Plaintiffs in private antitrust lawsuits including Sun, Netscape and Be win a point as they are told they may be able to use findings from the government’s earlier case.
Microsoft Blow in Private Antitrust Case
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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No mention is made concerning the Rice anti-organized crime laws. When is someone going to bring these into a courtroom with regards to Microsofts [long] record of illegal actions against competitors and the public at large?
Insert funky rap theme here: <Go Be Inc., go Be Inc., go!>
Wow, so you were/are a rapper, Cypress…
VMware now works with BeOS in VESA mode.
Microsoft is supported by the US government. There will be nothing that happens to them from all these pointless lawsuits.
Why waste the time and money fighting two 800000000 lb gorillas with some chipmunks?
Just for the tragic comedy of it?
Who is the #1 lobbyist in Washington for tech/internet? Microsoft of course.
So even if you have a strong legal case… and you are raising some ruckus… all you are doing is asking the government to do is to put the Wellstone team on you. Say goodbye to your life, your family, everything you hold dear.
This is the way the world works. Welcome to the unholy alliance that rules the computer world.
“Microsoft is supported by the US government. There will be nothing that happens to them from all these pointless lawsuits.”
I don’t think so. Microsoft is supported by the bush administration. You might remember that the clinton administration actually started the antitrust charges. As for nothing happening to them, i think we are talking about something different here. Breaking MS up is a far different beast from making them pay what amounts to pocket change (even a few billion fits as pocket change for MS). I’d be shocked if some or all of these companies don’t get some sort of money for damages. MS is going to have to make it hard though. Otherwise, they’ll see a lot more antitrust suits. I believe there are too many lawyers and too many lawsuits in the US but this is one instance in which i am happy about having lots of lawyers.
Does anyone know how this works? I’d imagine that this would be settled in front of a jury if it goes to court. Am i wrong? Is it true that the damages awarded at trial will be tripled because of the antitrust aspects?
what exactly would a breakup accomplish though…that bugged me from the first ruling. it wouldn’t do anything.
why can’t the government hone in on their oem contracts. that’s where they need to strike. i hope that with the beos thing they don’t miss that most important fact.
Well, thanks to their lack of any marketing skills, little, if none, business skills, absolutely no advertising skills…. they are quite good in court for a diluted company.
What exactly would ANY antitrust settlement accomplish? All three, the original Jackson’s one, the new DOJ proposed one, and the non-settling states proposal, all do nothing for the consumer. Absolutely nothing. If any consumers would benefit, it is from companies like Netscape and Sun which are a minority. Who would benefit? As I said earlier, the only people would benefit is…. well, try to guess…. didn’t get it right? Yeap, that’s right, the sourgrapes.
That’s the problem with antitrust laws. It is a sad thing that my country is adopting similar laws under pressure from US and the EU. Dang.
“Well, thanks to their lack of any marketing skills, little, if none, business skills, absolutely no advertising skills….”
Be was not that bad. Really. I encourage you to start your own start up that goes head to head up against MS and apple to see just how hard it is.
to rajan,
Antitrust laws were established to maintain competition in a market. In many tech markets, new tech often destroys monopolies but that is not the case everywhere. antitrust law in general has the consumers and country’s interests at heart. competition is good. The real issue is the application of antitrust law. The other issue is that if you do nothing to monopolies then you often let companies get away with acting like the mob and that is not a good thing.
I wonder when the EU will go after its very own anticompetitive agents like Nokia and ericsson in the wireless infrastructure market. Don’t hold the US to such high standards if the EU is not prepared to hold them up themselves.
Now that’s just sad…