Seven States Extend Microsoft Antitrust Judgment

Technical Writing Geek writes "A number of states have moved to extend antitrust judgments against Microsoft until the year 2012. California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia are all contributing to the decision, and have released a report on the factors that lead to the extension. 'The report laments the state of OEM web browser bundling, saying that no major OEM currently distributes a browser other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). This is important due to the rise of new middleware platforms (such as Adobe's AIR and Microsoft's own Silverlight) that can create rich, OS-independent, web-based applications.' The report is slightly self-contradictory, but raises some valid points."

they're no stranger to that idea

[User 956 (568564)]

A number of states have moved to extend antitrust judgments against Microsoft

Ah yes, the old "embrace and extend" has come full circle.

Re:

[nschubach (922175)]

Wouldn't the judgments have to "Extinguish" first?

Just what I want -

[TJ_Phazerhacki (520002)]

A million different browsers with no standards!And before you say it - we need standards before we get browsers, not browsers that generate standards.

For the record, between IE, Firefox, and Everything Else, just because OEM's ship the default browser doesn't mean that there isn't anything else available - it means more often that people are far too lazy to look.

Re:

[necro2607 (771790)]

"we need standards before we get browsers, not browsers that generate standards."

No probs, check it out: HTML 4.01 Specification [w3.org] :)

Re:

[brunascle (994197)]

the HTML isnt really a problem. it's mostly CSS and occasionally javascript and DOM.

but one that thing would really help is if they made a standard for the window object model and designMode. designMode in particular is one big glorious pile of chaos.

Re:Just what I want -

[bunratty (545641)]

If you check out Web browser standards support summary from Web Devout [webdevout.net] you can see Firefox 2 (and of course other Mozilla-based browsers) and Konqueror have some pretty good standards support. It's really just IE that doesn't support the standards well, judging from the fact that IE has the lowest percentage of support in most categories.

Re:Just what I want -

[davester666 (731373)]

What' makes this web-standards argument kind of ridiculous for Microsoft is that they say they can't follow the standards because it would break too many pages, which use non-standard HTML because IE doesn't follow the standard... MS can't follow the standard now, because they didn't follow the HTML standard in the past with either their web-viewing software OR their web-creation software, which was, of course, to aid in monopolizing the internet/crush their competition [which was Netscape at the time].

Re:

[DustyShadow (691635)]

I'm pretty sure Microsoft purposely keeps IE from following the standards so more websites are developed for only IE. Doing this makes most of the web require Windows for correct viewing of it.

Re:

[nschubach (922175)]

Microsoft would never do that, just look at DirectX...oh shoot, you might be right.

District of Columbia

[Apple Acolyte (517892)]

DC = !a state

Re:

[calebt3 (1098475)]

That's not off-topic! The headline says seven states. I count six states and D.C.

Washington D.C.?

[oahazmatt (868057)]

Hmm, it's amazing what they'll make a state these days.

Re:

[vux984 (928602)]

As far as the postal service is concerned it's a state.

Why? Because it has a usps state abbreviation?

Because so do Guam (GU), Micronesia (FM), Palau (PW), Mariana Islands (MP), Marshall Islands (MH), Virgin Islands (VI), American Samoa (AS) and Puerto Rico (PR)

Not to mention they have state codes like: AP (Armed Forces Pacific)...

What to do...

[calebt3 (1098475)]

From the article:

This last bit gets into the argument over Microsoft's current desktop monopoly and what, if anything, is to be done about it.

Simple. Take the advice of that one EU thinktank and force OEM un-bundling.

Re:

[Richard Steiner (1585)]

A modern OS should come bundled with whatever browser the seller of a given machine wants to install or uninstall.

That includes Firefox, Opera, MSIE, or whatever else the OEM desires. The choice should be with the OEM.

The problem many of us have with Windows preinstalled on machines is the fact that IE is always present in those cases and the other browsers are never present. That creates a tremendous bias amongst nontechnical users towards MSIE and the way it behaves.

Why is it a problem?

[falconwolf (725481)]

OEMs don't want to waste time installing three different programs that do the same thing. So if IE is forced to be removed, browsers now will have to pay OEMs to be placed on as the browser.

I don't see having three different programs as being a problem. All an OEM would need to do is create one disk image with all three then use it to clone it on each hdd installed on a PC, "do once, use anywhere". If OEMs aren't already doing this, minus the three different programs, then they need to work on improvin

Re:

[nschubach (922175)]

Until last week, my parent's friend hadn't even heard about Firefox when I installed it after cleaning off his trojan and porn infested Windows installation. I'd say there's still a problem.

Ow! My wrist! Why, I oughta...

[edraven (45764)]

So the totally ineffectual measures that've been taken to punish Microsoft for misusing its illegal monopoly to eliminate or marginalize its competition are going to be ineffectual for a longer period of time? That'll show 'em.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You cannot punish a corporation the same way you punish an individual, because they don't care about the same things. There's only one thing a corporation values, so there's only one thing you can take away from one: market share. Pass a measure forcing Microsoft and its subsidiaries to halve their advertising budget for, say, five years.

Re:

[AuMatar (183847)]

Sure you can- get rid of the corporate veil. For every $100,000 a company is fined, the CEO and board of directors must stay 1 month in jail, with no possibility of parole. Watch corporations follow the law instantly.

Re:

[edraven (45764)]

As I understand it, the concept of incorporation was created to overcome the chilling effect on commerce of the individual's natural reluctance to take on personal responsibility for a whole company. Basically what you're saying is take that protection away. You might have a hard time finding CEOs and directors, and they'd probably expect higher pay than they already receive.

Re:

[AuMatar (183847)]

The reason corporations don't care about laws is that there are no consequences for the people running it. Bring back the consequences and you'll bring back respect for the law. The idea was never to give the people running corporations complete immunity- it was to give investors limited immunity, so people who weren't running the show could invest in minority positions and not take on huge legal risks. In other words, to protect the small-medium investors, not to protect the CEOs. The major owners and

Re:

[falconwolf (725481)]

Sure you can- get rid of the corporate veil. For every $100,000 a company is fined, the CEO and board of directors must stay 1 month in jail, with no possibility of parole. Watch corporations follow the law instantly.

Even better, void the Corporate Charter. Corporate charters were originally granted only if the corporation served the public good. However as corporations gained power they were able to have the public good [bilkent.edu.tr] requirements removed.

Falcon

Or...

[Belial6 (794905)]

Or, imprison the corporation itself. If I break the law, they lock me up, and I cannot do business with the rest of society. Do the same to the corporations. Send the sheriff out to lock the company doors, and prevent them from doing business for 6 months, a year, or whatever sentence they would give me.

Yes, it would be devistating to the corporation, just as devistating as it would be to me if I were locked up for a year.
Yes, those that work for the corporation would be hurt, just like the people wh

Re:

[nschubach (922175)]

Pass a measure forcing Microsoft and its subsidiaries to halve their advertising budget for, say, five years.

Kind of like child support, couldn't the law force MS to give half it's advertising budget anyone making a competitive product? ...or all of it (based on the average budget for the past 'n' years) for a certain period of time?

Hedging bets

[truthsearch (249536)]

The states' report seems to imply that Microsoft will try to find a way to tie Silverlight to IE in the future, and leverage the 80 percent market share of IE on the desktop to try and edge out competitors like Adobe AIR. In our view, it's more likely that Microsoft has learned to accept the reality of a web application future and simply wants to make sure that it is the driving force behind its development.

+1 Insightful

Microsoft is hedging their bets. If their cash cows are really threatened in the near future they need a backup plan. I think they're not sure how they would profit, be it software-as-a-service or infrastructure or development tools. But they know they need to cover as many angles as possible to survive long term.

Boy...

[JK_the_Slacker (1175625)]

What with this and the releases of Gutsy Gibbon and Leopard, this is turning out to be a bad month for furniture.

Re:

[blind biker (1066130)]

I think Ballmer went through most chairs after Michael Dell's announcement.

Not wise

[JeremyGNJ (1102465)]

Its not really a good idea to impose restrictions on a company for "what they MIGHT do".

Ie they "might be able to" leverage the next version of Windows to push people toward silverlight. Kinda dangerous ground.

The irony

[Uncle_Meataxe (702474)]

Perhaps it's only a little ironic that some states keep fighting the Microsoft Monopoly yet force their own (state) employees to use Microsoft products. This is true of California (and probably most states). How much do they really care to bust the monopoly if they can't even wean themselves from the convicted monopolist?

No OEMs that bundle something other than IE?

[nsayer (86181)]

I can think of at least one OEM [apple.com] that bundles a browser other than Internet Explorer.

Re:

[zappepcs (820751)]

Nice! abuse MY right to be free of unfair business practices in the name of your right to choose. You are that idiot that believes the little blue e on your desktop actually IS the Internet, aren't you?

Right...

[NEOtaku17 (679902)]

That's funny I didn't know they made Internet Explorer for OpenBSD. Perhaps I am less of a geek than I thought.

Re:

[edraven (45764)]

It was something you could explain to a judge.

Re:Oh, come on

[PrescriptionWarning (932687)]

many people use IE happily if only because they are not even aware of the existence of firefox and opera

i'd similarly wonder how many mac OSX users use firefox instead of safari

for everyone to have a win-win situation, the OEMs need to start pre-installing firefox AND opera AND safari in the windows boxes. OpenOffice can come too :)

Re:

[suv4x4 (956391)]

many people use IE happily if only because they are not even aware of the existence of firefox and opera

i'd similarly wonder how many mac OSX users use firefox instead of safari

for everyone to have a win-win situation, the OEMs need to start pre-installing firefox AND opera AND safari in the windows boxes. OpenOffice can come too :)

No, no.. wait, to have a win-win situation, all computers should come with 500GB disks loaded with a selection of 10 different OS, and the user can pick which to launch on startu

Re:

[nine-times (778537)]

I don't think anyone is saying that OEMs should have to install Firefox AND Opera AND Internet Explorer AND Safari. What's at issue is that Microsoft doesn't allow manufacturers the option of choosing Firefox OR Opera OR Internet Explorer OR Safari.

OEMs don't have a choice in the matter. There's no supported way of installing Windows without installing IE. There's no supported method of uninstalling IE after Windows is installed. And I don't know what the current system is, but I remember past accusati

Re:

[Sloppy (14984)]

How is bundling IE with Windows hurting them?

Because it gives a default answer to the question "what browser should I use?" Most people don't bother to make choices when they don't have to (cue the Rush lyrics) and just take defaults. This inhibits markets.

Re:Oh, come on

[Jester998 (156179)]

It was relevant to the antitrust case because it generates platform lock-in.

For two perfect examples, you have to look no further than some major software out there. I will give two examples of software that we have implemented at my workplace. Maybe you'll recognize these (major, multinational) companies?

Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: Works 100% with IE. Works for report consumers with Firefox (with some loss of functionality). However, Report Studio (one of the report-authoring tools) doesn't work on anything but IE. There's no reason it couldn't be implemented with standard AJAX-type code.

BMC Software Service Desk Express (baby brother to the "Magic" helpdesk software that is very common): Works *only* on IE, doesn't work at all on other browsers.

Yes, part of the problem is these software vendors coding for IE-specific things. However, if they knew that most of their customers are probably using something else, they would code their products to support open standards. However, because MSFT has such a huge marketshare of browsers due to antitrust practices, third-parties code to support that, thus tying THEIR customers to MSFT as well.

It's a circular loop, but one possible only because MSFT used their OS dominance to push a certain browser 'standard'.

Re:

[Bert64 (520050)]

Well, these companies know that their customers aren't using anything other than IE, because they can't be... What they don't realise is why, and that if you took away this forcing effect a lot of them would stop using it.

You really don't understand monopolies do you?

[hellfire (86129)]

IE killed off netscape by forcing OEMs to bundle IE. They used their monopoly to strong arm OEMs and charged higher fees to OEMs who didn't do EXACTLY what they wanted them to. Those who bundled AOL and netscape were punished. That's illegal in anti-trust law, and Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. That's where the bundling thing came from.

Bundling isn't right now hurting opera or Firefox, it's hurting the OEMs. The OEMs can't complete by providing, say Firefox and advertising that their bundle is mo

Re:

[nine-times (778537)]

Mozilla and Opera make money from their browsers. They don't make you pay for their browsers, but that doesn't mean they aren't money-making ventures. They have a deal with Google to set Google as the default search engine. They have deals with other people to put bookmarks to those companies in your default bookmarks. Things like that.

Why do you think Microsoft wants the browser market share so badly? Microsoft doesn't just install IE for free-- that's not the complaint. The complaint is that they s

Re:

[Bert64 (520050)]

Bundling IE hurts end users...
Because IE is designed to not follow standards, and encourage web developers also to not follow standards, thus creating sites which require IE... This takes away the end user's freedom to choose their own browser (and by extension, choose the os and hardware to run it on), which for those of us who believe in freedom is one of the worst ways you can hurt someone.
That's why people support firefox and opera, because they represent choice. The more actively used browsers there ar

Re:

[DECS (891519)]

Dear anonymous coward NeoCon:

Commonwealth has nothing to do with communism or communal wealth distribution.

According to Wikipedia:

==The original phrase "common wealth" or "the common weal" comes from the old meaning of "wealth" which is "well-being". The term literally meant "common well-being". Thus commonwealth originally meant a state or nation-state governed for the common good as opposed to an authoritarian state governed for the benefit of a given class of owners.==

Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Massachu

Re:

[JayDot (920899)]

"Trying to jingoize words to fit a fascist/fundamentalist right wing political simplification based on what you think they might mean just makes the world a stupider place. Please stop, our country is already stupid enough without your contributions."

Am I the only one that sees the irony of that paragraph, vis-a-vis the "fascist/fundamentalist right wing" bit. From Wikipedia: "Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal inte

Re:

[DECS (891519)]

"Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state"

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with extreme right wing fundamentalist talking points:

- Don't criticize the administration or you are "supporting terrorism."
- Broad wiretap spying programs on citizens is important for nationalist security.
- Torture and indefinite imprisonment of the accused, with suspended Habeas Corpus, is critical t

Re:

[MightyMartian (840721)]

The logical solution then is to order Firefox be preinstalled on all copies of Windows, OEM or otherwise. If Microsoft doesn't like it, then promise them a new series of monopoly trials in which Microsoft will be cut to ribbons and the pieces only permitted to communicate with each via some incredibly inefficient government branch with 35% too few staff and with a turnaround on a question like "what will the default shape of the new UI button be" taking an average of 35 weeks to be answered.

Re:

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746)]

The logical solution then is to order Firefox be preinstalled on all copies of Windows, OEM or otherwise.

Such a solution does not go far enough. For it to work all browser makers that wanted their browser pre-installed on Windows would have to be allowed to have theirs included. Of course bundling IE and Windows is only one of the dozens of abuses of MS's monopoly.

Inefficiently and slowly addressing the abuses one at a time is simply not going to work. The only solution I have confidence in is removing the monopoly so that MS has no ability to abuse it. Break MS into at least two companies with full rights

Re:

[webmaster404 (1148909)]

The fact though isn't that they included the web browser but rather that the browser is irremovable from the OS, and when its filled with security flaws its a risk for offices and businesses with the employees knowing nothing other then Word and Outlook go on IE when Firefox is installed and end up getting the computer infested with spyware. It is the same thing with the Media Player in the EU, theres no problem with them including it, but when it can't be removed, its a problem.

Re:

[Alsee (515537)]

But the latest browser is removable.

I am absolutely *not* an expert on Vista and maybe my information is old, but last I heard I'm pretty sure your statement is wrong. As I understand it Microsoft does *not* let IE be removable, that they merely have an option to install a SECOND browser and partially "hide" that IE is still installed and still active and that it does still seize control away from your selected browser in a variety of cases.

If you have a link that IE can actually be *removed* I would be mos

Re:

[ianare (1132971)]

The District of Columbia, founded on July 16, 1790, is a federal district as specified by the United States Constitution. The U.S. Congress has ultimate authority over the District of Columbia, though it has delegated considerable authority to the municipal government.

source [wikipedia.org]

It is neither a state nor a city.