The European Commission is expected (free reg. req.) to declare Microsoft an abusive monopolist, impose a fine of $100 million to $1 billion and order the company to make fundamental changes to the way it sells software in Europe. Such a ruling would be a significant setback for Microsoft after it overcame its most serious legal challenge by settling a sweeping antitrust case in the USA in 2001.
Regulators Meet on Proposal to Brand Microsoft a Monopolist
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I wish I could actually read the article, but I’m too lazy to subscribe to the New York Times online. But I’m hoping the EU actually goes through with their ruling.
At least one country can see the truth and monopolistic actions Microsoft grips the industry with!
At least one country can see the truth and monopolistic actions Microsoft grips the industry with!
The courts in the United States did declare that Microsoft was using anti-competitive practices, but unfortunately they did nothing about it.
I never knew the EU could assess fines to corporations let alone U.S. corporations.
They can simply kick out Microsoft and forbid them entering EU, it they don’t pay a fine.
I never knew the EU could assess fines to corporations let alone U.S. corporations.
They can if they are operating in the EU. A company is not immune to the laws of the a country they are operating in just because the corporation is based in another country.
<QUOTE>The courts in the United States did declare that Microsoft was using anti-competitive practices, but unfortunately they did nothing about it</QUOTE>
I wonder who took a bribe
Clearly the EU would fine the Microsoft entry vehicle into the EU – whatever MS subsidiary conducts the relevant business in Europe.
>At least one country can see the truth and monopolistic actions Microsoft grips the industry with!
This is a bit off topic, but since when EU (European Union) was a country? EU is an allianve formed by many countries, and therfor called the European Union, not the United States of Europe – there’s a significant difference
I’m glad somebody is doing something about this. Today the question isn’t “Is Microsoft a monopolist company?” it’s “How is Microsoft not a monopolist?” Really I hope the EU fines Microsoft the $1 Billion it can fine them.
What amazes me is how a company that is CLEARLY a monopoly could get away with being a monopoly for so long. All they have to do to wipe out the competition for a product is bundle it with Windows. I mean look at FireFox/Mozilla which are clearly more advanced browsers than IE offering Pop-up blocking long before IE is offering it and they have tabbed browsing which IE still doesn’t have.
IE was used the most on Mac OS X till Apple came out with Safari. Of course Microsofts “official reason” for quitting IE on mac is that Safari is “integrated” into the OS, but we all know they could use the same frameworks apple uses, the real reason is that IE is crap compared to Safari, Camino & FireFox.
I hope Micorosoft gets what they deserve, their like the bad guy in a movie who keeps getting away with everything.
I mean I just wonder if they are doing something meaningful like providing it to small developers or if this is just a good way to get some money from a wealthy corporation. Don’t get me wrong, MS has a pretty long history of strong arming their way with questionable tactics but I just often wonder what the point of the huge fines are unless they will actually help in some way to make up for the wrong.
> I never knew the EU could assess fines to corporations let
> alone U.S. corporations.
Microsoft aren’t above the law, despite what country they’re in. European countries have every right to sue if Microsoft exist in their country.
For example, here in Australia, a consulting firm recently filed a case against SCO for …(guess what!)
What amazes me is how a company that is CLEARLY a monopoly could get away with being a monopoly for so long. All they have to do to wipe out the competition for a product is bundle it with Windows. I mean look at FireFox/Mozilla which are clearly more advanced browsers than IE offering Pop-up blocking long before IE is offering it and they have tabbed browsing which IE still doesn’t have
Not necessarily. Windows Media Player with NetShow have been bundled with Windows since the year 1999; Real maintained a lead even though their product during most of this period was significantly inferior than much of its competitors. Real’s ability to keep their market shows where Netscape went wrong – they didn’t make Netscape a necessity.
As for Firefox, it is still not yet 1.0, and Mozilla is a community project. AOL has yet to use Gecko for their AOL – they could easily use it and tilt the market away from IE. Firefox has no commercial backing as of now, and thus no advertising and marketing. It is a good browser, but having a good product in any market, whether or not a market is dominated by a “monopolist”, isn’t guarentee of market success.
Besides, when IE took most of Netscape’s market, Netscape was severely inferior to IE. It was much slower, it was so badly designed that it was hard for ISVs to use their engine. Netscape itself increasingly became unpopular, while IE became more popular. While yes, there were those who continued to use Netscape, but they quickly became a monopoly.
Netscape could have prevented that. Instead, what did they do? They started a 4 year rewrite, and before that even ended, they released a immensely buggy and slow browser called Netscape 6. Most of whatever they have left in the Windows browser market left Netscape for greener pastures. What do they expect? Any company who ditches their customers for so long and then release a extremely uncompetitive offering immediately after that period would be bound to be relegated to a position of an obscure market player. This isn’t anti-competitive behaviour on Microsoft’s part, this is incredibly idiotic and anti-consumer behaviour on Netscape’s part.
The funny part of the whole thing, the part I don’t understand at all, is why Windows Server division have to disclose protocols and the likes to their competitors to facilitate competition? I mean, Windows Server nor any of Microsoft’s server software holds no monopoly in any world market nor in any European market. In addition to that, unless by some miracle, Microsoft isn’t likely going to gain monopoly in any major server market. Why is Microsoft branded a monopolist in part of their server division behaviour?
simple, they where using the Client OS, where they have an undisputed monopoly, to leverage the Server OS based because of these protocols as they mean that Windows servers work better with Windows clients. Using one monopoly to leverage products in other markets in order to gain more monoploy positions is specifically illegal.
It is fine to make to products that interoperate better together than with competitors products, and probably inevitable, so long as you actually have some real competition. If you have no competition in one market then you gain an unfair advantage over your competitors in the other market. This is even more so if you implement your monopoly product so that it will not interoperate with competitor products in other markets.
Well, let’s imagine, what happens if EU imposes fine to MS. Let’s say, it will not allow to sell new products in Europe until payment has been settled. MS would then withhold any updates and support for EU-based customers. (They can refer to the verdict by telling that service pack w/o media player and Lotus Notes removal software cannot be shipped because of technical reasons.)
Large corporations who depend on Windows-based systems would have to ask the court to discard accusations and/or economic measures.
Large corporations who depend on Windows-based systems would have to ask the court to discard accusations and/or economic measures.
I’d love to see MS try to pull this, and see how many large European corporations and countries like being held for ransom by an American company.
Let’s say, it will not allow to sell new products in Europe until payment has been settled. MS would then withhold any updates and support for EU-based customers.
I don’t think MS-investors would like that. Abandoning a profitable, big market like the EU. And those EU companies that don’t get updates, eventough they have a fancy software licensing contract that guarantees getting those updates, will probably be pissed off too, and sue Microsoft.
Hmm, it smells more…
… an anti-american thingy to me than anything else. Sad.
So nothing to do with the fact that Microsoft has been convicted as an abusive monopolist?
Sounds like an anti-europe thingy to me.
“Large corporations who depend on Windows-based systems would have to ask the court to discard accusations and/or economic measures.”
Uhhh…
“Cause and Effect”
A -> B -> C -> D
A) Microsoft is in what some see as a monopoly position.
B) EU sues Microsoft for this.
C) Microsoft has to obey a EU court ruling and decides not to.
D) EU reacts for example with a huge tax cut on Microsoft software.
(The second part of C and whole part D are purely hypothetic.)
If you look at this, you notice that these are all reactions to actions and you notice who reacts on who and who started. (The law itself is always the defender because it reacts on someone who has done something beyond law.)
Only a complete idiotic company which doesn’t look to “Cause and Effect” or only for their own interests would ask for such. Because if you look to “Cause and Effect” it is Microsoft who started and it is Microsoft who decided not to listen to a EU court ruling. WTF would they thinking then? Holier than thou? Laws here are laws. Actually, they have the ability to get to a higher court if they don’t agree. So, that is their possibility. I’d agree the law system here isn’t always fair then again i can’t think of any country…
With a lil of patriotism it is easy to say “the EU is at fault” is this situation -for some- but actually it is MS who started this, see my explanation above. And yeah, from MS point of view, in some countries you get lucky with the courts while in others you get bad lucky. The question i’ll ask later when this is all far done is who was more out of line the US court or the EU court…
PS: Japan is starting to act Red Bull too.
I’ll drink to that only when this expected outcome remains the outcome after the last possibility for Microsoft to appeal has passed….
By Anonymous (IP: —.dsl.wacotx.swbell.net) – Posted on 2004-03-15 06:42:22
I never knew the EU could assess fines to corporations let alone U.S. corporations.
By Harky (IP: —.snclavalin.com) – Posted on 2004-03-15 13:11:30
… an anti-american thingy to me than anything else. Sad.
before anyone more jumps to the “its an anti-american thing” wagon and make this thread a diatribe of US vs EU, just let me state that who is suing Microsoft is not the European Union, but the European Commission. Its not a body elected by europeans but a regulator of the EU market and EU Parliement’s draft law makers that is elected by eurodeputys and member states.
European Commission acts on a sense of own investigations, to settle disputes or when called by allegations of competitors.
European Commission Vs Microsoft was started after complaints had been been filed by Real Networks and Apple on antitrust procedures by the Microsoft on the EU market. Off course European Commission investigators norrowred their search and analised every detail of Microsoft bussiness focussing speacially on the multimedia area, since those were the initial allegations.
So we have here, US based companys using all their legal instrumments to sue another American Company and all operating in european soil.
Thats what democracy and fair market should be.
With a lil of patriotism it is easy to say “the EU is at fault” is this situation -for some- but actually it is MS who started this, see my explanation above.
It depends on how you look at the whole thing. I, personally, find it reprehensible (and this falls to the US as well as the EU) that a corporation can be found guilty of abusing a monopoly status when the only time monopoly status is determined is in the same case in which they’re found guilty of that abuse. It requires corporations to take action to identify themselves as monopolies before they come into a position of taking advantage of that power. Additionally, taking steps to prevent abuse of a monopoly position before being judged a monopoly still does not prevent an eventual court case for alleged abuse.
And yeah, from MS point of view, in some countries you get lucky with the courts while in others you get bad lucky. The question i’ll ask later when this is all far done is who was more out of line the US court or the EU court…
The US court was so far out of line that the appeals court destroyed the case for the DoJ and reprimanded the judge in the original case (and took the case away from him). It remains to be seen what will happen in the EU when it comes time for an appeal. I would say that assessing fines based on the total value of a company rather than on it’s regional sales is out of line, but I’m sure the EU feels perfectly justified in it’s ability to assess a fine in excess of 1/3 of the total sales of Microsoft software in the EU. A fine like that would come close to making it worth cutting off the market when it comes in combination with further penalties.
The US court was so far out of line that the appeals court destroyed the case for the DoJ and reprimanded the judge in the original case (and took the case away from him)
Not really. They upheld decisions on some matters while they threw out others. The only reason they reprimanded the judge was because he made comments about the case to the media, which he was not supposed to do.
See they see the truth, in the U.S. it seems that the more money you have, the more you can get away with.
1) The EU is not ‘a country’, it is 15 countries, soon to be 25, and therefore potentially very powerful. It is by far the largest economic area in the world.
2) The EU is not ‘an alliance’ it is much more than that. It is what you could call a ‘Confederation’, with its governig bodies and sets of laws which are binding for every member State.
3) The European Commission is one of the three governing bodies, the other ones being the Council of Prime Ministers and Heads of State and the European Parliament. Whilst it is true that it is not directly elected, it must have the approval of every member State plus the European Parliament.
4) I don’t believe Microsoft can appeal anywhere what the European Commission decides, with the possible exception of the European Court of Justice (there are limits on who can appeal and for what reason)
I hope that this clarifies how the matter is quite serious.
Personally I have a huge respect for Prof. Romano Prodi, President of the Commission.
If the E.U. jurisprudents wants to fine Microsoft for 1B dollars, then clearly the E.U. jurisprudents have found a way to take money from the U.S. through its corporations. The E.U. could win because many people have showed hate for Microsoft. I don’t hate Microsoft. If you are in the U.S., I don’t think you should hate Microsoft either once you realize that it is one billion dollars of money taken away from the U.S.
I for one won’t be sorry to see Microsoft go down the crapper if it gets sued and its business destroyed.
The company has a case history of destroying economic opportunity for a large number of smaller companies that have been casualties of its unethical and illegal business activities.
In the spirit of capitalism, it is sad when a company’s executives don’t get the marketplace and the company folds. But increasingly in the US companies fold over lawsuits, and consumers never see those products because in the US patents and copyright laws are WAY out of control.
Microsoft has a legal history, case history which clearly shows it has adopted a policy of seek and destroy through any means any company it views as a threat.
People do not realize that all truly innovative ideas come from individuals, and most individuals of the kind usually start there own companies.
For a wide variety of reasons, it is increasingly IMPOSSIBLE to raise any startup cash in the US softare industry because it is too risky to invest in an idea Microsoft might find it wants for itself.
Consumer BE DAMNED.
The software and I.T. market place in the US is pretty much deader than a door nail at the moment with half baked software products such as Windows XP Home and Windows 2003 server standard edition. Two pieces of crap software I increasingly find as I deploy for some of my naive customers, ridden with security bugs so bad they might as well post a splash image when the damn thing boots up…
WINDOWS 2003 Server Standard Edition….
CRACK ME ITS FUN!!!
Most foriegn companies adopt a new methodology or new technology angle to compete with its peers in a market place.
Increasingly in the US, companies use and waste billions of shareholders dollars to wage legal wars in the courts to “innovate”.
I for one am sick of it. Microsoft’s disinformation campaign with respect to SCO is stunning and the news services are eating it up alive.
Microsoft must think the world is largely populated by idiots, and I don’t blame them with trasnscripts I have been reading off of Groklaw of the Recent McBride interview with Dan Farber.
I for one will be glad to see the EU cash in on a nice big hefty fine.
But I think it should be 100 Billion, not 1 Billion.
-gc
1) The EU is not ‘a country’, it is 15 countries, soon to be 25, and therefore potentially very powerful. It is by far the largest economic area in the world.
Actually, in some cases, there is less regional autonomy than there is in early United State (*after* the Articles of COnfederacy). In big, main difference between EU and USA is that in EU, soveignity remains in its states, while in the US, soveignity is in the federal government. Yeap, that’s the main difference, which contributes to other minor difference.
But I don’t see how this matters at all (besides the fact that your post along with mine goes against the new rules). EC is fining Microsoft much more than they would consider a European company doing the same offence. Certainly, I would do the same if I was in the decission-making body of EC – having Microsoft handicapped isn’t going to hurt Europe’s economy in a significant manner. However, that wouldn’t make me a hypocrite.
Anyway, while key posts are elected by the the European Parliament and the Council, EC is a trademark of bureaucracy gone amok. The real power within the EC lies within the bureacrats itself.
This decission by the EC shows its lack of comprehension in the market. Forcing WMP out of Windows does a lot more damage than it does good, and forcing Microsoft to bundle competing software is a tad unfair (unless you want Microsoft to bundle thousands of different competing applications instead of the key main one). If they really wanted to create a fair playing field, what they should have done is force Microsoft to, by default, hide (“deactivate” WMP.
That means, by default, users buying retail Windows XP can’t use WMP without going to Remove/Add Software and “activating” WMP. They probably do the same for all Microsoft middleware; having a rule apply on *one* middleware is pointless. Soon enough, complains on a similar vein would be made on another Microsoft middleware.
What I have no capability to comprehend is why EC wants to regulate how Windows’ server division treats its competitors – none of Microsoft server products have not come anywhere close to becoming an effective monopoly in any European market. Why force Microsoft to do something that, IMHO, increase Windows’ competitive advantage? Makes little sense to me.
P.S. By GDP alone, Europe is the biggest economy. However, by potential market, China and India leads ahead, by GDP per capita, USA, Japan, even the much hated Israel, leads EU combined. But I get your point; EU is too big a market for Microsoft to ignore.
P.S. By GDP alone, Europe is the biggest economy. However, by potential market, China and India leads ahead, by GDP per capita, USA, Japan, even the much hated Israel, leads EU combined. But I get your point; EU is too big a market for Microsoft to ignore.
I’ve made a miscalculation; in its present 15-state form, Europe indeed have a higher GDP per capita than Japan and Israel, though lower than Canada and the US. Add the extra 10 states, and the numbers are way different. Interestingly, in PPP, EU is just slightly ahead with a US$48 billion advantage; a rather tight race considering that US growth is faster than EU combined…
That “the EC is a trademark of bureaucracy gone amok’ is a prejudice created by eurosceptics, mainly British eurosceptics. Funny is that when somebody wants to give elected bodies more power, eurosceptics are dead against it. If you lived in continental Europe, as I did for most of my life, probably you wouldn’t even notice this overwhelming bureaucracy, but more an awareness of why a strong EU is a necessity.
As to WMP I must admit that I partially agree with you, but I can also see the possible thinking behind it: with multimedia becoming so important, one can’t risk yet another monopoly.
As a (Suse) linux user I can’t (officially) watch DVDs or have access to video streaming when it is in WMP format.
That “the EC is a trademark of bureaucracy gone amok’ is a prejudice created by eurosceptics, mainly British eurosceptics. Funny is that when somebody wants to give elected bodies more power, eurosceptics are dead against it. If you lived in continental Europe, as I did for most of my life, probably you wouldn’t even notice this overwhelming bureaucracy, but more an awareness of why a strong EU is a necessity.
Actually, I’m a Malaysian, and much rather be living in Italy or Spain (well, at least until last Sunday) than in Britain. And I do find most of Eurosceptism on the part by pro-independence Britons and anti-EU Americans. Just because continental Europeans don’t notice that EC is a big massive bureaucracy with little check and balances, I wouldn’t be suprised – EC by comparison with most European bureaucracies is extremely minor. (I mean, if you’re French, you’re more likely to hate French bureaucracy than EC bureaucracy).
As to WMP I must admit that I partially agree with you, but I can also see the possible thinking behind it: with multimedia becoming so important, one can’t risk yet another monopoly.
I don’t think a monopoly in this market is possible, at least in the near future. Probably WMP would start pushing out its competitors to obscurity and make WMP the standard, but if they manage to do that, they would do exactly just that regardless if WMP comes with Windows or not.
Take for example, iTMS’ success – it is the most popular and important legal online music distribution service bar none, and initially it wasn’t even available on Windows. And when it came to Windows, it came in the form of the extremely buggy, slow and oh-so-awful iTunes (Windows edition, Mac’s edition was fine) that suprisingly took off considering Napster release was around the same time period.
Now, iTunes’ dominance isn’t likely to dissapear anytime soon, and no one can safely say that iTunes would become an obscure player in the future.Probably it would, probably it won’t. Regardless, WMp being bundled in Windows wouldn’t change that.
Both Real and Quicktime, even though with significantly inferior products for Windows, maintain a respectable market share. Not because of anything, but the media that requires it. I doubt that would change anytime soon (considering that Microsoft’s chief rival is also a media tycoon).
EU has lost a big cash cow in the past year (i.e. their nice uncle in the gulf states),
so this is an attempt to regain some revenue and maintain commercial influence;
“Both Real and Quicktime, even though with significantly inferior products for Windows,”
Ahum! That’s highly subjective for one, and for second i find (=opinion) them both (although proprietary) quite nice. Plus, Quicktime codec is way better than WMV9. Any _independant_ study will show this.
“EC is fining Microsoft much more than they would consider a European company doing the same offence.”
Care to share your analysis instead of only your conclusion? Ever thought about the term “relative” applied on this situation?