EU Official Labels Microsoft's Behavior Unacceptable

InfoWorldMike writes "EU commissioner Neelie Kroes has lashed out at Microsoft in comments to European parliamentarians Thursday, saying it is 'unacceptable' that the company continues to gain market share using tactics that were outlawed in the Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against the software vendor. 'Three years later Microsoft still hasn't complied with the main demand imposed by the European antitrust ruling: that the company share interoperability information inside Windows at a reasonable price to allow rival makers of workgroup servers to build products that work properly with PCs running Windows.'"

Yes...

[drinkypoo (153816)]

...and until someone actually gets serious and imposes a penalty against them that will actually induce them to change their behavior, like preventing them from selling their products until they comply, this is what's going to continue to happen.

I have to laugh

[WindBourne (631190)]

Bill has correctly figured it out that it is better to cheat,steal, and lie, pay a hefty fine later and OWN the market than it is to play fair. The longer that a gov. takes to play these games with MS is only to MS's advantage. If EU really wanted to stop this, they would tell MS if you have 1 month and then we charge you 5 x all of the EU sales/month each month. Only when it is not in Bill Gates best advantage will he comply.

Since it has been 3 years and MS has not complied, it is obvious to me that EU will not really be cracking down.

I may not like BG but you have to admire him. He knows how to run circles around govs.

Re:I have to laugh

[WindBourne (631190)]

Assume that you charge them JUST or below the amount that MS makes in the EU sales. Then MS has a strong incentive to continue with the sale. Why? because it is slowly draining their competitors. Once MS owns the market, then they can comply (or do a USA thing and buy the politician). OTH, if you charge them 5 to 10 x the EU sales, they have a strong incentive to become lawful. In addition, even if you charge MS 10 the EU sales it would still be less than what MS loses on their hardware systems.

the only penalty that will work is block 'em.

[swschrad (312009)]

impound microsoft products at the port of entry, and no sales at all in the EU.

nothing else will get their attention.

old joke revisited... steve jobs dies and is waiting at the pearly gates. long line. suddenly, with a rush of clouds and chorus of angelic voices, a chair goes skidding across the horizon, and A Power rushes by and through the gates without slowing down.

"hey, what's the big idea?" says jobs.

"Oh, that's God," says St. Peter. "Every once in a while, he thinks he's steve ballmer of microsoft."

Re:Yes...

[drinkypoo (153816)]

That would be good, but at least the EU is currently fining the pants off them, which is a start. No company can continually take half a billion dollar fines year after year without seeing shareholders getting pretty angry.

They can if it enables them to make two billion dollars (or whatever) that they otherwise would not be able to make. Microsoft's entire business model depends on vendor lock-in, and keeping these formats private and secret is part of that.

If you could flawlessly migrate all of your Microsoft Office documents to OO.o formats today, then huge numbers of people would leave microsoft office tomorrow; they'd be leaving Windows shortly thereafter. The vast majority of people working with computers use office, a web browser, and an email client, and very little else. It would be cheaper in every way to put them on Linux with OO.o; TCO is probably approximately the same, though somewhat higher for Windows due to cleaning up malware (which in an organization with any significant number of computers requires quite a bit of time) but is vastly cheaper up-front. Priced Vista+Office lately?

Sigh.

[Khaed (544779)]

Why is it that only Europe is standing up to them?

Re:Sigh.

[jalet (36114)]

Sorry, in the part of the world I live in we usually don't use "consuming" and "culture" in the same sentence.

Re:Sigh.

[guruevi (827432)]

I don't see them fining Red Hat, Google, Yahoo, IBM or any other company that is both highly successful and behaves according to the law. Only breakers of those laws and regulations get punished.

And although you claim that Europe ignored the tech industry for decades, they still have a larger broadband penetration rate, they have a superior electricity and telecommunications network and a lot of smart people and ideas come from a part of Europe (ok, a lot of them migrate to the US, including me but that has more to do with the European tax rates, which are killing to high salaried workers and a brain drain from US and Asian companies), look at Linus Torvalds, DVD Jon, The Pirate Bay, a lot of alternative energy 'inventions'...

Re:Sigh.

[jeevesbond (1066726)]

Europe virtually ignored the tech industry for decades

Yes, Tim Berners-Lee completely ignored technology when inventing the Web (whilst working at CERN [web.cern.ch]) preferring to use homing pigeons instead of a packet-switching network.

Just because the EC is taking a known monopolist to task--and going the right way about it--doesn't mean there is some sort of European conspiracy going on. Microsoft have got a massive percentage [web.cern.ch] (a bit out of date, can't seem to find anything current) of desktop market share and are using that to unfairly hamper competition. They use bundling and their API to stop people from developing for other platforms. They put the brakes on IE for as long as possible because they realised their API was (and still is) threatened [joelonsoftware.com] by web based applications.

Unfortunately the US government failed to prosecute Microsoft fully [oreillynet.com] so the EC are being forced to do it. It's sad but quite simple.

Re:Sigh.

[ciggieposeur (715798)]

I'll respond only because I've got 10 minutes to waste...

European countries use Windows for the same reason Americans do: MS rode the wave of personal computing and then began setting up illegal business deals to catapult itself into a monopoly position. They use Windows for the same reason you use Canadian, Venezualan, and OPEC oil: you have to. OTOH, they are taking the lead in moving away from Windows unlike many of their American counterparts.

Second, the Internet was NOT paid for by the USA. The current protocols were developed with DoD research dollars, but they were informed by experimental networks in Britian and elsewhere. The actual network hardware was purchased by them for their own networks, and for the most part that was all manufactured in Asia.

And BTW I am an American enrolled at a prominent Texas university in a top-tier engineering graduate program that has 90% international students.

Why does Motorola use an OS designed in Finland?

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

By your argument, you'd be suprised that US phone makers use Linux (Finnish) or Symbian(British) OSs in cell phones. Why do people in the US buy German cars, you'd think they'd be able to make there own premium brand cars.

The EU only wants to regulate the way US credit card companies deal with EU citizens.

Welcome to the global community. All the EU is saying is that a fair set of rules need to be put in place so that people don't get abused. What EU proposes against Microsoft would help US companies too, it is just that the US goverment lacks the balls to do this.

The Joke must be made

[paladinwannabe2 (889776)]

Help competitors build products that work properly with PCs running Windows? Even Microsoft can't do that!

Not taking sides...

[GrayCalx (597428)]

But I would like to see what would happen if Microsoft just said "We're not changing our practices, so we won't sell our products in Europe." Would computer users revolt against the EU? Would they be angry at MS instead? Meh, it'll never happen but sometimes just to watch the debacle of it all, I wish it would.

Re:Not taking sides...

[WaZiX (766733)]

You do realize Europe is consists of over half a billion people right? Computers have become ordinary products, leaving such a market would be corporate suicide... Now one of the Main goals of the EU is to defend the customer, all the EU are doing is what they were appointed to do. Such antitrust lawsuits are common places, be it a US company or not. Believe it or not it's not the task of the EU to ruin Microsoft, their task is to defend competition amongst companies inside the European market. Hell this would benefit many American companies as well and that's a good thing. The whole point is to allow customers to have the best solution for the best price, where that solution comes from is of absolute no importance.

Im gonna go ecstatic at this rate !

[unity100 (970058)]

first, "EU Weighs Copyright Law" in benefit of end users,

then "RIAA Caught in Tough Legal Situation",

after that "Judge Strikes Down COPA, 1998 Online Porn Law"

then "RIAA Balks At Complying With Document Order" and judge is not happy with it

then the story about nebraska university wanting reparations from riaa for wasting their time,

after that, nbc embraces internet revolution in "NBC, News Corp Join to Create YouTube Clone"

then as of now, "EU Official Labels Microsoft's Behavior Unacceptable"

if things and stories in slashdot goes like that im gonna quit sex and just read slashdot.

Re:Im gonna go ecstatic at this rate !

[DrugCheese (266151)]

if things and stories in slashdot goes like that im gonna quit sex and just read slashdot.

sex AND slashdot?

you make funny

Doesn't matter

[Thaelon (250687)]

The only way to "beat" Microsoft is to come out with something better. No amount of fines will really matter as long as they still hold the dominant market share.

The reason is that people creating software for computers have the greatest number of opportunities if they make them windows compatible. And since making something cross-platform is a bitch, it's much easier to get 90% of the market by doing windows alone. And so that's what people and companies will do.

So we can either do one of two things
1) Force people to develop cross platform software and hardware (yeah right)
2) Create an operating system so much better that the majority adopts it (extremely unlikely, but better than "yeah right")

The only other thing I can think of is FORCE companies like Dell, HP, Toshiba, Sony, IBM, Lenovo, Gateway etc to stop forcing Windows down our throats on computers we buy from them and sell the bare machine at a REDUCED price. I'm sure Microsoft is strong-arming some of them to some degree, but if we just flat out make it illegal to force-preload then they have little choice.

Interesting

[LilWolf (847434)]

It's interesting how every time there's a news story of EU slapping Microsoft for breaking EU laws, the slashdotters suddenly come out siding with Microsoft.

Never mind that they were bashing Microsoft just one news story below and complaining how monopolistic and evil Microsoft is :)

Re:Market Share

[by Anonymous Coward]

> Let the marketplace decide...

Firstly you need a competitive market for that to work, that's why we have competition laws. Secondly, this idea that free markets are some democratizing force is total bullshit.

HTH.

Re:Market Share

[tsa (15680)]

The Americans also ruled that MS used unfair practices, and they also kept buying their stuff. So what are you implying?

Re:Market Share

[geekoid (135745)]

MS starting giving away their browser to compete for Netscapes, whose browser was NOT FREE.
It became free as an attempt to compete with MS's illegal monopoly practices.

Both browsers were a piece of crap then, but the is irrelevant to the discussion.

Using you monopoly power to destroy a competitor is illegal. The reason it is illegal is that it gives no chance of competition for the consumer to take advantage of. The fact that the consumer has no real option is why the consumer keeps buying the product. Hell, a consumer may not know that a company is abusing it's onopoly and that's why there is no, or very little competition. in other words, they don't know enough to not buy the product.

Re:Market Share

[arevos (659374)]

I think the thing that is hard to understand is that the law in this case is almost perversely refusing to say what it is that they *actually* want Microsoft to do, and continually just telling Microsoft: "That's not good enough".

The EU has never refused to say what they want Microsoft to do. They've been crystal clear from the first. Allow me to quote from the court orders [europa.eu]:

The first type of abusive conduct by Microsoft, described at recitals 546 to 791 to the Decision, consists in Microsoft's refusal to provide its competitors with 'interoperability information' and to allow its use for the purpose of developing and distributing products competing with Microsoft's own products on the work group server operating system market from October 1998 until the date of the Decision (Article 2(a) of the Decision). For the purpose of the Decision, 'interoperability information' means 'the complete and accurate specifications for all the Protocols implemented in Windows Work Group Server Operating Systems and ... used by Windows Work Group Servers to deliver file and print services and group and user administration services, including the Windows Domain Controller services, Active Directory services and Group Policy services, to Windows Work Group Networks' (Article 1(1) of the Decision). 'Protocols' are defined as 'a set of rules of interconnection and interaction between various instances of Windows Work Group Server Operating Systems and Windows Client PC Operating Systems running on different computers in a Windows Work Group Network' (Article 1(2) of the Decision).

Microsoft has yet to provide anything close to complete and accurate specifications. This isn't just the opinion of EU lawyers not understanding technical documentation, it's the opinion of prominent developers, like Andrew Tridgell, the creator of the Samba project.

What's more, Microsoft has had 2 years to document it's protocols, and it claims it has 300 engineers are working "day and night" on the problem, but despite that, little documentation has been forthcoming, and what there has been, has been smothered under a layer of restrictive licenses and NDAs.

It seems to me that a company as large as Microsoft should have at least some idea of how its network protocols work, and if not, is capable of finding out. You'd have thought that a company that prides itself on technical innovation and "Developers developers developers" would know how to write technical documentation. So either Microsoft is entirely incompetent, or it's flaunting the law. Whilst the former is tempting to believe, Microsoft didn't get where it is today by being staffed by morons, and so one has to conclude that they're deliberately disobeying the law. Hence the fine. It's that simple.

Re:I can't believe I am saying this...

[by Anonymous Coward]

> Europe is trying to force its socialist business practices on the the free world.

Where is this free world and what do you call it when the US uses the WTO to dictate trade policy for the rest of the world?

Microsoft are free to stop breaking the law anytime they please.

Re:USA/EU corporate style

[Gorath99 (746654)]

1The notion that *only* USA companies would be sued for that is totally bogus and plainly untrue. It may be that USA-ones *seem* to happen more because:

1)It gets a higher profile when one is sued, because they make more fuss about it (together with the 'look, it's the EU against USA' attitude)

2)USA corporations are more prone to anti-competitive behaviour (maybe due to the inherent strong corporatism in the USA where one easily buys politicians)

3)EU-corporations are as bad as USA ones, only they can cover it up better


You're very close with number 1, but the biggest reasons (IMHO) are:

1) US news only reports when the EU fines a US company.
2) Slashdot only reports when the EU fines an IT company and most of them are from the US.

For those who truly feel that the EU is specifically after US companies: do some searching on European news outlets on companies fined by the EU for anti-competitive behavior. Many, if not most of them, are from the EU itself. For instance, in the past year Siemens (German) has been fined 397 million euros, Akzo Nobel (Dutch) has been fined 25.2 million euros, Solvay (Belgian) 167 million euros, Total (French) 78.6 million euros, Edison (Italian) 58.1 million euros.

And those are just from the first 2 cases I found on a quick search. Hardly a month goes by that I don't read about another big case.

Sources (in Dutch):
http://www.nu.nl/news/955922/32/rss/EU-boete_drukt _winst_Siemens.html [www.nu.nl]
http://www.nu.nl/news/725210/32/rss/Akzo_krijgt_ka rtelboete_van_EU.html [www.nu.nl]

Re:I'm far from anti-European but this guy is a bo

[KokorHekkus (986906)]

You're just forgetting one small detail: the person decding if Microsoft complied with interoperabilty demands was picked from a shortlist that Microsoft themselves provided. In essence Microsoft to pick the own jury with no intervention and yet they failed. I belive that speaks volumes.