On Friday, Microsoft and IBM said they had settled many of the outstanding antitrust issues between the two companies raised during the United States Department of Justice vs. Microsoft antitrust case during the mid-1990s.
On Friday, Microsoft and IBM said they had settled many of the outstanding antitrust issues between the two companies raised during the United States Department of Justice vs. Microsoft antitrust case during the mid-1990s.
never to late to pocket $775M in cash!
It is not late for OS/2. OS/2 market is alive – Look how many companies are producing commercial software for eComStation today (eComStation is the successor of IBM OS/2) — http://ecomstation.ru/solutions/?action=companies
hopefully m$ can allow a bootloader for vendors to install alternative os’s
I guess IBM won’t miss Apple huh!
….has MS paid out in all the settlements so far?.
I suspect it’s about 3Billion……
3Billion given out to help AIDS in Africa would have been more worthy.
I think that from now on ALL lawsuits must be settled by having money paid to charities.
It took 15 years to settle this. How many people here even remember the computing landscape back then? THere were more than two commercial OS’s back then.
Microsoft made BILLIONS of dollars and got fined a few hundred million. Any investor would tell you that’s a damn good investment, not a deterrent or justice.
Unless the legal system can grasp the need for swiftness in computing related matters, it can only get worse.
Will never happen. The legal System lives of wasting time. It is funny to hear some of our top QC’s (Queens Councillors in Australia) talk. Their language is obtuse and they string everything out as much as possible. Why, because they are being paid on a timed rate so they drag everything out as much as possible.
The legal system needs to get of this method of paying lawyers and onto something that is more productive. Only then when time based trials are over can we see some speedup in the legal process. Until then, it’s a timed based mugs game and the Lawyers are the only winners.
Worst case scenario, trying to buy bulk copies of Microsoft products from a Microsoft that you just won 775 million from.
Let’s see how far Microsoft has paid so far: 775 million for IBM, 750 million for AOL/Time Warner, 700 million for Sun Microsystems, 150 million for Gateway, and 536 for Novell. I know I’m missing something so far, but the total so far is only 2.911 Billion dollars
. Good question is how much did the lawyers make from this?
Now Go decides is time to stand in line for a handout
http://news.com.com/Go+files+antitrust+suit+against+Microsoft/2100-…
Do these people have no self respect?. Arrgh – I’m beginning to take pity on Microsoft
I am enraged at this whole Lawsuit concept.
This is responsible to a large extent for the loss of jobs in US. Running a business and making a profit is tight anyways and one wrong move and there goes your hard earned cash down lawyers pocket. It would certainly make sense to have to move your business where you could not have your profit swiped clean by a lawyer
Has anyone ever thought why does the lawyer need to make more money than any other professional. I personally think they use less gray matter to earn the money.
There is such a vicious loop here where a doctor tries to rob you by charging a fortune for treating you, part of the fortune pays for the insurance against the lawyer who will try to rob the doctor. And the minority who use the lawyer to make profit drive the costs of these services.
For me it is hard to comprehend how I can trust someone, if all he is trying to do is use me as money crunching machine.
And here is another thought, Engineers are not considered as Profesionals in US, the reason is they were not able to withhold their exclusivity.
While Engineers are being replaced by outsourced workers, this is not the case with lawyers, doctors or even pharmacists. Reason is plain and simple you have to pass the bar, take residency to replace a native US worker.
There are similar exams for Engineers but none of the companies cared to implement.
Sooner or later this exclusivity has to go.
Lawyers are just the ‘engineers’ of a corrupt nation and a poisoned society.
Microsoft pays out money because their business is based on stealing the intellectual property of others. Of course they have occasional pay-outs.
$3 billion dollars is 3 months of profit for Microsoft. It really is less than nothing compared to the total profit they have brought in over the time period of all the lawsuits.
The costs and fines of unethical and illegal business practices are so low in the United States that there is really no “objective consequence”. There is no deterrent to horrible behavior.
When it comes to the iron law of wages, no one will be immune. Wherever there is an ’employee’ making more than subsistence level money, the system will be changed to take more and more from this person. Only the wolves on the top will propser.
Everything has cycles. The United States has had its upcycle. Now it is beginning its downcycle. The later and quicker you industrialize, the faster the cycle time and the bigger the peaks and valleys. India and China will have glorious peaks, reached very soon, and then be burned out wreckage for a long long time.
Microsoft is only as strong as the dollars you give it.
What? Can’t live without Office?
B.S.! I have been using alternatives and doing better, think more independantly and been more secure with my files for several years now. I use open file formats at all times, lest they disappear in the next “revision”.
Microsoft = Stockholm Syndrome.
The sooner you dump them the sooner the healing can begin.
What? Your job depends on using their software? Find a new job.
I wouldn’t have become fabously wealthy if I thought like the herd.
I broke out, made my own choices and applied myself.
Beleive it or not Apple is responsible long ago for me to think about better things in life and not just accept medicore.
I would most likely ended up like a brain washed fool if I haven’t.
In other news Microsoft creates zombie dogs to eat small children of those who oppose their evil empire.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html
I’m just having too much fun
Unless the legal system can grasp the need for swiftness in computing related matters, it can only get worse.
The solution is obvious: allow all software patents. They’ll be valid for three months.
I agree
like you have the brainpower to use an alt OS.
Did you think we wouldn’t spot the I.P.’s match?
I think that from now on ALL lawsuits must be settled by having money paid to charities.
You’re under 25, right? :/
Let’s see how far Microsoft has paid so far: 775 million for IBM, 750 million for AOL/Time Warner, 700 million for Sun Microsystems, 150 million for Gateway, and 536 for Novell. I know I’m missing something so far, but the total so far is only 2.911 Billion dollars
. Good question is how much did the lawyers make from this?
…and Apple ($120m?), and Stac Electronics ($40m in 1994), … and, who else are we missing? Oh, the states… $240m last year to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by Minnesota computer users who claimed the software company overcharged them. I think a few other states cashed in also instead of persuing anti-trust lawsuits…say 1/2 a billion minimum. Looks like around 4 billion, though I’d like to see someone do a better break out.
I’m sure it has been worth every penny to Microsoft to continue the practices they have based the company on for the last 30 years.
When one company sues another company, that makes me a Sad Panda.
like you have the brainpower to use an alt OS.
Did you think we wouldn’t spot the I.P.’s match?
I agree.
like you have the brainpower to use an alt OS.
Did you think we wouldn’t spot the I.P.’s match?
I agree
I don’t agree.
This is all very sick, absolutely! No objective consequence for one’s criminal actions, as Goldstein said. The laws are simply made in favour of crooks.
Oh, if most people could wake up and see how others deal their fate, how most people are just thrown trifles and cheap thrills to waste their lives away…
Great point about cycles, too! Made me think…