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Microsoft To Appeal EU Decision
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:05 PM
from the fighting-the-old-country dept.
from the fighting-the-old-country dept.
An anonymous reader writes "News.com has an article on Microsoft's upcoming appeal of the EU antitrust decision. Their argument is essentially that they shouldn't be penalized for becoming successful in a marketplace." From the article: "Microsoft relies on the fact that its communication protocols are technologically innovative and are covered by intellectual-property rights ... [the company] had designed its Windows server operating systems from the outset to interoperate with non-Microsoft server operating systems"
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Why the complaints? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is the case why are they complaining so much about documenting the protocols that would allow non-Microsoft software to interoperate?
A lot of people don't agree with the EU anti-trust, personally I think the EU is succeeding where the US anti-trust cases failed, they are actually punishing M$, hopefully, Microsoft will learn a lesson this time around.....I doubt they will though.
Re:Why the complaints? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems all of their own interoperability is for the purpose of migration [to Windows], not for peaceful cohabitation in a mixed computing environment.
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Re:Why the complaints? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why the complaints? (Score:4, Funny)
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Succession of arguments: (Score:4, Interesting)
1. We shouldn't have to give out documentation because we're not a monopoly
2. We can't give out documentation.
3. We gave out source code; that's the same as documentation
4. We can't figure out what exactly it is you want us to give out.
5. We don't need to give out documentation; the stuff is already interoperable enough.
6. We shouldn't have to give out documentation 'cause that would mean giving away our intellectual property.
This would be hilarious if it weren't so damaging to the marketplace. Could someone point me to the part of the EU's decision where Microsoft is required to sign over its intellectual property to someone?
Parent
Re:Why the complaints? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ford does not (and can't really) use its leverage to make the auto parts manufactures to produce only parts for them and not anyone else.
Ford can't basically tell you... "Drive us, or you will have to walk".
If company A switches from windows to something else, (assuming they will unhook the leash to do so... stockholm syndrome comes to mind.), depending on their industry, they may not be able to function... this is not entirely due to the classic arguement of "no applications"..
The long and short of it is that Micro$haft is being "singled out" (as you say) because of what they have done in the industry, not their size. You don't cage the gorilla for being 500lbs; but if he smacks everything that comes within 50 feet to death, and prevents any little gorillas from being born... I'm pretty sure you want a wall between him and you.
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Sure, George (Score:5, Informative)
Design and documentation (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything can interoperate with any other as long as the protocols are documented and those documents are made available.
Re:Design and documentation (Score:4, Insightful)
MS's SMB/CIFS implementation is really not different. They refuse to teach anyone else the protocols (language) and what progress there has been was due to packet sniffing (listening in) and repeating things back that seem right to see what happens.
Parent
Frankly... (Score:5, Funny)
Msg to those in EU (Score:4, Interesting)
We need open standards. We need interoperability. However, closed standards, proprietary formats, and DRM all serve to preserve marketshare by those owning the technology and serve to lock out any competition. Bid on a project and you can propose vendor A version 2000 or vendor A version 2003 or vendora A version XP.... Now that is competition, right?
Wrong argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't that be "penalised" not "penalized" as I'm pretty sure they use English rather than American in the EU, certainally we do in my part
Anyhow it's a deliberatley misleading argument - they're not being penalised for being successful, they're being penalised for BREAKING THE LAW. They really need to understand that the EU sees them as CRIMINALS and not contributing members of society. If they don't want to be treated as criminals then they shouldn't willfully and deliberatley break the law.
They may be attempting to appeal that decision, however for the fact remains that it's not their success that has them up in the dock, it's their illegal behaviour.
Specifically for abusing their monopoly position to the detriment of the market - adminttedly the monoply does show they were successful but that entire argument is a fallacy.
Re:Wrong argument (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish we could punish people who spout insincere rhetoric like this by treating them as if they were being honest.
Microsoft: "We shouldn't be punished for becoming successful."
EU: "Okay, we agree to those terms, appeal over."
[A month goes by.]
Microsoft: "Why are you forcing us to comply with the original judgement?"
EU: "Why wouldn't we? That wasn't a punishment for being successful, that was a punishment for being anticompetitive."
Microsoft: "We appeal!"
EU: "You already had your appeal, we agreed to your terms, remember?"
Parent
Re:Wrong argument (Score:4, Funny)
Shouldn't that be "penalised" not "penalized" as I'm pretty sure they use English rather than American in the EU, certainally we do in my part :-)
Anyhow it's a deliberatley misleading argument ... they shouldn't willfully and deliberatley break the law.
Is deliberatley an English word, too? No wonder us 'merican hicks cain't git it right.
[Just pulling your leg. Not disturbed, just amused.]
Parent
What IP rights ? (Score:4, Insightful)
What intellectual property rights ? The EU Commision didn't ask for the source code (copyright), and software patents have no legal value in Europe...
Re:What IP rights ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Ah, I see! (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone get the EU to double or nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
If Microsoft is appealing on flagarantly fraudulant grounds that lie somewhere between making false statements to a court of law, deceptive advertising, and wilful abuse of the appeals system, then the EU should seriously examine if the law would allow them to increase the fine. Doubling it would seem suitable.
This needs to be settled, once and for all, in a way that is fair but decisive.
Microsoft's EU Dilemma (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:market success (Score:5, Funny)
Cockroaches are "successful." Rats are "successful." Microsoft is "successful."
(wasn't that clever of me to associate cockroaches and rats with microsoft?)
Parent
Re:market success (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea is you don't punish the good for being the good. That's like saying, why don't we ban the New York Yankees from baseball because they have the most talented players? I think they're hitting way more home runs than they need to.
If I owned a farm and had a bumper crop of corn one year, should I be penalized for being successful? What if I have ten farmers, all working cooperatively? What is the demarcation line
Re:market success (Score:3, Insightful)
The government might well decide to have a look at your business practices... If you owned a farm and attempted to buy out, intimidate, and crush your rival farmers, if you then locked down the distribution market with illegal contracts to make it very
Re:market success (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they're making way more money than they need to. Just like gas companies. Being successful
doesn't make it right.
Comments like yours are the ones that the 'other side' love. Someone who doesn't have the slightest
grasp as to what is going on and makes comments that lead everyone else to believe that you don't have
a grasp on capitalism. The simple fact that a company makes a lot of money doesn't make them bad or
mean that restrictions should be placed on them. The company makes what the market permits, supply
and demand. It's not up to you to say 'they are making too much money', there's no such thing as too
much money (legally).
You're probably one of those people that think the rich should be taxed to death for the simple fact
that they have more money. "You make 1 million dollars a year.. I think we should tax you to death so
you only take on 50k a year!... that is fair in my warped concept of fair".
* Now, to be fair... you may very well have grasp on the facts, in fact I hope you do. Your comment
alone is what I find rediculous, however you'll prolly get mod'd up as 'insightful' based on this
crowd.
Parent
Re:Yeah. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's most assuredly not Microsoft's fault that people don't patch.
And any fool who says Linux or MacOS X don't need to be patched, are just that, fools.
Parent
Re:Yeah. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is, at least partially. Microsoft had (have?) a habit of releasing 'new features' with security patches. This meant that the security patches needed careful testing before deployment, since the new features often came free with new bugs that could break existing software. For most other operating systems, the security updates are just that; security updates. If you install a security update for OS X/FreeBSD/whatever, the only things that it should break are programs that made use of the insecurity that is fixed (and you probably want these to break, rather than being exploited, anyway). On Windows, it can be a game of Russian Roulette to patch a running server.
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