Court of First Instance upheld the ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position."
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This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem is that it took 10 years to get to this point, and Microsoft still hasn't disclosed the specs for how to make interoperable products. We're fortunate that the Free Software way of doing things is rebost enough to survive in spite of this, but profit-oriented companies simply can't hold out long enough for this kind of legal system to really help.
What we need is clear legal rules that vendors with dominant market positions must adhere to genuinely open standards for all protocols and document formats, and of course we also need a genuinely non-corrupt standardization organization [openiso.org] Microsoft doesn't sell us something as an "open standard" which really isn't.
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Re:This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no problem even in that case. There are close to a billion computers right now; and Microsoft software runs on well over 80% of them all. So what if they weren't a monopoly 20 years ago? The protocols in use RIGHT NOW must be open for public access.
By any yardstick, it is very clear that Microsoft IS A MONOPLY in the massive worlwide PC market.
Re:This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
It is also clear that they maintain their monopoly by abusive practices and that the US government doesn't do anything to fix this. See the outcome of the microsoft US trial.
So it's now clear that microsoft is used as a leverage by the us government and other governments have to step in and protect themselves. Which is happening.
Re:This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Though I do wonder what level of fine it would take for Microsoft to really change it's way of doing things instead of just making whatever paltry change the regulatory body required (like selling a version of Windows that probably no one is going to buy without IE bundled in).
I wonder because even after some pretty hefty fines in the past they seem to have changed direction very little as a company.
Re:This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you can't do that anymore. Liberals may not win any elections, but they sure won one part of the "small, powerless government" agenda, and it ain't the "small" one. There's very little a government can do nowadays about large corporations. The problem, as others have pointed out, is that the justice system just takes too damn long. If a corporation can afford the fine, it can afford to simply wait out, because by the time the judgement comes down, it'll be mostly meaningless.
So fines don't cut it, unless you go to extremes like in my first sentence.
You need something equivalent to what we consider totally normal if the criminal is an individual: Lock him up during the trial, so he can't kill/rape/rob someone else in the meantime.
If MS were in danger of being shut down until the case is closed, I'm pretty sure they would be much more enthusiastic of following what's essentially their probation conditions.
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Um... at the risk of hijacking a perfectly good discussion of antitrust into a "liberals vs conservatives" argument, th
Thomas Jefferson (Score:3, Informative)
I finally decided short of taxing 100% of wealth over about 10 million dollars (to keep us a jeffersonian democracy of many tiny wealthy people), that it just isn't going to happen. I'm beginning to think that the corporate structure is fundamentally flaw
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But the big winner is still microsoft of course, no way the fine undoes the years taking advantage.
I guess the software / IT market is still growing up slowly / steadily & things like this were bound to happen.
Let's hope
Re: This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:3, Interesting)
However, maybe it is good that they fined them nearly a billion. I, too, doubt that that alone will make
Re:This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:4, Interesting)
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The EU and US courts say you are wrong. Sorry. The legal definition (which is the only relevant one in this discussion) is not quite the same as the classical dictionary version you hold on to. From a legal standpoint you do NOT n
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Re:This isn't justice: too little, too late (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a second. You're telling me that your OS can handle 17 idle processes and one active one when they all fit in RAM? That's amazing. Or at least it would have been in 1972...
Least important part of the judgement... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of more significance is the fact that MS will be forced to release more code to allow competitors to compete on a level playing field with MS applications...
Re: Least important part of the judgement... (Score:4, Informative)
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Here is the full EC ruling of 2004: Commission Decision of 24.03.2004 relating [europa.eu]
Microsoft lost its appeal? (Score:5, Funny)
Damages, but sanctions? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean $690 million is almost a rounding error at Microsoft.
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Has Microsoft started bundling monitors and keyboards with their OSes?
Jus' kidding!!
Re:Damages, but sanctions? (Score:5, Informative)
The fines will increase (exponentially I believe) until they pay. The court can freeze and seize their European assets and they have much of their money within the EU in Ireland as a US tax dodge. Also, the EU is by far MS's largest market. Not complying would be a BAD idea.
BTW, the legal detail is over at Groklaw [groklaw.net] (basically the court sided with the EC except a minor point about the EC giving too much power to the MS appointed monitoring trustee) and there is a joint FSFE/Samba press release [fsfeurope.org]. Also, the the court published the full judgement and other court docs [europa.eu].
Go Samba (Score:5, Interesting)
P.S. Shamless plug, I ranted a lot about this on my own site [commandline.org.uk]
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Microsoft networking is an obscured version of the SMB protocol. SMB is IBM's invention, not Microsoft's.
Microsoft obscured IBM's SMB protocol into Windows networking after Microsoft had gained a dominant ma
Court's press realease (Score:5, Informative)
They have not yet paid another fine that was imposed on them for not paying this fine, as the BBC article mentions, although in no great depth:
It's not about fines, it's about Samba and freesw (Score:5, Interesting)
The important thing is that when MS eventually publish their specs, they will not be allowed exclude free software from using them.
This is what FSFE and Samba have been working for since 2001, not fines.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ms-vs-eu/ [fsfeurope.org]
legislating market share? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:legislating market share? (Score:5, Insightful)
You argument seems to stem from the misbelief that Operating System software is a competitive market and that Microsoft got to 90% by competing fairly. If so then you would be very wrong.
If you read today's judgement [europa.eu], you will see that Microsoft has regularly abused its' position by bundling, threats, bribes, agreements with OEMs and so on.
Operating Systems is not a competitive market at all, if you use Linux then you will know that the biggest problem is not Windows itself but the fact that it is so dominant. As soon as you use Linux you find that shops, ISPs, firms, manufacturers and so on treat you as a second class citizen. This needs to be broken for the social good.
I still don't like it. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I would really like to see is that the customers of MSFT see that it is in their best interest in having an alternative to MSFT in the desktop, server, office documentation products arena that will benefit by perfect 100% compatible interoperability. No customer would buy a Samsung TV that can play only Samsung DVD player. But why these corporations don't demand such compatibility?
One answer is that, MSFT tax is not very big. Just 40 billion dollars a year max. For most companies, payroll, medical insurance, office rent, furniture, liability insurance, transportation, travel etc cost more than office PC/laptop. So they are not looking for savings here.
Second, companies only focus on the differentials with their competitor. Stated differently, Coke does not care how much it spends on pc/laptops and office software as long as its competitor, Pepsi, is not spending a significantly lower amount on the same category. This explains the herd like behavior of the corporations. No body looked to outsource to India till about year 2000. One did. Showed some possible cost savings. Whether or not the savings were real, that first company's investment in India is real. Suddenly every suit is asking, "what if it pays off big time for them? What if we get left behind. Let us play it safe, hedge our bets and let us also have a presence in India."
I don't know when it will happen. But at some point some big company would make it a priority to have a second vendor in the office software arena, and invest a sum to show it is serious. Like a herd every suit who was asking, "What is our India strategy?" would be asking "What is our second vendor for office strategy?". Of course, not without some serious kicking and screaming and "Total cost of ownership" studies funded by MSFT. But when the corporate pendulum swings, it swings inexorably and usually it will go well past what is reasonable reach the other irrational extreme, corporations investing so much on "second vendor" strategy that the saving don't justify the investment. But that won't deter these suits, It never has.
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The problem is that EU competition law has some restr
EU vs. USA - MS pending (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it's as much a 'global corporation which tries to screw you over'-sentiment than anything else, and that's why a lot of open source people (also in the USA) are rejoicing. But... that sentiment played little to no role in the ruling neither.
Basically, it's quite simple: they went against EU law and were dragging their feet to comply. No judge likes THAT.
Personally, I think they deserve a much higher penalty. The EU commision is way to soft on them - actually softer then on big EU corporations they tried to deal with in the past. And also, the 'provide an XP without the mediaplayer'-thing was outright stupid. *Everyone* with half a brain could see this would have no effect. First of all, it's too limited in scope: what about win-OSses other than XP, what about all those other applications other then the media player? Is the EU going to fight a 10 year struggle over every OS and application that comes along and has the same issues as was now decided on?
And apart from that: it's just suilly. Nobody is going to buy XP without mediaplayer if, for the same price, one can get one *with* it. By now, this obvious deduction has been proven right. No, what they should do is making it obliged that *every* OS MS makes gives the oportunity to install (or not) any application that comes with it (browser, media player, virusscanner, etc.). That way, you let consumers decide, and you give the opportunity to choose other applications instead of the windows-included-ones.
Such a ruling would have made better sense, coppled with opening up their code for compatibility and an even huger fine would make it clear to MS that no corporation is above the law, not even a giant USA one with lots of money and lawyers.
the battle has moved on: DRM & BBC iPlayer (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the obligation to publish interfaces will bear fruit, but only if MS get appropriately punished in a timely manner when what they initially publish turns out to bear no relation to what is actually in 'doze, or does relate to it, but doesn't actually contain sufficient information to get the job done.
In the mean time, the BBC have handed control of their on-line content over to MS in the form of the BBC iPlayer, which relies on MS DRM. By the time that the EU notices that, they'll have killed off the currently vibrant set-top box market, and the bulk of them will be running some form of WinCE. At least that's the danger, which people a need to get excited about now [defectivebydesign.org] if it's not to come to pass.
uneven trade (Score:3, Funny)
That smacks of protectionism, and we have to retaliate.
Let's charge Microsoft $690 million to behave that way in the US.
Sign of pragmatism? (Score:3, Interesting)
Fear the Ballmer! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A Pittance of a Fine..... (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget the ruling is 152-page long, and therefore, they will have to digest and comply with all the court orders to avoid paying even more fine. That may be difficult for them in a market that becomes more competitive.
Re:Please queue the anti EU replies here (Score:5, Informative)
Won't queue anything here. Anyone who knows a bit about the EU, know that this is bollocks. They go after anyone abusing the market. As Volkswagen [wsj.com], for example... Not a US company at all...
Re:who cares.., (Score:4, Funny)
How many had IE uninstalled?
Re:who cares.., (Score:5, Informative)
It's ironic choice of car analogy (Score:5, Informative)
The fight continues to this day: See the "Right to Repair" act. http://www.aftermarket.org/Government/Government.asp [aftermarket.org]
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Re:sheeeit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like the browser wars any competing media player had to fight against one that was installed on just about every PC anyway. An advantage MS used to sell their WM tech. Unfortunately as somebody already pointed out, it was too little, too late and more of a symbolic gesture. Other parts of the ruling (documenting the APIs) were more important.
XP(N) was just a side effect that MS milked for propaganda purposes (Look at those stupid eurocrats! Noone wants a crippled Windows, they just want to punish a successful company, stupid socialist French, yaddayadda)
Re:Quel surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprise surprise, a European court punished a company for breaking the law. Don't blame the EU for not slapping them on the wrist like the USA did. Perhaps if the USA enforced its own laws properly then it wouldn't have been necessary for the EU to pursue this case.
Re:Quel surprise! (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, I know you didn't mean it literally, but only to evoke the emotion of injustice and pitty for the poor victim - which is exactly why I point it out. MS isn't a poor victim, but a legally convicted criminal - btw. in the US as much as in the EU.
Monopolies are not illegal (Score:4, Informative)
When a company has a monopoly, they get some extra rules to play by. Microsoft has not been following these.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Does AT&T ring a bell, mayhaps?
The company got split up, exactly as you say, and it's monopoly
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The fines should be large enough to compensate for his waste. If they aren't then they should be increased until they are.
The money from the fines should be used to improve the infrastructure, like was
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que? (Score:3, Informative)
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/antitrust/cases/index/by_nr_75.html [europa.eu]
We love you Americans really....let's kiss and make-up ok?