Submitted by In an unexpected move, Microsoft posted its formal response to the European Commission and correspondence used in the case in the EU’s anti-trust case against the company. According to Microsoft, the EC had “not even bothered to read the most recent versions” of and “waited many months before informing Microsoft that it believed changes were necessary”. And: “despite Microsoft’s substantial and serious efforts to reach the ever-receding horizon of the commission’s demands… The commission was not to be deterred from its pre-holiday rush to impose a punitive daily fine on Microsoft.”
The company accused the EC of working at the behest of its competitors by “commanding the compulsory licensing of some of Microsoft’s most valuable intellectual property”. “It’s no mystery why the commission refused to state its standard for compliance regarding interoperability information in clear written form,” the company said.
I tend to agree with this statement. I am no apologist for Microsoft but given the facts the idea that European consumers are to benefit from this lawsuit is laughable at best. The EC is a means to legislate competitiveness where other companies aren’t smart enough to business against Microsoft. We shall wait for the EC’s response though.
The EC is a means to legislate competitiveness where other companies aren’t smart enough to business against Microsoft. We shall wait for the EC’s response though.
It’s not a matter of being smart enough, it’s a matter of providing a level playing field, something that is essential in a free market. The problem with Microsoft is that its OS and office suite/file format monopolies prevent other companies from getting access to the market, and therefore stifles competition.
I find it hard to believe that you’re not a “MS apologist” when you defend the “poor” monopolist every chance you get…as someone who allegedly supports capitalism, you should understand that monopolies are definitely not a good thing, because they tend to disprove the dogma that the market is somehow “self-correcting” (something which, of course, isn’t true).
the idea that microsoft doesn’t have the time to prepare the technical documents is laughable. Every technology company (small or big) have internal specification documents; because, simply, you need such documents to have people of different groups (windows vs. office) work together.
All what the EC is asking for is to expose such documents to the public, so other companies can create apps that integrates with windows the same way microsoft applications integrate with windows.
Microsoft’s execuse of how hard is to prepare such documents reminds me of Bart Simpson’s execuse “I didn’t do it”
It’s so obvious that MS has such documents and can easily produce them. So, MS! stop acting stupid!
Good point.. So I gave you one…
You are absolutly right in what you say, except for one thing: they are not acting stupid…
They are acting smart. Too smart, from my point of view, and they take the rest of the world for stupids… (and unfortunately, they are not very wrong; the proof is their market share worldwide…)
They just play their game, loosing time… But in the meantime they are winning time for their marketing projects, and keep on taken advantages of their dominant market position, their comparative advantages gained trough monopolistic domination, scale economics worldwide, and legal leaks and loopholes in the legal systems of every country they are implanted in.
This is not being stupid, this is being smart. Smart sons of a “beach”
, though.
They went away with it many times before, and they think that they will go away with it again, without being severily hurt.
Maybe a scratch or two, or a scar in the face as much… But a scarface won’t prevent you to move ahead, Isn’t it?.. It just makes you ugly…
What is in the table game is all the multimedia business and services, provided through internet services mainly, for the future 20 next years, at least.
They know it, and they do not want to lose their dominat position in that market, that will/is mixed with the internet and computers economic serctor.
They know they are backed by the US Government, because this is one big part of the cake in the global economic system, and with huge interest in the US economy.
They are backed too because of the interest of the US Government, in the global dominance in the media and military communications networks (Internet, satellites etc). So Microsoft monopoly is good for the Global US interest, although, is not good for the US conumers.
For they rest of the world… the quicker they move their networks and systems away from the closed souce of the monopolistic giant, the quicker their economies will improve, and the safer they will be from military dominance.
Sttoping being “stupid” is pretty much in the hand of the rest of the world outside “Redmont” and Washington big buildings…
So let’s try to be smarter than them
The EU Commission is trying, but not that hard, really, they konw they share some of the interest of Washinton, but not all…
Some people mistake this with trying to prevent market competition… funny…!!
Let’s just try to be Smartix !!!
Angel
Time for another round of EU bashing, we’re getting to be the second-most criticised administration around 🙂
Now come the dirty tricks from MS, leaking information in a bid for sympathy and undermining the process. Poor Microsoft apparently the evil EU has even managed to corrupt the expert appointed based on MS’ own list:
To back up its findings, the commission cited a report by the trustee in the case, Professor Neil Barrett, who concluded in part that the documentation “appears to be fundamentally flawed in its conception, and in its level of explanation and detail.” Barrett added that “the process of using the documentation is an absolutely frustrating, time-consuming and ultimately fruitless task.”
Is there noone these bad, bad (boo hiss) eurocrats can’t brainwash ?
What about subsidizing the efforts to produce competitive software, instead of whining? What about removing legal obstacles of competitors instead of adding obstacles to MS? What about using competitive software in public administration? What about teaching its use in school and university?
As a european, I think this is a very frustrating sign of weakness of the EU when compared to MS. When is the point reached where MS exercises its power to silence the EU?
Wow. You think state sponsored subsidization of Microsoft’s competitors for the express purpose of combating MS’s dominance of the market is a fair and legitimate way for a government to behave? One MS would have no complaints about? Man, you should work for the EU commission.
> Wow. You think state sponsored subsidization of
> Microsoft’s competitors for the express purpose of
> combating MS’s dominance of the market is a fair and
> legitimate way for a government to behave?
Do you think that simply throwing more and more barriers at them is? The subsidies should not be targeted at MS’s competitors solely for being competitors, but rather for fulfilling the expectations of the EC with regards to software. If they want MS to open up source code, there are two ways for it: A well-established law that demands so, or a market with a good supply of similar programs with available source code. A law can probably be considered unrealistic in the current situation.
What exactly is unfair about a government ordering “a desktop operating system with public-domain source code”, to be assigned to the best bidder?
> One MS would have no complaints about?
Surely not, but that’s the price of breaking a monopoly. Nobody said it’s going to be easy.
If they want MS to open up source code
They don’t want this, they want protocol specs.
They don’t want this, they want protocol specs.
And they did get protocol specs. That a supposed expert barely looked at and decided they were unusuable because he doesn’t know how to use them.
And when they got requested updates to the specs, the EU didn’t even bother reading them before threatening MS again.
The document released by MS does raise a number of concerns about how EU works this case.
I’m not saying MS is free of any faults here, but the EU haven’t exactly worked this out very well either.
Do not forget that this “supposed expert” was chosen by the EU from a list of people recommended by Microsoft.
Do not forget that this “supposed expert” was chosen by the EU from a list of people recommended by Microsoft.
And you don’t have to read 12000 pages of docs to realize that they’re not complete and usable. You just have to look for some random, essential specs and if they’re not present you know MS is BSing again without reading the rest.
> They don’t want this, they want protocol specs.
Thanks for mentioning, but my argument applies to that as well.
What about removing legal obstacles of competitors instead of adding obstacles to MS?
What obstacles? Are you trying to suggest that the EU’s request for documentation on MS protocols is somehow an obstacle for MS?
> What obstacles? Are you trying to suggest that the EU’s
> request for documentation on MS protocols is somehow an
> obstacle for MS?
Yes, it is an obstacle if (1) MS wouldn’t do it by themselves, and (2) other companies in general are *not* forced to open up protocols.
“MS wouldn’t do it by themselves, and (2) other companies in general are *not* forced to open up protocols”
Hmmm… Sure … You mean other companies that are NOT Monopolies…
!!!!
Well.. then you are right!
Angel
History tells us that anti-trust cases against software companies seldom are efficient. By the time the case is closed, the target has moved.
But subsidizing is also a very inefficient way to deal with Microsofts (illegal) monopolistic practice, as it does not remove any of the barriers to the market. As consumers we will end up paying both the penalty for the inefficient IS market, as well as the subsidies. Just take a look at the damage done by EUs (and many others) agricultural subsidies.
I would rather have that EU uses its force as a customer. Seen as a whole, the public sector in EU is a very large group of customers. A policy mandating the use of free and open standards in the government sector would bring us very far. I see several advantages to this approach:
– it would help us solve the problems with lack of interoperability due to proprietary data formats
– it would lower the barriers to entry to the market
– it would create more competition, as suppliers will compete for the implementation of the formats
Still its not an easy project, and there will probably areas that needs to be excempted from this policy. But in the end, I think that using the market to change the behaviour of MS, is way more effective than using the court system.
in one hand you tell everybody you’re good at interoperating by publishing the office XML standard, in the other hand the EU comission ask you to document some standards and you say “no” and try to look like you’re being abused.
Oh, poor microsoft, they’re just the richest software company on earth, with almost no market share to feed their children. Maybe they think that this way we won’t be able to realize that nobody else but office will be able to open DRMed documents and that the open XML format matters nothing because it’s being envolved with a propietary format which uses crypto to keep out competitors from reverse engineering their docs.
I admit I don’t even think about MS’ sharing of it’s interface and dataformat info. It is of course an important issue, but EU’s stance/position seems to be “won’t be bullied”, which is good. That’s the only way to be respected by a 500 lb gorilla.
The funny thing is, I am not viscerally or ideologically agaisnt MS’ products, I just grew tired of being pushed around.
I just spent the last 45 min reading Prof. Finkelstein’s response on Microsoft’s press site, and his points seem pretty valid.
MS published a 12,000 page document on Dec. 15, 2005 in response to earlier complaints from the EU (they had to work round-the-clock to get it done since they weren’t informed more than 2 months before about the problems). The commission’s expert responded in just 7 days to the complaint even though he couldn’t have gotten the new documents more than a day or two before he responded to them (they weren’t transmitted to europe before the 20th because MS wanted to first insert some DRM).
MS has offered to give licensees 500 hours of support with their license (of course they’d be able to buy more) and even access to the source code. No one has so far licensed the documentation and no one besides SAMBA has undertaken a project to interoperate with Windows. This is just a legalistic waste of time, because no one is ever going to read these documents. SAMBA isn’t going to license this stuff because their product won’t be open anymore and no competitor is going to bother doing this because they can just use their own server system and write their own networkable file and directory system to the documented client logon and filesystem interfaces. This seems like a shameful waste of time and money.
the EU is a pain in the…can’t MS just buy the EU out. what is the EU worth a buck ot two
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe… but I’m not sure if you worth even half a buck!
Grow up, and then say something intelligent, if you can… If you can not, then its ok, Nobody is going to force you to do anything beyond your capabilities…
But then, please, cosider going to Irak as a voluntary US soldier… Maybe the irakies cluld help you to go further beyond…
Angel–Fr@gzill@
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m no fan of the gigantic bureaucracy that is the EU. But I think they are in the right on this one, and however tenuously the EC does still represent the will of 25 democratic sovereign states including two nuclear powers and three members of G8. They have asked Microsoft to do something which most folks would consider reasonable and Microsoft has failed to do it. That’s the core issue here, not the details of who sent how many thousands of documents to whom and when.
If Microsoft wants to pick a fight it will lose. No corporation should have the right to trample over 25 sovereign states just because it feels like it, end of story. The only question now is whether MS will choose to behave in a correct and grown-up fashion or besmirth America’s own good name by babyish and bullying behaviour.