Microsoft Cancels EU Antitrust Hearing 203
bahstid writes "The NY Times reports that Microsoft and the European Commission have canceled the only hearing planned in an antitrust investigation into the company's tying of Internet Explorer into Windows because of a dispute over the attendance of European regulators serving as advisers. As a result, the commission will reach its decision and levy a fine based on written statements from Microsoft and its adversaries. Microsoft decided against the opportunity to give oral evidence in the case after it was unable to persuade the commission to move the meeting, scheduled for June 3rd through 5th, so that it did not conflict with a global antitrust conference in Zurich that draws European antitrust regulators."
Microsoft Requested It (Score:4, Insightful)
MS requested the opportunity to present oral arguments, the EU scheduled the meeting, MS felt that, although all the required attendees could make it, the date conflicted with another large event, leaving MS without a chance to orally lobby some of those on the sidelines.
MS said that they're not attending, and the EU cancelled it. Basically that means that it's over and that MS is going to lose.
Get your checkbook out, Ballmer!
Re:Microsoft Requested It (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod parent insightful. If you steal a car and try to "lobby" the police, trust me you won't get a "fair hearing". That Microsoft goes around breaking the law and then expects to be able to get politicians to help them avoid their penalties is shocking. They are clearly unrepentant in any way and I wish the European courts would get it together to increase their penalties massively to send a clear message that such corruption should not be tolerated. Remember Microsofts crimes are not victimless. There were pensioners who invested in Netscape. There were people who would have been able to pay their medical bills with their Novell money. All the extra money in the Microsoft tax could have been paying for better Linux development. Your taxes could be paying for better bridges instead of a new office install.
Re:Microsoft Requested It (Score:4, Interesting)
If "sucked" killed companies, then windows 95, 98 and Vista would have killed MS dead. Netscape had the market volume and could easily have survived a few bad versions with their market share. However Microsoft made sure that didn't happen. The funny thing, however, is that we are even discussing this. There were clear US Antitrust decisions which say this much. If you read them it's clear that MS set out to kill competitors through illegal methods and did so and that that included Netscape. The lack of basic coverage of anthing critical in almost any media is the only possible way so many people could come to believe that Netscape died because they released bad software. Long term they might well have died; but it would be something other than (and better than) IE which would have replaced them.
Re:Microsoft Requested It (Score:5, Informative)
Netscape had the market volume and could easily have survived a few bad versions with their market share. However Microsoft made sure that didn't happen.
Microsoft was not in a position at the time to bury Netscape. They did it themselves [joelonsoftware.com].
Way back in April, I wrote that Netscape made the "single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make" by deciding to rewrite their code from scratch. Lou Montulli, one of the 5 programming superstars who did the original version of Navigator, emailed me to say, "I agree completely, it's one of the major reasons I resigned from Netscape." This one decision cost Netscape 3 years. That's three years in which the company couldn't add new features, couldn't respond to the competitive threads from Internet Explorer, and had to sit on their hands while Microsoft completely ate their lunch.
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I fundamentally agree with Joel, and I still disagree with you. Had Netscape had money; still been in the position to sell their product for profit etc. they would have simply had two programming teams. Lou Montulli could have continued with the old base and the people who believed in XML could have gone on to do whatever they want. I've seen this in companies where I have worked, where the super, new, great going to take over the world product never actually catches up with the key features of the old p
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THAT is what happened kids. Bill Gates saw that the web was a computing platform that made his desktop monopoly irrelevant, so he attacked it.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Now let me show you how big Netscape was:
IE8 on Windows 7
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0)
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To be fair to Netscape, once MS had subsidised their browser to £zero (given their desktop monopoly) where was Netscape going to get their income from? I'd imagine nothing kills a business's direction quicker than the knowledge there's no way to get any money in to run the company...
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Except Microsoft also broke the law by abusing their dominant position to lock people into IE (actively preventing interoperability).
Re:Microsoft Requested It (Score:4, Insightful)
And we'll never know how things might have gone otherwise, but continued for-profit browser wars likely would not have been for the better.
There are several types of cost. In this case, reducing the cost spurred competitors to produce even better software in order to overcome an even greater obstacle. See, when ever browser costs money, it's easy to evaluate every browser on those criteria. Microsoft reduced the time and effort cost of getting IE to zero, and relative to that, the cost of every other browser shot up. Netscape -had- to go free, but on top of that, it had to prove to customers it was so much better it deserved the cost of change. People hate change, and very few people like messing around in settings and control panels and installing software they don't need. Hence why it's so important for programmers to pick good defaults. Most people will never change them for fear of breaking something.
So Microsoft reduced the gratis cost of every other browser to zero, but relatively speaking, every other browser had a different type of cost that was even greater. Sure, no one likes handing out money, but people hate change even more than they like buying things. As a result, the other browser software had to get so much better than the truly "free" browser (it's already installed!) that users could justify that cost of change. And that's what Opera did, it's what the Mozilla team did, the Google team have done it. Now Microsoft is -forced- to compete with these features to retain customers, and a natural economic balance is struck.
I won't lie to you, Microsoft probably killed the business of making money from browsers irrevocably. But I think that was for the better. I think making other browsers have to be truly so much superior to IE in order to convince them to switch was necessary for the fundamental shift toward more advanced and more standardized web capabilities.
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There is a for-profit browser war as we speak. Many companies make money from browsers, including the Mozilla Corporation, Opera Software, Japanese Access, and so on. (Note that the Mozilla Corporation, although for-profit as a corporation, funnels the profits back to the Mozilla Foundation, but that's not really relevant here.)
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This isn't about "anti-MS", this is about the law. Bundling alone isn't against the law. Bundling with a dominant product to undermine competition in another market is illegal.
When someone robs a bank and is arrested and put on trial, is anyone who argues that the facts show him to be guilty "anti-that person"? Of course not.
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What a silly argument! How did this ever got modded as 'insightful'? In the first place, if there was true competition among browser all along, the force of competitio
Re:Microsoft Requested It (Score:4, Insightful)
I won't lie to you, Microsoft probably killed the business of making money from browsers irrevocably. But I think that was for the better.
I think you're dead wrong. MS has spent the last decade with dominance in the browser market. During that time they've not implemented anything other than proprietary technologies and partially implemented versions of eight year old standards. Web developers spend all their time trying to find ever more clever ways to use these ancient, broken standards. We've had little to no progress in actual Web technologies during that time. Only in the last year or two with MS losing some of their market share has their been any real advance, but MS is still too big and the limiting factor.
Browser makers don't devote resources to implementing newer technologies because if IE doesn't support them, Web developers can't se them. For a technology industry, especially such a huge and profitable one to stagnate so badly, something is seriously broken. That "something" is MS's monopoly abuse to prevent interoperability and slow innovation that might threaten their other products,
Seriously, do you think I would have significant market share today if it was not bundled with Windows? Do you think if IE did not have significant market share Web developers would hold back on using cool new technologies just for IE? Do you think browser makers would not be competing to implement those technologies better than others? That's the problem we have, lack of competition leading to lack of innovation. We might as well implement extreme socialism if we allow monopolists to undermine the primary advantages of capitalism.
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*sigh*
I can't believe after all these years, after all the posts pointing out the issue that this still needs to be explained.
So, again:
Pure, unfiltered capitalism is flawed. It ends up with one company dominating and dictating everything. We have rules to stop this from happening such as "a company may not leverage a monopoly in one area to gain marked share in another". This is what they did and why it's considered a bad idea.
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if IE was genuinely a better deal then why did they threaten OEMs that were going to bundle the OS with Netscape instead of IE?
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I know, because the company I worked for back then was exploring being a reseller.
Back then it was the "dotcom" boom and every other company was thinking they might need a website.
But too bad for Netscape, most people stuck with ncsa httpd, then later moved to Apache.
If MS killed Netscape by giving out free browsers, then similarly FOSS killed Netscape with free servers. Heck Sun was being strangled by FOSS for years before they got bought up.
Of course giving out stu
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the car radio thing fails because its really that:
1 the head unit is part of the dash
2 you can take the face plate off but it will still work
3 several systems are designed to use hidden controls to directly operate the radio
4 even if you somehow cut the head unit out the next time you go in for service they will
"For Free" reinstall the unit (and may in fact give you the newest unit)
5 the car does not work right even without the head unit because you have to use modified parts (or parts from a previous model
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No it isn't. Microsoft broke the law. It's that simple.
Yes. Years ago. They are atoning for this (although not that well right now, but at least there's some interoperability documentation out there VS 5 years ago). As it stands it's much easier switch to alternatives in XP and Vista then it ever was in the past OS'es. And OEM's can install whatever they want to their system builds.
If this was a case of simple monopoly, why isn't Apple getting sued for bundling Itunes with OSX? It's just as bad a monopoly a
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And right now. IE is still the dominant browser, and is still holding everyone else back.
Maybe, maybe not. In fact, antitrust authorities in various countries have actually looked at whether iTunes could be infringing competition law. But Mac OS X is not a dominant platform, unlike Windows. I can't believe people are still making these silly comparisons.
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And right now. IE is still the dominant browser, and is still holding everyone else back
And Again is Bleeding Market Share. As for holding people back, If your talking about Web Devs, IE8 makes great strides in compliency as well as allowing Legacy designs to run. It's still behind standards wise but it's light years ahead it's predecessors.
In fact, antitrust authorities in various countries have actually looked at whether iTunes could be infringing competition law. But Mac OS X is not a dominant platform,
"Atoning?" (Score:2)
BS. Abuse of monopoly is their business model.
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No it isn't. Microsoft broke the law. It's that simple.
Yes. Years ago. They are atoning for this
Umm, Microsoft is still breaking the law today. The complaint was filed last year.
If this was a case of simple monopoly, why isn't Apple getting sued for bundling Itunes with OSX? It's just as bad a monopoly as IE is.
You have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of antitrust law. MS is accused of abusing their monopoly on desktop operating systems to hurt the browser market. They are not accused of having a monopoly on browsers.
I might mention the EU has investigated Apple with regard to several antitrust abuses, one where they were proxy for the music industry's cartel and recently for the iPod which they decided did not constitute a m
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Umm, Microsoft is still breaking the law today. The complaint was filed last year.
Because they are not complying fully with the original decision. Their documentation is not all there. I said they had to work on that. At least whats out there is better than nothing.
You have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of antitrust law. MS is accused of abusing their monopoly on desktop operating systems to hurt the browser market. They are not accused of having a monopoly on browsers.
By that definition, you could
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No, this was another case, the first company ever not to comply with a competition ruling saga which took about ten years.
This case is about bundling. Opera filed a complaint. Commission waited one year, said: hmm, true, bundling is illegal under our law for a monopolist, IE is bundled with Windows, here is our statement of
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Breaking antitrust law is never simple, because it's always contextual.
It's not like theft, which can have context as an ameliorating factor, but which is still clearly illegal. Antitrust law makes illegal things which are generally legal for other parties. That's why it's generally considered a non-issue that Apple bundles Safari with OSX.
You cannot, context-free, say whether or not "X is bundled with Y" is illegal, let alone ethical. You need to know what X and Y is, establish context, determine altern
Re:Microsoft Requested It (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this hearing was nothing like a trial. Even Microsoft admitted that the hearing had no legal implications. It was purely an opportunity for Microsoft to do some lobbying before the real case actually starts.
Also, it was Microsoft which canceled the hearing. They claim it's because of the competition law meeting at the same time, meaning that higher level officials would attend the meeting rather than the hearing. But Microsoft is lying again, because they know very well that these hearing are usually only attended by staff level personell, in addition to the competition commissioner. And the competition commissioner was scheduled to be there until Microsoft canceled.
Read more about Microsoft's dishonesty in this [slashdot.org] comment.
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No, it is plain stupidity.
Furthermore it is extremely arogant. Even the Commissioner was supposed to attend the hearing.
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The primary reason that the DOJ got involved in the first place was because MS competitors (who had embraced the corruption you spoke of) had lobbied for it. That's why the outcome didn't really help consumers - it was never about them.
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Yes, but that is not the way you can do it with the European Commission. In the USA it may be common to bully antitrust authorities. In Europe you are expected to shut up, play nice and comply.
Would you troll against your judge when in court?
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...orally lobby...
I'm sorry, what?
Two ways to read this (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was younger and lived on Nauru, we used to go climb the mountain. There is a big mountain on Nauru. Well, not so much a mountain as a crater. But the crater is filled with guano, so it's not truly either a crater or a mountain.
Anyway, we used to climb the mountain after school. Once I found a dead body in the brush. When I called my father over, he simply told me to go home. Later that evening, my father called the police and there was a big hullabaloo over the dead body. I remember eating dinner that night after the police had left and I asked my mom why she was crying. She told me that they would have to hold my father in detention until more evidence could be gathered.
My father died in that Nauruan jail cell.
The first is that Microsoft knows that it is so guilty that nothing they say or do at this point will make their penalty smaller.
The second is that Microsoft has simply given up any hope of getting a fair hearing because the EC has already made up its mind.
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Big mountain? But Nauru's only 21 square km (less than the area of a 5 km x 5 km square).
http://www.sprol.com/2005/08/nauru/ [sprol.com]
Re:Two ways to read this (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are ever arrested and charged with a crime, I suggest that you request the chief of police attend the hearing because you don't think the investigating officer is important enough for your case. If they tell you he's not available then, you can always suggest that they can have the hearing back at your gang headquarters any time they like. I'm sure they will be most amenable to your request.
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I tried to visualize Microsoft's gang headquarters and came away with a vision more Little Rascals than Crips.
Look! Spanky's throwing a chair! Chief software architect Alfalfa doesn't like that.
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The Commissioner (Police President) would have attended the event. It was more the photographers and his bowling colleagues, aka national competition officials who don't have any say in the case.
Re:Two ways to read this (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it wasn't the EU who initiated this case. Opera, backed by Mozilla, Google, and others, got the EU to investigate what they argued were actions that violated antitrust law.
Actually, none of the people Microsoft claimed to be worried about not attending never attend these hearings anyway. Hearings are usually attended by staff level personell in the first place. The hearing would also be attended by the European Commissioner for Competition.
A reasonable request for something no one else gets granted. Right. You are buying into Microsoft's bullshit.
Instead of blindly believing Microsoft's lies, check out the comments by Thomas Vinje [marketwatch.com] and commission spokesman Jonathan Todd [nytimes.com]. It turns out that Microsoft is just lying and stalling, probably hoping for the current competition commissioner to retire later this year and have a more Microsoft-friendly person appointed.
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Actually, none of the people Microsoft claimed to be worried about not attending never attend these hearings anyway. Hearings are usually attended by staff level personell in the first place. The hearing would also be attended by the European Commissioner for Competition.
Please remove that triple negative so I can understand WTF you're trying to say
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"There is no triple negative."
Is that supposed to be zen or something? He bolded the items that made the sentence a triple negative.
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Check the amounts, this isn't even a drop in the piss stream of money the Eurocrats whiz every year. To think they did this for money is stupid.
I've done that (Score:5, Funny)
great quote from an older article (Score:5, Interesting)
got this from one of the related links at the bottom of TFA:
According to the person, Microsoft will argue that Internet browsing is inseparable from the Windows operating system. Microsoft will also emphasize that consumers can download and use any competing browser with Windows, and that Internet Explorer's share of the browser market has been falling steadily.
so thats part of their argument? "You see, we're loosing, so that means it's ok for us to cheat!"
here is the article (May 8th) [nytimes.com]
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so thats part of their argument? "You see, we're loosing, so that means it's ok for us to cheat!"
Loosing? Is that like releasing?
An argument is that bundling IE gives it an unfair advantage. But the real reason Microsoft was going to be prohibited from distributing the browser with the OS is that they already used their unfair advantage to push IE. Forcing them to unbundle the browser is retarded, but punitive measures were the best thing the EU could imagine, so that's what they came up with. Microsoft is clearly going to argue that the unfair advantage didn't exist since IE's market share is dropping
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What, the verdict has already been announced? The EU has already decded that IE must be unbundled? News to me.
Does that change Microsoft's past illegal actions? If you rob a bank and the bank makes enough money to make up for the loss, does that
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Which is exactly why its a perfect legal remedy. Microsoft competed unfairly in many ways but one of the major identified ones was bundling a browser. They used this to among other things cement their desktop and web client monopoly. Since the harm is their having an monopoly damaging their ability to compete is a good retribution.
Microsoft should be barred from inclining software that renders HTML. That would force their users to bring their own browser. It was force developers to bring their own libr
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Microsoft should be barred from inclining software that renders HTML.
A much better answer would be to invent a number of dollars (or whatever currency) they have unfairly gotten as a result of their illegal actions, and just fine them that much. When they ship product, confiscate it. When they do not pay, incarcerate their officers (at least those who work in your country.) Declare dominion over their copyrights within your borders. Do whatever it takes to reverse their gains. Because unbundling an HTML renderer from Windows would harm users and still not address the issue o
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Question: How many major EU corps have been hit with these "super fines"? Because I'm starting to smell a "let the stinky Americans pay for our bills!" tax here.
Lots, but unsurprisingly it doesn't make the news in the USA.
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/ [europa.eu]
Frankly the BS is getting thick.
It would stop if Microsoft complied with the law.
And unless someone can produce a list where they have also hit EU corps with big fines
See the link. For instance, here [europa.eu] is a €1.3bn fine against three EU firms and a Japanese one (it's just the first one I clicked).
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Hey, you can mark me flamebait and troll ALL you want. Notice how in your OWN link we are talking 1.3B for THREE firms PLUS a Jap one? Show me ONE where they have been hit with the frankly outrageous "superfines" that MSFT and Intel has.
The fine is of the same order of magnitude as the Microsoft ones, that hardly makes theirs a "superfine". The glass fine wasn't split equally, the French company paid €800M because they were a repeat offender -- just like Microsoft. (source) [foxnews.com].
And do you want to know why it is a tax and not a fine?
It's a fine because they broke the law. You're pretty dumb if you don't understand that bit. Almost all other companies, American and European, manage to comply with it.
because if it was a fine at least a token amount would go to those that had actually been "hurt" by these actions.
That's called "compensation", but this was a criminal case, not a civil case. IANAL, but maybe t
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These fines are peanuts compared to the E.U. and E.U. member states budgets, and you know it because the U.S. of A. is a comparable '1st world' economy with comparable government spending (although it might lay emphasis on different topics) ... We're talking about multiple hundreds of billions of euros here, per larger country of the E.U. (U.K., France, Germany) and 120 billion euro (in 2007) of budget [wikipedia.org] for the E.U. itself. Combined it could be a few trillions, allthough I'm guessing here... So to see the 1
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Monopoly laws are a little odd. Whether or not you are violating the law depends upon your size and how much of the market you eat up. If Ubuntu wants to bundle a browser, they are not going to get pinged for it because they own 2% of the market. It isn't illegal unless you are big.
The whole point of this style of law isn't to punish companies for illegal activities. The activities are not clearly legal or illegal. The point is to keep companies from being a monopoly and nothing else.
The reason why no
Wish I could do that (Score:5, Funny)
Judge: Why didn't you attend your DUI?
Me: Oh, I cancelled it, didn't you get the email?
Judge: I didn't get a chance to check my email this morning, when can you attend another hearing?
Me: I don't have time I'm afraid, it's all explained in the email though
Judge: OK then, drive safe now!
Me: Thanks!
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That is the way they want to describe it but trust me, the argument is riddiculous.
We request a hearing
We claim (unrelated) observers would participate in event B instead.
We say: no.
Commission says, fine, so no hearing?
Microsoft has no right whatsoever to schedule the hearing.
they got scared of Neelie Kroes (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not even Kroes is required to attend. You just have a hearing officer. They listen to the arguments and write a report. The room will be packed with the people who do the work. But if they don't want a hearing, fine. Maybe Nellie Kroes can then go to Switzerland to the baseless competition politician meeting to get lobbied by Microsoft jerks there.
You cannot bargain with an antitrust authority.
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Why do you constantly lie in favor of Microsoft?
Re:Imagine an OS without a browser (Score:4, Insightful)
No the OEMs installing Windows would put their own choice of browser on the PC without having Microsoft force their own choice on the user without any giving any means to remove it.
Re:Imagine an OS without a browser (Score:4, Informative)
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What's the betting we'll see an army of Microsoft reps at the OEMs making them "offers they can't refuse" to ensure IE is their "independent choice". Nudge nudge, wink wink ;) Just keep the deal under you hat and keep marking "...... recommends Windows" on all your marketing stuff.
Well, if MS does that, it may be wallet time again for Ballmer.
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The thing that people tend to forget is that Microsoft have a system to essentially print m
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Microsoft are unrepentant in their behavior. They see the only wrong being committed is that some bureaucrats are refusing to roll over and be shafted like all the rest and actually trying to hold them to account. They will do everything in their power to buy / delay / soften decisions while they continue to do what they have always done. Any block put into place will be side stepped by Micros
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Yeah, because an "extra" browser that is standardized and all Windows apps can depend on for basic rendering functionality is CRAZY! What a massive heartache!
I'm saying, sarcastically, that your argument is stupid. IE was on Windows long ago to provide a baseline HTML rendering engine and browser for users of Windows OS's. Windows applications now depend on that browser being present to function. Microsoft can (and has) allow you to remove the IE browser icon, but the browser is part of the OS for a sou
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You can argue that the ability to play movies and audio is just as important these days so why no let MS tie WMP into the OS or tie in Outlook express, MS Messenger and even go one step further and combine it with Office and tie it completely into the OS? People
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The safest way to access your bank account is to use a Linux live CD rather than any version of a malware-prone installation of Windows.
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Unless your bank uses an ActiveX plugin like all Korean banks are required to.
I guess the Live CD might still be the safest way, but only in the "the safest computer is the one with the network cable unplugged" sense.
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That's unfortunate for the 50 million people who live in South Korea, however that still makes a Linux Live CD the ideal option for the majority of internet users whose banks aren't forced to use a government-mandated piece of software and/or have the sense not to tie an important part of their business to just the one piece of outdated software.
I hear you there (Score:2, Insightful)
It is almost as insane as claiming that foreign companies would have to follow US laws when operating in the USA.
How could we ask for that when even our own companies don't follow them!
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Re:Stop crying, start coding. (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not. That's the nature of competition law. Dominant players don't play by the same rules as everyone else. Microsoft ignored that, abused their position to undermine competition, and thus broke the law.
If the other guy is cheating at a game and winning (breaking the law), why shouldn't there be any consequences for the cheater?
So to compete in the browser market, all browser vendors should be required to create their own OS?
Breaking the law is not "unfair play"?
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"If people think that a crappy browser being too is too integrated into a mediocre OS is unfair, then WRITE AN OS THAT PEOPLE WANT"
When you reduce that "PEOPLE" to all people who matter (namely, the folks at Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo and Toshiba that more or less decide for the whole market) you will realize that an OS that doesn't suck isn't high in the priorities list.
It's like Project Mojave: it was not designed to make end-users reconsider Vista and it didn't even care if that would irk end-users - it was
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Yes. Sort of like how Toyota has a monopoly on all Camrys.
Re:Stop crying, start coding. (Score:4, Informative)
No one ever said Microsoft had a monopoly on all PCs.
In previous court cases MS was ruled to have monopoly influence on the "desktop operating system" market.
In fact, Apple has quite a sizable share of the PC market.
The PC market is not monopolized. There is Dell and HP and Lenovo and Apple and a hundred others. Unlike the US case, the EU market definition potentially includes OS X in the relevant market. This doesn't matter for two reasons. First, Apple doesn't have a big enough chunk for Microsoft to lose monopoly influence (by a very large margin). Second, Apple does not sell OS X into the relevant market, refusing to license it to consumers (consumers in this case being mostly OEMs like Dell and large corporations buying site licenses).
When the user needs a PC, they aren't only looking for the Windows PC with the features they want.
This is true, but not really relevant to this case. This case is about MS having tons of power because OEMs have no viable choices other than Windows when buying an OS to preinstall. It's about them using that power to push other products from separate, preexisting markets thereby undermining free trade in those markets.
So it doesn't matter that you come up with the best OS ever. If you are competing against Microsoft in the Windows PC market space, you are taking on the entrenched monopoly and will lose.
Will, Microsoft doesn't actually make a PC so it is hard to take them on at all. It is nearly impossible to win in the desktop OS space. In numerous other markets like Web browsers, it is very hard to compete because MS illegally uses their Windows monopoly in ways that make it so that even if your browser is far superior to Internet Explorer (and really what browser isn't), you're unlikely to achieve the same level of market share. That's the illegal thing here and what is detrimental to the industry and market.
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Finding of facts III.35:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm [usdoj.gov]
Microsoft possesses a dominant, persistent, and increasing share of the world- wide market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems. Every year for the last decade, Microsoft's share of the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems has stood above ninety percent. For the last couple of years the figure has been at least ninety-five percent, and analysts project that the share will climb even higher over the next few years. Even
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Sorry BadAnalogyGuy but you're a bit confused on this one. You're citing the US DoJ findings, but this is an EU case. They did not include "Intel-compatible" in their rulings of fact and while they did use the term "PC Operating System" they used PC as an adjective to distinguish it from the "Work Group Server Operating System" market. Macs are a brand of PC according to the EU case.
So the relevant market is Intel-compatible PC operating systems, not including valid alternative operating systems.
You're mistaken. That was the US, this is an EU case.
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Really?
Intel-compatible in this context means anything x86 compatible. Just in case you don't know, that also includes AMD
Also do note that the quote you disparage is a legal finding of fact, and was confirmed by a federal appeals court. That would be a big clue that you haven't correctly understood the quote.
Incidentally, the corresponding conclusion of law ordered Microsoft to be broken up as an illegal monopoly. Would that that had happened. Instead, Microsoft went to work...the resulting settlement was
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As is acknowledged towards the end of the quote, The first sentence is only true if almost all non-Microsoft products are ignored. And when did Intel-compatible become an issue?
Intel compatible was only an issue in the US because the regulators there were wonky. It is not an issue in this case at all.
MS holds a far higher share of the AMD-compatible OS market than the Intel-compatible OS market, because Apple don't make an AMD-compatible OS!
Intel, AMD, ARM, it doesn't matter for the EU. Apple's OS X is considered in the EU, but not significant because Apple doesn't license their OS to the relevant consumers. Since Dell can't license OS X to put on their machines, Apple making it does little to lessen MS's power to force IE upon Dell machines.
Re:What is the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Browser market? What market? It's not like people go out and purchase IE, or Netscape, or Firefox.
They should be able to put what they want in their OS. Afterall...It's not like they are restricting other Browsers.
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I'm sure. However, that does not change the fact that Microsoft used its dominant position in the OS market in combination with illegal methods like lock-in, bullying of OEMs, etc. to undermine competition in the browser market.
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you are the utter ignoramus here. [wikipedia.org]
kids these days. no education but a stupid opinion to everything.
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Re:What is the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
My evidence? I'm merely stating some facts. If you want the actual evidence, perhaps you should look it up for yourself. Here [www.ecis.eu] is a good place to start if you wish to educate yourself.
Actually, you can't bundle any products you want if you are in a dominant position like Microsoft is. The nature of the bundle was likely violating antitrust law (the ruling has not yet been made, mind you), because Microsoft has definitely undermined competition in the browser market by abusing its dominance in the OS market.
So what you are saying is that there should be no consequences if you break the law?
So-called bundle? Are you denying that IE is bundled with Windows? And how is the average consumer's computer skills relevant?
What factors? The EC has not made a ruling yet, but did state its preliminary view that it does look like Microsoft broke the law. After issuing the statement where they found there was ground for further followup on the issue, they started gathering more data. This includes responses from Microsoft.
This case is about browsers, not operating systems.
Netscape is not the only victim of Microsoft's illegal actions.
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Microsoft had the opportunity to reply to the Opera complaint and did so. Additionally it had the opportunity to state its opinion at the hearing.
What is a violation of antitrust law is determined by the authority. If you disagree Microsoft can feel free to go to court (as last time haha).
Re:What is the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are several browser vendors out there. They are making money. And they were making money before Microsoft started breaking the law and undermining competition. The browser market existed before Microsoft. Microsoft was betting on their Microsoft Network thing for a long time, remember?
Well, you clearly weren't even informed about the law. Shouldn't you at least educate yourself before commenting?
So when someone uses illegal performance-enhancing drugs to win at sports, the competitors can cry all they want because the winner did best because of his strategy?
No, you get "fucked in the ass" for breaking the law.
In case you didn't notice, this is a case in the EU. In case you didn't notice, the US has had antitrust laws for ages. Antitrust laws exists all over the world. Perhaps you should educate yourself before being all opinionated over something you clearly don't understand?
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I don't think what MS did in this case was illegal.
As far as I can tell the argument goes like this:
1. Netscape has the most market share.
2. MS started bundling IE with Windows
3. IE took over the market
4. Therefore MS bundling IE with Windows was anti competitive and illegal.
Clearly this is faulty logic, so maybe I'm missing something. But faulty logic has never stopped politicians before. It's not like the other browser vendors have tried to be competitive. MS spends millions on advertising their OS wit
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The browser 'market?' How can you have a market for something that is free?
Easily. Just as AT&T about the "free" phones they used to supply. I'm sure you wish we were all stuck using rotary phones with no answering machines or speed dial or cordless options like we were until AT&T's monopoly was busted up huh? Or maybe you think it's a coincidence that modern phones began to innovate again immediately thereafter?
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On the one hand people argue that consumers still can't easily choose a replacement browser on Windows, but then they expect them to use FTP.
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Circular, but thanks for trying.
The average person buys their computer in a store, already built for them, everything installed. All they have to do is some very minor configuration when they first boot it up.
Those computers came with IE. If they knew about FF, Chrome, Opera, whatever, it was because someone told them about it. They used IE to go and grab those other browsers.
They may not know how to use another computer for this purpose, where they download the install file, pop it on a thumb drive and tak
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Bundling a browser with an OS isn't illegal. It's illegall to use bundling with a dominant product (Windows) to destroy the competition in a different market (browsers). Apple and Linux definitely do not have the dominance in the market to do that, so they are free to bundle. Besides, Safari is actually a standards compliant browser.
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Microsoft has the dominant position in the OS market, hence the antitrust laws apply to it a lot more than to Linux, Apple, etc.
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It's getting to a point where Microsoft's credibility is at an all time low. Microsoft hasn't changed a bit - though they would like us to believe that and have a team of revisionists trying to rewrite history for us right here on Slashdot. As to "...how Microsoft is opening up to ODF support in Office", yes lets talk about that. They are implementing ODF via malicious compliance [wikipedia.org] - deliberately trying to destr