The European Commission has reportedly reached a decision that Microsoft broke anticompetitive law and will face stiff fines, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. Microsoft would not comment on the report but maintained that negotiations with the European Commission are still ongoing.
European Commission Reaches Decision To Fine Microsoft
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Since the US government is too afraid to punish Microsoft, even though our courts found them guilty, I’m glad that the EC isn’t willing to back down. Microsoft has caused irreparable damage to the software industry — marginalizing entire genres of promising software by leveraging their Windows monopoly. Without Microsoft using Windows/Office profits to subsidize losing products, there would be healthy competition in the software industry, instead of the current sick monoculture.
Name one other major industry that has only one competitive product in multiple sub-markets. I mean, its not like Chrysler buyers are fringe elements of the population because they didn’t buy a Ford!
Competition is healthy. It has done great things for the hardware industry, for example. After AMD became competitive with Intel, performance sky-rocketed and prices plummeted. In the video card market, weak competitors like 3dfx were killed off, and the intense rivalry between ATI and NVIDIA allows for continually improving graphics cards. Even mighty Adobe has to face competition — Apple’s aggressive pricing for Final Cut is eating into Premiere’s market. At the same time, Adobe products like Indesign are putting pressure on Quark Xpress. Maya and SoftImage, despite their maturity, continue to improve with every release. Does anybody seriously see this level of growth and improvement in Office XP?
But fining Microsoft is nothing but a silly little punishment.
Quite frankly, those of you who are all for punishing Microsoft really have no clue at all. The fine alone will not change anything, it does NOTHING to remedy the situation, which is why this is NOT a good thing.
Fining Microsoft is only good for the EC (they get more money).
Ever wonder why the American prison system is so full, and why our crime rate is so high? It is because a mere punishment does not do anything to anyone over the age of 5. If you do not fix the situation, then it will continue to come back, probably even worse, in the future.
>”Microsoft is irrelevant, regardless, and their business is dying.”
Yea, right.
Um, the quote is attributed not to an “expert” but to an OpenOffice developer. Its PR — not really different from Microsoft saying “Linux is no threat to our business.”
And while its a huge strech to say Microsoft is dying (Microsoft probably won’t die, just become less dominant over time) its not a strech to say that they are becoming more irrelevent over time. This view is certainly more believable in Europe, where Microsoft’s dominance is becoming less iron-clad. Consider the Munich agreement, among other events.
Smart Tags alone made OfficeXP worth the money, to me.
The punishment is not an free ticket for Microsoft to continue the way they do business now. The punishment is one thing, but they still need to fix the problem. If they do not fix the problem, the EU may again punish them.
I personaly am happy that the EU is taking steps agains Microsoft. And since the fine can be up to 10% of the total worldwide turnover of the previous year, the fine can go up to the maximum of $3’500’000’000.
I see only US IPs. EC’s Competition DG has to start first with european violators (Deutsche Telekom, etc) and then to make PR stuff like fining MS…………
“In the video card market, weak competitors like 3dfx were killed off, and the intense rivalry between ATI and NVIDIA allows for continually improving graphics cards.”
No, nvidia bought 3dfx out, it didn’t die because simply because their cards were weaker, at that time ATI cards were even crapier than 3dfx ones. It’s exactly the same as microsoft buying some else for technology (inovation), in nvidias case they wanted gigapixel technology (wich 3dfx had also bough somewere else) and you can expect this technology on the next generation of geforce cards.
Just so you know, I am an american but I also detest the scourge that is MS. The Democratic party found MS guilty of being a monopoly but Bush came to power before a remedy could be worked out. You can be certain that if the Democrats win in November MS will not have as easy a time as they have been having with the Republicans.
So what if Microsoft pays the fine? 3.5B is not a small amount. Who suffers? not Microsoft crap rolls down hill. How many jobs will be lost worldwide becasue of this?
The EU has more important things to worry about then fineing Microsft. 3.5B doesn’t go far to shore up the social welfare mess that they have on there hands. I mean telling your populous to have more children so as to have enough tax payers in the future to pay for the current generations social welfare?
De-valueing the Dollar was the best thing that could happen. Makes european products and travel to the area as in tourism very expensive. Word of warning to the EU..don’t mess with the largest consumer nation in the world.
Ever wonder why the American prison system is so full, and why our crime rate is so high? It is because a mere punishment does not do anything to anyone over the age of 5. If you do not fix the situation, then it will continue to come back, probably even worse, in the future.
The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border. People have differencs based on this fact and act upon it. This is the biggest point about the US that most Europeans miss due to the fact that they live in little mono-cultures.
Thats changing of course immigrants are flooding in and Europeans are having a tough time of it. Ask any german what he or she thinks of Turks if you doubt me. Europes time will come rest assured.
I am living in Switzerland (I am originaly from an diffrend country then Switzerland) and we have in Switzerland, 4 diffrend national languages and as well manny diffrend cultures. We have about 18% to 19% foreigners in Switzerland. And our crime rate is not so high like in America.
I personlay find it very stupid to use the foreigners as an excuse for high criminal rate.
Anyway… it is better to stick to the original topic and not turn this discussion into an political discussion.
“You can be certain that if the Democrats win in November MS will not have as easy a time as they have been having with the Republicans.”
This is the issue that I have repeatedly asked myself time and time again. Is the lack of a Microsoft punishment the product of the Republican party being pro Microsoft to the point of being unreasonable, or is it a case of George Bush being pro Microsoft to the point of being unreasonable? If the former is true, then what makes democrats so imune to to this Microsoft favoritism?
I tend to believe that US judicial system under Clinton’s rule saw an obvious illegal monopolist and acted on it accordinly. Bush was a contendor that needed to get into office and was willing to make some sacrificies (competative market in computers) to achieve that goal and so he was willing to make promises in exchange for camaign contributions.
Now that the presidential nomination has come up again, any new candidate can be bought out the same way that Bush was. From this point forward, no candidate or political pary is immune to being pught out per se. The judgement and penalty needed to be handed over by the same presidential staff which brought about the initial legal matter for the case to be handled fairly.
From this point forward, the only way justice will occur is not buy voting liberal rather than conservative (as a liberal can be bought just like a conservative) but rather, to simply vote for the individual that you believe has your best interests at heart.
I am a die hard conservative, and yet had a strong inclination to vote liberal for the first time in my life for the same reasons you eluded to in your post, but then I came to the conclusions I expressed (above) and realized we can’t do anything more than simply vote for the best person whom we feel will act in the public’s best interests.
Because Bush already showed his cards, we already know where he stands. So that may mean the only alternative (for an a conservate republican looking for operating system justice) is to find a very conservate democrat that you believe will look out for your interests as far as operating systems, computers and technology are concerned.
“How many jobs will be lost worldwide becasue of this?”
Not as many as will be created by it. You’re failing to realize that their actions will be the beginning of fuel fair competition… competition creates business and business creates jobs.
Considering the fact that computing technology is one of the primary areas for jobs, you might say that bring Microsoft down ought to be at the forfront of our goals to bring UP the job market.
I agree that microsoft should pay, but the whole thing just stinks if microsoft is the only one forced to pay. For example i can’t buy any electronics hardware from amazon.co.uk, if i wanted to buy a cell phone or an ipod i couldn’t because they don’t ship it outside of the UK. Since i also live in the EU this is a clear violation of the EU free trade laws and yet they do nothing. I could also mention all the “little” telecom monopolies all over europe but then again they’re european monopolies so why go after them.
You discussed the points pretty well. None of us know exactly why the Justice Dept. switched directions when Bush took office. Hopefully, the next Democratic president will look not just at the U.S. but the world when he decides what to do about the microsoft monopoly.
I thought that munich deal had some problems? They tried to extort money from M$ saying give us cheaper prices or we’ll switch to linux, well they switched and now they’re stuck with retraining. They obviously hoped M$ would cut a deal cause they were not ready for this move. (sorry I don’t remember where I saw the article)
And to the person who thinks attacking M$ is only a leftwing crusade think again. Politicians will do and say whatever they’re payed to do reguardless of party. Canidate Edwards for instance made his career with frivolous lawsuits and has boosted insurance a 400% in his home state and affecting 19 others. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/copland200401260836.asp
they are all crooks, sorry.
btw isn’t bill gates to be knighted by the queen soon?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=4057742&p1=0
Clinton appointed nearly HALF of ALL federal judges now serving! and these guys keep thier job for life. But you want to blame Bush? why? he didn’t apoint half of our country with judgeships… uhhh hello, Those great judges are still there.
This has nothing to do with Bush.
but the whole thing just stinks if microsoft is the only one forced to pay.
Volkswagen once was fined a couple of years back, when they told their Italian shops not to sell cars to Austrian or German customers.
f i wanted to buy a cell phone or an ipod i couldn’t because they don’t ship it outside of the UK
That’s not a problem unless they prohibit others to ship outside the country.
If they just don’t do it themself, it’s their joice.
> I see only US IPs. EC’s Competition DG has to start first
> with european violators (Deutsche Telekom, etc) and then to
> make PR stuff like fining MS…………
>
The EU has e.g. fined european pharma companies such as bayer a lot for forming a cartel. So it is not true that they only go after american companies. This is one of the few good things I have to say about the EU.
I hope the EU sticks to money as a fine. Gotta love it when a “fine” encompases giving away PCs loaded with the software at issue in the suit. I’m sure MS will attempt to negotiate along those lines to lower the $ impact on their wallet.
If the EU gives in on this, then they should require anything less than cash to be installed with Linux and not Windows. It would be more fitting.
“This has nothing to do with Bush.”
Maybe or maybe not, regardless of who picked the judges, because Clinton also picked Janet Reno who DID go after MS, while Ashcroft does not.
So tiring. Complete crap. The EU battling monopolies, eh? Pure money-grubbing and very easy to understand.
If the EU were against monopolies they’d put more interest in breaking up the huge state-controlled telecoms in Europe. Or how about the support for Airbus, eh? How does a monopolistic consortium fit into their anti-monopoly platform? The EU is no more and no less a joke than the US government on trade policies. Bah, pure grandstanding and money-grubbing.
But the responses to these articles are always humorous. Europeans have this delusional geek group that sees Linux taking over the world. Very funny. Sorta like watching Yassir Arafat – as long as you don’t take them seriously.
“weak competitors like 3dfx were killed off, and the intense rivalry between ATI and NVIDIA”
I wouldn’t excatly call 3dfx weak!.. They dominated the 3d scene for quite some time! The only weak thing was bad choice of investment. They simply ran out of money. ATI was the weak one, but they got af nice opportunity when 3dfx left the scene. And they have had a lot of luck since then. f.x. directx 9,0nvidia made a bad choice), R300 came to the market along time before nvidia’s NV30(nvidia made a bad choice).
The Munich/Linux project is pretty much dead.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34891.html
…would be to make them open Office file formats. It actually won’t hurt them THAT much — MS Office will certainly remain competitive feature- and usability-wise for quite some time in the future, even if formats are not the issue anymore… VBA alone is a huge advantage.
As for the fine, with 50 billion in cash any possible fine will be no more than a slap on the wrist.
i am happy to see that the EU will alledgely fine MS but i am skeptical that the EU will stick to their guns. I could be wrong. I hope i am wrong but big money has a loud voice and the EU’s leadership is every bit under the influence of corporations as their US counterparts.
MS is a beast. MS has abused its monopoly condition. I like the idea of fines in the short term but that is no solution in the long term.
The best ways to diminish the impact of MS are as follows
1) government (federal, municipal, education) contracts to non-MS vendors. Just imagine if more governments used linux or apple you’d see a lot more applications and support for those (though apple really has a quite a bit already)
2) change the paradigm of computing. i’d argue that 80% of all PC users will need no more horse power than will be available in PDA’s and cell phones in a few years. All you need is an out to a screen and voila…an ms-free experience. Palm and symbian might be the biggest threats to MS in a few years.
3) open source. Since it lacks infrastructure which can be attacked it is difficult for MS to destroy. MS’ evidently knows this and so we have the sco nonesense.
“If the EU were against monopolies they’d put more interest in breaking up the huge state-controlled telecoms in Europe. Or how about the support for Airbus, eh? How does a monopolistic consortium fit into their anti-monopoly platform? The EU is no more and no less a joke than the US government on trade policies. Bah, pure grandstanding and money-grubbing.”
by state controlled telecoms i assume you are talking about both the service provides (ie: france telecom) and the equipment vendors (ericsson, nokia, siemens, alcatel).
Well truth of the matter is your point is correct. The EU is simultaneously protecting monopolistic consoritiums and just plain old monopolists and fighting MS. But would it be better for them to ignore the harm MS has done?
“So what if Microsoft pays the fine? 3.5B is not a small amount. Who suffers? not Microsoft crap rolls down hill. How many jobs will be lost worldwide becasue of this?
The EU has more important things to worry about then fineing Microsft. 3.5B doesn’t go far to shore up the social welfare mess that they have on there hands. I mean telling your populous to have more children so as to have enough tax payers in the future to pay for the current generations social welfare?”
Wait. You were one of those who said the same in cases like Enron and Parmalat, right?
The “social welfare mess” is not correlated with this subject at all. Actually, it tends most Europeans want such a system as they vote for policians who are pro-social welfare. If you do not agree you can do about as much as i don’t agree with your illegal activities in countries like Iraq.
2 other points: 1) seeing Europe’s social welfare as one and the same thing is stupid. It is the same like saying there’s justice in the states thus concluding all laws in the states are exactly the same; untrue, it varies. That does matter, yes. 2) in times of economic recession, the social walfare system is one of those few working things which are hit by it by the government. This is at least the case is the Netherlands in various aspects, in England (okay, the school system for now. Tony got his votes), Germany iirc too. For the rest i can’t comment.
“De-valueing the Dollar was the best thing that could happen. Makes european products and travel to the area as in tourism very expensive. Word of warning to the EU..don’t mess with the largest consumer nation in the world.”
Blabla. That’s what i hear on commercial TV every DAY. Truth is, that there is a light side too. The other edge of the blade. Products coming FROM the USA are cheaper. Not only common people from the whole world can benifit from the economic situation of the dollar, corporations can do so too.
What your comment: “Word of warning to the EU..don’t mess with the largest consumer nation in the world.” has to do with the low dollar, i don’t understand.
“The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border. People have differencs based on this fact and act upon it. This is the biggest point about the US that most Europeans miss due to the fact that they live in little mono-cultures.”
Heh. I’m from the Netherlands, and i’m quite sure we are not living in a mono-culture. We have here cultures from our ex-colonies (Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, Netherlands Indie/Indonesian), Maroc, Turkey, Poland and also is less extent Kurds, Iraqi, Joegoslavians, Chinese, South Africa (also ex-colony). This is becausew in the 60’s and 70’s we had more jobs than workers and so we needed more people here to work (the opposite is currently true, like in the 80’s). About 10% of our population is “foreigners”. But here’s the lil’ secret you don’t know: there isn’t a mono-culture either in at least Germany, France, Spain thoygh i don’t know exact numbers. Those are the ones i can name foreigners from, there’s probably even more.
“Thats changing of course immigrants are flooding in and Europeans are having a tough time of it. Ask any german what he or she thinks of Turks if you doubt me. Europes time will come rest assured.”
Unfortunately for your argument, immigration in the Netherlands has _LOWERED_ the past 2 years. It has increased a bit in Germany though. However there is also hard limits for this, which are currently discussed, and economic foreigners are unfortunately for them kicked out when noticed.
Ofcourse it is impossible to sue Microsoft and solve the immigration “problem” at the same time! *rolleye*.
All above information can be obtained from Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute http://www.nidi.nl/public/nidi4000.html i’m searching for EU (!= Europe) sources though.
You’re talking offtopic crap and it is all too easy to blame some minority for a bad economy. You state no proof to back up your argument either. Wuzz.
The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border. People have differencs based on this fact and act upon it. This is the biggest point about the US that most Europeans miss due to the fact that they live in little mono-cultures.
hahahahah, that’s funny…
Ahem, Canada, you can blame your countries crime rate on many things, but Canada has roughly the same immigrant makeup at the US, and our violent crime rate is substantially lower.
@ Ryan: Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel, Ericsson et al are state controlled? This is news for me. As for France Telecom, I believe you don’t live in France. France Telecom isn’t a monopoly anymore. Even in my lost region you can chose between 3 operators. Yet France Telecom is still the dominant (and much watched).
The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border. People have differencs based on this fact and act upon it. This is the biggest point about the US that most Europeans miss due to the fact that they live in little mono-cultures.
We don’t seem to have that problem here in Australia (although it’s getting worse – largely IMHO due to the influence of American culture).
The US has such a problem with crime because it has a violent, competitive, divisive, screw-everyone-else-as-long-as-I’m-ok-Jack culture. Being a few short steps away from Christian fundamentalism doesn’t help much either. Not to mention being poor in the US puts somone in a much worse situation than being poor in most other developed countries. I won’t even try to go into the average American’s fascination with guns.
There are plenty of examples of countries with as much of a multicultural melting pot as the US – but none of them seem to have quite the same problems with crime.
nokia, siemens, ericsson and alcatel are all benefactors of protectionist policies and please don’t give me the speech about how europe needed one standard and it was just a coincidence that the standard they choose (twice (gsm and umts)) was full of patents going to european companies or that europe only keeps out “other” standards due to concerns over roaming. I’ve heard and its just not complete. I’ll add that the same thing holds true for all aspects of telecom and broadcast.
France telecom was a monopolist and is still protected as are many other former monopolists in europe.
Europe is wed to its corporations every bit as much as america is – though europe is kinder to its workers. Both powers (and for that matter every industrialized nation) protect their own companies in their own ways via direct subsidies tax breaks through gigantic defense contracts or defining standards to keep competition out. That is a fact. Europe does bad. America does bad. Japan does Bad. China does bad. I can’t help that. what i can do is admit when the nation where i live (the us) is in the wrong and try to change it.
the problem is that people (in every nation) become polarized into believing that they can not do wrong. Well Europe does wrong (as does america) but addressing the MS problem is still right. So there now i’ll be hated by americans and europeans and probably a few japanese.
“The US has such a problem with crime because it has a violent, competitive, divisive, screw-everyone-else-as-long-as-I’m-ok-Jack culture. Being a few short steps away from Christian fundamentalism doesn’t help much either. Not to mention being poor in the US puts somone in a much worse situation than being poor in most other developed countries. I won’t even try to go into the average American’s fascination with guns.
Every word feels right on to me. As a citizen of the USA, I think these observations are correct and accurate. In the USA, there are many rights that are slowly being eroded away by corporate control and bad government, but you try to touch that gun thing (the “right to bear arms”) and people go crazy. When that right was fashioned, guns didn’t spit thousands of slugs per second and reloading didn’t amount to “drop clip on floor, mash in another clip.”
Back on topic… I agree that whatever the EC does to Microsoft, it wont be nearly enough. However, if it’s a choice between fining them 3 billion (real money, not software “donations”) or doing nothing, I’d like to see them fined. It’s better than what the USA DOJ did (I attribute the failure of that process to a judge who should have been more professional and a president I didn’t vote for).
Now for that Knighthood thing…. [rolls eyes so far back it hurts]
A decision of the kind also has repercussion on the public (including other corporates) perception of what MS does. It will probably act as further encouragement for competitors not to bend under MS pressures.
“The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border.”
Dosent really seem that rampant up here in Canada
Anyways…
Im rather surprised that the EU stood up and sued MS. I was under the impression that they were afraid of a backlash from the US govt.
I think you’re being a bit hard on Smartpatrol. I actually think it is much easier to govern a country where there is an overwhelming percentage of people of the same ethnic, national and and social backgrounds. Sweden, Holland, etc. can get away with alot of laws because their population overwhelmingly has the same concerns.
America (North and South), from top to bottom has a different feel than Europe (and I’m sure we can all attest to that) and Places like Mexico (where I currently am), Brazil, Venezuela and, yes, the U.S. DO feel much more dangerous than Europe. Much more wild and lest civilized.
Both here and there are appreciable, neither is better.
So, let’s all make fun of Americans as selfish murderers, Mexicans as lazy leeches, Italians as slimy greaseballs, the Franch for stinky pits, the English for…oh, wait, let’s not…
Let’s talk about…the EU’s decision to fine MS.
I am for enforcement of MS-monopoly measures, but I really don’t think a fine will do the trick. It will take active enforcement worldwide. But aren’t software patents going to come into effect in the EU? Would be a huge step towards complete monopoly for MS if they use patents as I think they will…
huh? What you are seeing is another form of competition. In this case it is between states ( the EU and the US). You’ll also see japan/china/south korea jumping into the picture once they promote their own open source system.
Now that said. I beleive in keeping gov. involvement to minimum when possible. Gov’s always screw up. So again the best way to defeat MS is to let the market do it, though a few fines are still fine by me.
There are many companies that want a piece of the MS market or who just want to see MS have less influence. They are banding together (novell, ibm, redhat as an example). The market will solve MS. Technology moves very quickly.
Why are individuals, groups, entire governments switching to alternative softwares?
Why don’t people find there own facts instead of allowing themselves to be brainwashed?
Your word for today my son is PROPAGANDA
@Bitterman – From what I remember, Microsoft actually offered Munich a very sweet deal, but Munich went with Linux even though the near-term cost was going to be higher overall. I think their reasoning is that it is going to be cheaper, in the long run, to eat this cost now than stay on the Microsoft train for longer.
@Sam – The link you posted is a short blurb indicating that they are suffering from implementation delays and resistance from some parties, which is not surprising given the sheer scope of the project. I don’t see “dead in the water” or anything that could be interpreted that way. There is a more detailed Hiese.de article on the subject:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-09.01.04-000/
About 3dfx — I followed the video-card market quite closely, and 3dfx deserved to die. When the Voodoo2 was released, it was outdated within months. It was very fast, but it was missing key features like 32-bit color, support for high resolutions, antistropic filtering, etc. The Riva TNT was faster than a single Voodoo 2, and being a single-card solution, was cheaper overall. The Voodoo 3 was just a rehash of the Voodoo 2, and lost in features *and* performance to the Riva TNT2. The Voodoo 5 was another rehash of the Voodoo 2, and it was a relic in comparison to the new NVIDIA GeForce, which featured hardware T&L, advanced shading features, fast multitexturing, etc. 3dfx also stuck with Glide for far too long, and dragged their feet with Direct3D and OpenGL drivers. Meanwhile, NVIDIA supported the latest Direct3D features in every release of their drivers, and had the first professional quality OpenGL ICDs in the consumer market.
The thing to note here is that NVIDIA was not a behemoth when it was competing with 3dfx. It was a relatively obscure company, and the Riva 128 was their first moderately sucessful product. However, the videocard market moved so fast that they were able to overtake 3dfx within a few product cycles.
As for why ATI survived and 3dfx didn’t, its a matter of their respective markets. 3dfx competed in the premium add-in card market. If you were an enthusiast gamer, we went out and added a 3dfx card to your system. Only enthusiast systems actually came with a 3dfx card. Meanwhile, ATI never competed in that market. They had extensive bundling agreements with desktop and laptop manufacturers, and provided integrated graphics chips for motherboards. So when NVIDIA started beating 3dfx’s cards in performance, 3dfx lost *all* of its market. Who would go add in a 3dfx card when the NVIDIA that already came in your machine was faster? The fact that Direct3D took over the games market, rendering Glide irrelevent, just cemented the deal. Meanwhile, ATI’s market never depended on having the fastest parts, but on providing a good value proposition for mainstream and low-end systems. The competition between ATI and NVIDIA didn’t really start heating up until NVIDIA started releasing more low-end/mainstream cards, and until ATI started releasing performance parts.
Now, NVIDIA is hardly invulnerable. NVIDIA stumbled for *one* product cycle (with the first GeForce FX cards) which was enough for ATI’s Radeon 9×00-series cards to gain significant mindshare in the high-end market. That’s how a competitive industry is supposed to work.
Honestly, the EU, and for that matter the US, should really stop all this wrist slapping, and really do something that will make MS sit up and take notice. I hear MS has something like 40 billion in the bank. Why not just freeze that until MS PROVES its going to play nice. I mean, the US invaded a country for no real reason, what is the difference here?
” Microsoft is irrelevant, regardless, and their business is dying.”
I think he’s trolling. MS will be around for a long time. And don’t forget Longhorn. However, a business model built on only selling closed source general software will not survive in the long run.
“I know of no other industry where we punish manufacturers for improving their products.”
Innovation, improvement, etc. It’s all convenient words and instructed speech. We’ve heard this over and over. I actually think those phrases are being used as a smoke screen. To confuse the listener. Because those are exactly the phrases that would be used against a monopoly. That a monopoly inhibits innovation, etc.
Capitalism is based on competition doing the price and quality controls. Communism is based on a body doing the price and quality controls. Ergo, is this situation communism within capitalism?
The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border.
Excuse me, but why the heck wasn’t this blatantly racist comment not moderated? Minorities cause crime? That’s a load of bullcrap.
This is the biggest point about the US that most Europeans miss due to the fact that they live in little mono-cultures.
More BS. France is the birthplace of multiculturalism – heck, if you were to look at the genetic make-up of the typical french you’d probably find everything from scandinavian to middle-eastern. And we’re not even talking about a single country here, but about Europe – this in itself is a varied collection of cultures, from Anglo-Saxon to Gallic to Latin to Iberic to Germanic to Hellenic…
This is a completely distorted view of reality. The irony is that this post is probably going to be the one that’s moderated down…
Okay, I’ll add an on-topic comment: I guess it shows that the EU is more interested in a “multi-cultural” IT environment, while the US has seemingly chose the path to Monoculture…
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
The Munich/Linux project is pretty much dead.
Nice spin. It’s having some difficulties, but it’s far from dead.
Excuse me, but why the heck wasn’t this blatantly racist comment not moderated? Minorities cause crime? That’s a load of bullcrap.
That’s a pretty creative interpretation – he didn’t say anything like that.
How can you call that sentence “blatantly racist” when it doesn’t identify any specific races whatsoever ? What he’s saying is when you have a wide mix of cultures, they might not all see eye to eye.
“We don’t seem to have that problem here in Australia (although it’s getting worse – largely IMHO due to the influence of American culture).
The US has such a problem with crime because it has a violent, competitive, divisive, screw-everyone-else-as-long-as-I’m-ok-Jack culture. Being a few short steps away from Christian fundamentalism doesn’t help much either. Not to mention being poor in the US puts somone in a much worse situation than being poor in most other developed countries. I won’t even try to go into the average American’s fascination with guns.”
This is really what most of this MS bashing is really about, hatred of the US. I am willing to bet that most of the non-North Americans posting here have never even been to the US. All you know of this country is what you see on your televisions.
I’m sorry, but he definitely said that America’s high crime rate was due to there being a large mix of cultures. Isn’t that tantamount to blaming ethnic groups for it?
If that’s not what he meant, then he should choose his words more carefully. Not all racist attitudes are clearly spelled out as such, nor do they have to specifically mention race – after all, political correctness has caused many a bigot to temper their accusations.
Okay, perhaps the words “blatantly racist” were too strong. How about “obviously xenophobic”?
This is really what most of this MS bashing is really about, hatred of the US. I am willing to bet that most of the non-North Americans posting here have never even been to the US. All you know of this country is what you see on your televisions.
Actually, I’ve been to the U.S. many, many times, and that criticism was dead-on. In fact, you’ll find that a lot of americans agree with this – including the majority of americans who believe in some form of gun control, despite what the NRA would have everyone believe. Also, you shouldn’t silence criticism by equating it with hate – the two are quite different.
I greatly appreciate many aspects of the U.S., and most americans I’ve met were decent, friendly people. But there are some profound social problems, and some of it do indeed stem from an attitude that is often perceived in the rest of the world as “shoot first, ask questions later.”
Clinton appointed nearly HALF of ALL federal judges now serving! and these guys keep thier job for life. But you want to blame Bush? why? he didn’t apoint half of our country with judgeships… uhhh hello, Those great judges are still there.
This has nothing to do with Bush.
Bush however was the one that told Ashcroft and Co to back off, so Bush did have something to do with it. The judges only do something if someone is suing someone else, Ashcroft and company just settled instead of a break-up of the company which is really the only way level the playing field because the monopoly is still going to try and sieze power however they can.
I’m sorry, but he definitely said that America’s high crime rate was due to there being a large mix of cultures. Isn’t that tantamount to blaming ethnic groups for it?
If that’s how you interpreted it then I sincerely doubt there’s anything I can say that will change your mind. *I* interpreted it as simply an observation that different cultures are going to clash with each other.
Not all racist attitudes are clearly spelled out as such, nor do they have to specifically mention race – after all, political correctness has caused many a bigot to temper their accusations.
Not to mention resulted in lots of people reading racist overtones into just about anything that isn’t pro-minority-power.
I bet you don’t laugh at Irish jokes, do you ?
How about “obviously xenophobic”?
Not even that. As I said, I interpreted as an observation, not a cause-and-effect assertion. There isn’t anywhere that is outwardly multicultural – ie: makes little effort to integrate foreign cultures – that doesn’t have *some* problems with it.
People with different backgrounds are different. They don’t always agree on everything. They have different values. Some cultures are more (or less) disposed to violence (amongst other differences) than others. That’s life, deal with it.
This is really what most of this MS bashing is really about, hatred of the US.
Gotta love it. One day I get called a Microsoft zealot, the next a Microsoft basher. Every day’s an adventure when you’re pragmatic.
I am willing to bet that most of the non-North Americans posting here have never even been to the US. All you know of this country is what you see on your televisions.
I’ve been to the US a few times and I knew quite a few American exchange students while I was at Uni. *That’s* how I’ve formed my opinion.
The US, IME, is a land of extremes. This is, I think, why it is such a conflictive society – so few USians seem to have middle of the road attitudes, or be prepared to compromise.
It’s not all bad though – far from it. Certain aspects of the Consitution, legal system and general ethos of “freedom” are admirable. Other aspects, however, like the violence, divisiveness, prudishness and “every man for himself” attitudes, would do well to be left behind. I personally find places like Australia, New Zealand and Canada to be much nicer mixes of freedom, individuality and egalitarianism.
*I* interpreted it as simply an observation that different cultures are going to clash with each other.
Well if that’s how you interpreted it then I sincerely doubt there’s anything I can say that will change your mind. 🙂
He did not simply say that people from different backgrounds will clash into each other – he said that multiculturalism was the cause for high crime in America. Read
“The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border.”
Now, I can agree that people from different cultures might clash. But “clashing” isn’t the same thing as crime. In the case of the U.S., the clashing is apparent in tense race relations. However, there is a lot of white-on-white crime, and a lot of black-on-black crime. This can hardly be blamed on culture clash. Moreover, we’re certainly not talking about race riots, which are quite rare and will not even make 1% of the crime rate in the America. Rather, the highest criminal activity in the U.S. are property crimes (shoplifting being among the highest).
So in fact there’s a lot of false assumptions here. But the intent is clearly to link multiculturalism to crime – and since the dominant ethnic group is excluded de facto from the multicultural melting pot, blaming foreigners for crime is the next logical step. Never mind that Canada is as much a multicultural country as the U.S., and yet the crime rate is much lower…
Not to mention resulted in lots of people reading racist overtones into just about anything that isn’t pro-minority-power.
Now you’re reading too much into this. Because someone points out that someone else is making a false link between multiculturalism and crime and identifying the racist attitudes of those who make such correlations, they have to be “pro-minority-power”?
In fact, I am a humanist. I do not believe in the unscientific concept that there are more than one human race.
I bet you don’t laugh at Irish jokes, do you ?
If the joke is funny, I’ll laugh. If it’s just mean, I won’t. I can laugh at jokes against my own minority, if they’re funny.
Now, let me ask you: have you ever found yourself in a minority situation, where you were the butt of ethnic-based jokes? Have you ever been the victim of discrimination because you were part of a minority group?
As I said, I interpreted as an observation, not a cause-and-effect assertion.
Then perhaps you should read the statement he made again, as he definitely made a causal connection.
People with different backgrounds are different. They don’t always agree on everything. They have different values.
That is a reductive view of cultural differences. There are more differences inside a single ethnic group than there are between different groups. There are liberal and conservative WASPs, just like there are liberal and conservative hindus. I have two friends, one is arab (egyptian, actually) and the other is a jew. They share the same values, and are both opposed to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Life isn’t made of clichés…The things that unite us as human beings are stronger than the thing that divide us – although we do not always see it.
Some cultures are more (or less) disposed to violence (amongst other differences) than others.
Would you care to give us some examples of cultures that are more disposed towards violence than others? (I’d be tempted to say North American culture, but then again that’s where the Peace Movement was born…)
Seriously, I think overgeneralizing traits for entire cultures is quite dangerous, considering that those cultures are not monolithic and actually represent entire spectrum of beliefs and values.
That’s life, deal with it.
Don’t be so condescending. Over the past twenty years I’ve been to a dozen countries and talked to people from a variety of cultures. I’ve seen extreme poverty, misery, injustice and death, but also extreme generosity, joy, people yearning for their fair share and a tremendous belief that things will improve.
In any case, disagreements between members of ethnic groups in the U.S. have nothing to do with the crime rate. To imply so is to put the blame on other cultures, insinuating that an homogenous country would be better off.
guess the same could be said for you then too – I am pretty sure it can be said that you are not “worldy travelled” and your opinions are derived from watching those well known fiction based newschannel(s) CNN/ ABC/ FOX.
So, as we are interacting through a supposedly democratic medium ie Internet. We can have our own opinions until through diplomatic means, ones views or perceptions can be corrected.
Go EU…do what you need. Diversify.
First of all both drsmithy and you can be right because of you can both perceive it different. The theoretical definition of racism is far less discussable than the practical one. Practically, it ain’t a proposition. Feelings are most likely involved as well.
Racism is a term i perceive as used wrong in situations over and over again. This situation be one example. Stated differences in which race is not assigned as the cause by one, cannot possibly be defined as racism.
Therefore, in this situation, racism is the wrong definition while discrimination would be a too wide term. Nationalism is a more accurate one; the assumption that when there is a homogene culture the country (the world does not matter for nationalists, i suppose) will function better on some aspects.
Yet there is a difference. When you discuss with a nationalist or person with nationalist tendencies you can in some cases both use actual premises (arguments, statistics, analysis, etc) just like possible with some other person who has researched his/her arguments before using them. Unfortunately, this Smartpatrol entity states none. While i think about it, i think it was just a troll.
Though i don’t think culture is country-wise: one last thing to those who state they feel offended by others who, as they perceived, dislike or hate the American culture: if you want respect from people from other cultures, you can show respect for those people with different cultures for starters. Also, have you ever considered that it could just as well be something like, specific parts of what tends to be the American culture? It could be just as well less black vs. white then you think it is.
Maybe this does have something to do with hatred ofthe U.S. Perhaps reactions to the disgusting, illegal, screw-everyone-else actions of a U.S.-based corporation tend to reinforce people’s conceptions about U.S. culture; but this doesn’t mean that the actions of said corporation aren’t disgusting and ought not to be punished.
Nor does it mean that those conceptions are far from the truth. I *am* from the U.S., and I don’t find any difficulty with the proposition that our culture is violent, divisive, and competitive, and that our crime rate is largely the result of our not giving a damn about people who have no money and no prospect of finding a decent job, or of improving their positions in life. Our attitude is based on the myth that all anyone has to do is work harder, and gold will fall out of the skies. It’s a great way to ignore social problems, though it tends to result in world-record prison populations. <sarcasm>That isn’t all bad, because people in prison aren’t factored into the unemployment rate.</sarcasm>
In any case, I can’t imagine why those within the E.U. would be jealous. Granted, they have an *extremely* heavy dose of their own problems to deal with, and their criticisms are often quite hypocritical; but worse there than here? I’m doubtful.
And while its a huge strech to say Microsoft is dying (Microsoft probably won’t die, just become less dominant over time) its not a strech to say that they are becoming more irrelevent over time. This view is certainly more believable in Europe, where Microsoft’s dominance is becoming less iron-clad. Consider the Munich agreement, among other events.
Haven’t you heard? There is no free lunch!
http://www.winnetmag.com/windowspaulthurrott/Article/ArticleID/4147…
First Massachusetts and now Munich? Germany’s “Computerwoche” is reporting that Munich’s move to 14,000 Linux desktops is in trouble because of budgetary concerns and “technical issues,” making the publication wonder whether the city will ever be able to complete its migration to the open-source phenomenon. Hey, no one ever said migrating to Linux was going to be easy.
So what if Microsoft pays the fine? 3.5B is not a small amount. Who suffers? not Microsoft crap rolls down hill. How many jobs will be lost worldwide becasue of this?
None of course. Actually it may create jobs as more opportunities will open to developers confident MS won;t kill them.
The EU has more important things to worry about then fineing Microsft. 3.5B doesn’t go far to shore up the social welfare mess that they have on there hands. I mean telling your populous to have more children so as to have enough tax payers in the future to pay for the current generations social welfare?
What a short sighted view of Europe!
Mess? More people live in poverty in the US than in the EU. And we have less criminality too.
De-valueing the Dollar was the best thing that could happen. Makes european products and travel to the area as in tourism very expensive.
Hum, it’s the other way around LOL! Depreciating the USD makes US goods more affordable.
But in parallel, going to war and bashing your European allies was the best thing you could have done to ensure your own products gets boycotted, silently! LOL
Word of warning to the EU..don’t mess with the largest consumer nation in the world.
You are not the largest country (heard of China and India?), you are not the largest market in value (the EU is), you are just the largest army…Well sort of as you can only invade one of the poorst countries in the world. So Word of warning, don’t mess with other nations!
The reason why our crime rate is so high is becasue America has examples of every single culture on the planet within its border.
As if other countries were not the same! ~Shakes my head
This is the biggest point about the US that most Europeans miss due to the fact that they live in little mono-cultures.
OH MY GOD. I live in Europe and less than 1000 Km around I have 20 different cultures. We have planes here too man! And my ancestors 1 century ago come from a total of 5 or 6 countries. Talk about living in a multicultural society, I do.
[i]Thats changing of course immigrants are flooding in and Europeans are having a tough time of it. Ask any german what he or she thinks of Turks if you doubt me.
OMG ! Ask any German… 20 or 30 years ago. Yes he would have said what you just wrote. Not anymore. Your views on Europe are oudated it seems.
Let me quantify some things here. I never blamed foreigners for Americas crime problems, matter of fact i never metioned foreigners at all. The reason America is as prominent as it is in the world today is becasue of said cultural mix and something i take great pride in as an American. For those self hating americans that post here i suggest they spend some time in a third world country before they spew nonsense about how bad they have it.
I just get tired of all the sterotypical assertions of those that think they know all about the US becasue they visited a major city in the US once or twice. America is a huge country and people and their behavior vary from state to state. In regard to firearms;you may feel comfortable trusting your entire welfare to your government thats your right. Unfortunatly history has shown that people in power cannot be trusted entirely and the threat of deadly force ensures they behave. You may not like it but human nature dictates it.
I have spent alot of time in europe and have family in Germany and Switzerland. So i am not as disconnected from Europe as many other Americans may be. The majority of europeans i have spoken with don’t even have the first clue about what America is about. They swallow what they watch on TV and read in newspapers without question(Not unlike alot of Americans). When i talk mono-culture i mean clearly defined cultural identity. Americans have a cluture but its a mixed match of everything with a couple of unique things that stand out but nothing to bind it together.
I Its my belief that the EU is on a witch hunt in regards to Microsoft that is fueled partly by the current anti-american trend. No matter what happens it serves no purpose and benefits no one. So that is why i stated the perhaps the EU should be focused on more important issues.
I think that the European Union will extend the fine to 100 billion dollars, just for Microsoft.
No matter what happens it serves no purpose and benefits no one. So that is why i stated the perhaps the EU should be focused on more important issues.
I think that ensuring competion exists on a market (and by that, allowing people to create new products, develop new businesses and favour progress and innovation) benefits a lot of people !
I think this is a very important issue which you totally miss.
I believe, Smartpatrol, that you’re a little too optimistic about the USA, and too pessimistic about Europe.
For those self hating americans that post here i suggest they spend some time in a third world country before they spew nonsense about how bad they have it.
First, you would be much convincing if you wouldn’t use the expression “self hating americans”, which is very stupid, and absolutely baseless, being regularly employed by right wing nuts to stigmatize all opponents. Second, the 3rd world is in this discussion like, as we say in french, “un cheveu sur la soupe”, a hair in the soup, very inapropriate, in a discussion about Europe and USA.
In regard to firearms;you may feel comfortable trusting your entire welfare to your government thats your right. Unfortunatly history has shown that people in power cannot be trusted entirely and the threat of deadly force ensures they behave
Is that part of The American Dream? A lot of American seem to believe that if the people is armed, the government will behave. Yet History have shown that when the governement decides to screw the people and take out the “God given fundamental liberties”, the people let it do, and even help it, because at that moment it is terrified by some real or unreal threat (example: McCarthysm), or seated in front of his television assisting the rebels being beaten.
Its my belief that the EU is on a witch hunt in regards to Microsoft that is fueled partly by the current anti-american trend
It’s not my belief. But I am European, and worse, I am French. I must be rabidly anti-american, and biased. Seriously, it’s no more a witch hunt in Europe than it was in the States, or than it is in Israel (always forgotten!). I will just remind you that the EC didn’t wake up some day saying “let’s go after that f***ing American firm Microsoft”. There were complaints (from other American firms principally: Sun, RealNetworks…) and the EC had to investigate. And now that they have found MS guilty (like the American justice), they have to do something (unlike the American justice, we hope).
> by state controlled telecoms i assume you are talking about both the service provides (ie: france telecom) and the equipment vendors (ericsson, nokia, siemens, alcatel).
Neither Nokia or Ericsson are monopolies. Get your fact’s straight.
> Well truth of the matter is your point is correct. The EU is simultaneously protecting monopolistic consoritiums and just plain old monopolists and fighting MS. But would it be better for them to ignore the harm MS has done?
If you are refering to Airbus, then I would have to point out to you that it is a joint venture between many european states and companies. It’s far from a monopoly.
“I believe, Smartpatrol, that you’re a little too optimistic about the USA, and too pessimistic about Europe.”
Perhaps a valid criticism
“First, you would be much convincing if you wouldn’t use the expression “self hating americans”, which is very stupid, and absolutely baseless, being regularly employed by right wing nuts to stigmatize all opponents.”
Please share how you would class them? Contructive criticism about Americas problems are one thing. Blaming America for your own person troubles is another.
“It’s not my belief. But I am European, and worse, I am French. I must be rabidly anti-american, and biased.
Of course you are
i respect your opinion anyway.
“There were complaints (from other American firms principally: Sun, RealNetworks…) and the EC had to investigate. And now that they have found MS guilty (like the American justice), they have to do something (unlike the American justice, we hope).
Okay so what your saying is the EC jumped on the band wagon. Basically saying “well eveyone else is suing Microsoft why can’t we”. Keeping in mind that In my opinion the companies you listed decided to take legal action against Microsoft rather then compete with better products.
Therefore, in this situation, racism is the wrong definition while discrimination would be a too wide term. Nationalism is a more accurate one
Even then, nationalism can have an inclusive meaning if it means patriotism, i.e. whatever the ethnic background you’re from, if you consider yourself part of a nation and you’re proud of it.
What can we conclude? The face of intolerance has changed, and it becomes harder to define. At least Smartpatrol has nuanced his position. I believe he is more misguided than intolerant.
Blaming America for your own person troubles is another.
You’re the only one to see them blaming America for their own troubles. In fact, they just don’t agree with you. Criticism is generally called unconstructive by people who doesn’t want (or are unable) to think too much about the critics they receive. And the expressions “self hating American” and “American-haters” are used by those who are unable to analyse the criticism. It’s an extension to “it’s my way or the highway”, or Bush’s “you’re with us or against us”. In fact, as there is a tendency to call anti-semitic anybody who doesn’t agree with Israel present policy (calling self hating jews those Israelis who oppose Sharon now), there is a tendency to call “self hating American” any American who doesn’t agree with Bush’s policy, and American-hater any foreigner who agree with tose “self hating Americans”. I believe Americans are losing the sense of democracy.
so what your saying is the EC jumped on the band wagon. Basically saying “well eveyone else is suing Microsoft why can’t we”
No I’m saying that they received complaints, they had to investigate. If you file a complaint in some court, you don’t expect the court to tell you “hey my friend, this is of absolutely no interest, just f*** off!”. They found the complaints justified, so what. Aren’t they?
I hear MS has something like 40 billion in the bank. Why not just freeze that until MS PROVES its going to play nice. I mean, the US invaded a country for no real reason, what is the difference here?
Eer because that’s not how things work here in EU – the lawful punishment for what MS did is a fine, not blocking of their bank accounts. That’s for the corrupt and bankrupt firms.
So, basically – MS did some things fines are paid for, they should pay up – end of story.
This is really what most of this MS bashing is really about, hatred of the US. I am willing to bet that most of the non-North Americans posting here have never even been to the US. All you know of this country is what you see on your televisions.
I have. For about a year. Liked some things and they are so me great people among you, but there are really some essential problems in the American psyche:
1. paranoia – “People abroad want to hurt us, because they are jelous or something.”
2. arrogance – “We’re are the best because we say so.”
3. one track mindness – “We use this solution here, you don’t – so you surely are wrong.”
4. the sheep mentality – “I stick with MS in this case, because they are the big guys, so we better not tease them with fines etc.”
Those four alone are too much. And I doubt they can be fixed
… in other words I packed up after 1 year and headed back to the good old Europe and never looked back.
These weapons that ‘spit out hundreds of rounds per second’ are also illegal in the US.
The fact of the matter is, gun laws do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to thwart crime rate, as only the law abiding citizen has to work harder to obtain a gun. A criminal will buy one off the street, which is probably stolen, smuggled, etc…
The biggest reason for the right to bear arms is so Americans can stand up against a government overstepping its bounds, a right also protected in the constitution.
It’s quite simple MS broke the law (already convicted in the US) and should be fined. There’s no shame in it, happens to me all the time. The rest of you should grow up and leave the rhetoric alone, all this anti-american, anti-ms bull has nothing to do with what is a dull bureaucratic decision.
On the anti-american debate : ponder this my american friends. America used to be VERY popular in Europe, but admittedly it isn’t now. Why? Maybe you’ll find a clue in the fact that the US called France (friend and ally of the US since the war of independance) “a bunch of yellow surrender monkeys” because it formally opposed a war the US wanted to wage. Really, would you stay friends with someone who insulted you every time you disagreed with him ?
I could not have said it better !
The fact that it ‘happens to you all the time’ should be proof enough that a fine is not going to change anything.
“US called France (friend and ally of the US since the war of independance) “a bunch of yellow surrender monkeys””
Who in the US government used the pharse above? As far as the US being popular in Europe, as WW2 and Soviet Imperilism become a distant memory, I am sure our part in Europes liberation and protection from despotic regimes will become less and less appreciated. That is until we are needed again.
I for one will be more than hesitant to support any move by my government to send violent prone US citizens to Europes aid.
Have a look at those two links which I found in less than 1 minute, and tell me again what you think of Europe, or French in that matter ? And tell me if you would accept that sort of treatment from a so-called friend ?
http://www.miquelon.org/timeline.html
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2003/nf20030313_7075…
And stop thinking France did nothing for your country !
You are not superior to Europe simply because you helped it get rid of Nazis. We owe you nothing. Stop thinking you are superior to the rest of the world and that the world owes you its life and that we should bend to you. Stop dreaming and relaise more and more countries will say “no”. And you won’t be able to do anything about it.
Will you turnips stop babbling? The EU’s prosecution of MS is a purely and entirely legal matter, utterly removed from the executive. Its about as “anti-american” as prosecuting an American citizen who commits a crime on the soil of a European state. Its quite simply a matter of impartially applying the law to all companies and residents of the EU. The executive and political classes have sod-all to do with this. No politician woke up one day and thought “hey, lets get MS!”
Secondly, stating the US is somehow more varied is stupid. Yes, it is a very culturally varied country, but so what, so is every western country these days. Try going to London and finding that 40% of its population was born outside the UK, or wander around the numerous multilingual european states.
Of course, some states are more monocultural than others. France, for example, is famous for its “French si the first language of the Republic” nonsense. Revolutionary states all over the world have a tendency to say “okay, here we have certain ideals, and these are what our new state stands for, and this is what it means to be a citizen of our new state.” So, hence, to become an American citizen you must swear all sorts of oaths and “pledges of allegiance” and your beliefs in certain principles. Same in France. Same in post-revolutionary Russia or post-revolutionary China – for this reason post-revolutionary states are less varied and more statist. You won’t find yourself being called upon to swear your beliefs in certain ideals or principles or institutions or persons when you become a British subject, for example.
But, ultimately, whatever supposed values and ideals pertain to being the descendant of some blue-eyed patriot revolutionary American, or Frenchman, or Russian or whatever, in point of fact those values turn out not to exist and the state which they are supposed to describe becomes a betrayal of its old self. For example, America, a state that is supposed to “not go in search of foreign monsters to destroy” and is supposed to be a Republic with few foreign interests and anti-Imperial, ends up very deliberately invading foreign countries to impose “democracy and freedom” and maintains military bases in 160 countries around the world and so on and so forth. Also see what happened to the supposed ideals of the Russian revolution, the French, the Chinese, etc..
The statist ideas of what it means to be an American are of course why the phrase “anti-american” makes sense to Americans and makes foreigners from non-revolutionary states giggle. “Anti-British” anyone? Doesn’t make any sense, because the British state and the identity of what it means to be “British” is not based on certain state-defined values in the same way.
I think the endless pumping out by the US education & media systems of “what it means to be American” do result in it being rather more monocultural than other countries. You can’t go through school there without hitler-youth reminiscent pledges of allegiance and God knows what. Its popular culture is crammed with lots of nonsense on the topic. its scary.
Finally the EU is a very independent economic area. The US depends on imports/exports, where the EU, by contrast, exports and imports very little compared to its size. it is a remarkably self-sufficient economy, and possibly the most isolated one from US troubles. So any nonsense about the EU shivering in fear at the US consumer economy is silly, because the US depends on the EU rather more. Especially given the EU is at a rough parity in size.
’nuff babble.
I don’t know how we got on the subject of crime. The statistics show America’s violent crime rate dropping for the last 30 years.
Now if you are talking about the aggresiveness of american capitalism being a crime I won’t argue. When it comes to business we are the meanest sons-a-bitches in the world.
I hate Microsoft and the way business is done in the U.S.. But, violent crime has been diminishing in the U.S. for decades. See the stats.
… seem to have digressed just a lil. I’d give my opinions on all the topics discussed by you’d all be soaked when I started foaming at the mouth. I hope the EU decides on a penalty that is bother effective and fair. A fine alone wouldn’t do anything to solve the situation. I liked the idea of open formats for office.
Regarding the IE argument which this always comes down to, I would like to be able to completely remove IE from windows, but I do appreciate it’s inclusion with windows. It’s something of a contradiction because I agree that including it was illegal (providing something for cheaper then can be produced simply to kill a competitor without deep pockets is bad) but would the internet have grown as quickly otherwise? What I really think should be focused on was their treatment of OEMS and BeOS. I know that was already settled for a few mil, but how many years after the fact and it was a pittance.
Also, MS has always made campaign contributions of equal amounts to both the rep and dems, so I believe Bush’s move to back off MS was moreso from the policy towards all big business his admin seems to have as opposed to the influence of campaign contributions.
> non-North Americans posting here have never even been to the US. All you know of this country is what you see on your televisions.
Bullshit. I’ve been to the US four times, traveling around alot. I have relatives over there and they have visited us here in Europe a couple of times. My mother used to live in the states too.
As CPUguy said, the founding fathers wanted to give the people the last word if the government didn’t behave well. What they didn’t, and couldn’t, foresee is that the government, 200 years later, would have had tanks, jets, missiles, and the like. Today, the last word is in the hands (the mouth?) of the US Army (still democratic), and the people’s arms are largely irrelevant.
[…] I agree that including it was illegal (providing something for cheaper then can be produced simply to kill a competitor without deep pockets is bad) […]
Do you feel the same way about media players, codecs, email programs, anti virus tools, disk/filesystem checkers, text editors, calculator programs, backup software, terminal programs, address books, file managers, etc, etc ?
Or just web browsers ?
Funny how a country with no violent crime problem has one of the highest incarceration rates in the entire world, developed and less-so together. (I can’t remember off hand if we’ve moved from #2 to #1; I think we did last year). Are *that* many of our prisoners doing time for smoking weed?
“Neither Nokia or Ericsson are monopolies. Get your fact’s straight.”
i never said they were. I said they were benefactors of protectionist policy. they are part of a monopolistic consortium. You call it the GSM alliance. its genesis has expanded to include a few more american firms (in addition to motorola). That new beast is called the UMTS forum. What it is is anti-competitive back rubbing to the core. the big boys (in japan, america and europe) decided its best to limit competition.
In all fairness, i can’t totally blame Europe for doing this. They are up against the bottomless R&D tank of the US DoD which “releases” technology to the commercial sector for free.
“If you are refering to Airbus, then I would have to point out to you that it is a joint venture between many european states and companies. It’s far from a monopoly.”
Airbus is another anti-competitive, protectionist consortium which makes it difficult for independent (non-airbus) members to compete. again in all fairness, boeing really does benefit from defense contracts but its not nearly as direct and (i believe) it does not have the same impact.
Europe is playing both sides. they are protecting and sponsoring anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior on the part of European companies/consortiums and simultaneously punishing MS. It is hypocritical. BUT, i still believe two wrongs don’t make a right so i’d rather have the EU punish MS for its questionable behavior. I don’t feel i have a place asking the EU to be consistent when the US behaves in the way it does.
topic of usa, and its probs, the only thing that clearly sums it up is bowling for columbine you see a lot of things clearly through that documentary film. It just makes sense.
Its nothing to do with creed, colour race, minority populations etc etc.. It comes down to fear, watch your news reports, how many murders and crimes do you hear daily, your news seems to be more about getting the highest ratings than displaying all sides of news aspects, that just generates fear, and fear is not a good thing, it just plays the population against each other rather all helping each other.
In every country you have monopolies over something but none of them stretch out their arms as far as microsoft.. Its not the fact that microsoft should be punished its a fact that all of their crimes should be spelt out to the public, the truth about them to out, and the general public given a greater choice over what to choose to run and the only way that can be done is for microsoft to have to deal with the consequences of their ill dealings, a straight out fine will never sort out anything..
as to Munich by By Bitterman (IP: —.bak.rr.com) – Posted on 2004-01-27 22:16:03
<quote> thought that munich deal had some problems? They tried to extort money from M$ saying give us cheaper prices or we’ll switch to linux, well they switched and now they’re stuck with retraining. They obviously hoped M$ would cut a deal cause they were not ready for this move. (sorry I don’t remember where I saw the article) </quote>
thats not what happened, actually microsoft did offer them a much cheaper deal, something rediculously cheap, at the time they were saying it was cheaper than the joint ibm/suse offer, but oss was decided upon because all development that was done would remain open. They were embracing open source for being open. Not because of potential cheaper costs, which lets face it once microsoft manages to strangle a company with “massive reductions” they are doing just that strangling them, what happens when the next best thing from ms is released ? the company will have to pay full price to upgrade, to insure they dont lose data they will have to. In essence microsoft could give its software away for free, and when it comes to upgrading the companies / govnmts that buy into this will be up shit creak without a paddle.
I think this is why they were charged anyway because they were approaching firms / schools etc, that were planning to change to opensource products and then slashing the price of their software to them, giving them a much better deal to insure they could maintain their monopoly, as the reductions were not seen as just as in they werent done for everyone only the companies thinking about switching to opensourced solutions, the EU had to step and it is only fair that microsoft should be punished, but as i said a fine might not be able to cut it.. maybe a few warning labels on all ms products should be added like ciggarette boxes
“WARNING THIS SOFTWARE IS HAZARDOUS FOR YOUR COMPUTERS WELL BEING”
“WARNING THIS SOFTWARE CAN MAKE YOUR COMPUTER IMPOTENT”
“THIS COMPANY HAS GENERATED ITS MONOPOLY STATUS BY ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES ”
etc.. you get the idea basically stripping away microsofts glossy coat given to it by its marketing campaigns and revealing what evil tyrants microsoft really are.
“Do you feel the same way about media players, codecs, email programs, anti virus tools, disk/filesystem checkers, text editors, calculator programs, backup software, terminal programs, address books, file managers, etc, etc ? ”
I only mentioned browsers just because in most cases that is one of the main arguements against MS in abusing it’s monopoly. Regarding all the other examples you’ve listed, I consider it a grey area. How much freedom does a company have in determining what features their product will have? In a lot of cases MS is criticized for only recently including a firewall in their OS, but if you’re a company like Zonelabs, it’s a huge issue. Who says where an OS ends and where it has to be third party applications? If you’re new to computers, having everything as part of the OS is extremely useful since you wouldn’t even know what you need to get started as far as being productive, let alone how to go about getting it.
Also, I think it’s something of a double standard as far as what MS is allowed to do when including new features, and what every other OS maker is allowed to do. I didn’t read much about Opera complaining when Apple started with Safari. And look at the massive amount of applications many Linux distros come with: admittedly, most of them the OS distro company didn’t fund themselves, but could be argued that by including them by default, they’re doing the same thing as MS, although I wouldn’t make that arguement.
I think it was more MS implementation where you couldn’t remove IE even if you wanted to that made it an issue, but what do I know?
The GSM Alliance or the UMTS Forum are not firms. GSM and UMTS are not products. The constituants of these associations continue to be concurrents on the market, being associated just for developing or promoting protocols and standards. If the GSM Alliance or the UMTS Forum are monopolies, the W3C, the JPEG, the MIPS groups are monopolies too.
actually let me take this further.
Most companies have a heart they are not just out for making money, but that is exactly what microsoft represents, making as much money as possible.
to explain. we had windows 95 then 98, and 98 really sucked it had a world of problems so the second edition is released, but as a completely different product because they could do it and get away with it. 98se was just a fix up of the 1st edition that went wrong, tbh if MS were a decent company 98se should have been released freely to all original 98 owners. After that we had Me, Me was just plain awful for 90 % of the population Me was just wrong, it was extremely buggy but again it gets released and they make money from it, microsoft new by win 2000 that if they kept on rolling out crap and expecting money to roll in they would get a nasty surprise soon enough probably more people would have moved to linux, tired of microsofts constant out pourings of shit.
If microsoft was a company with a heard and soul, if it was a truly decent corporation then they would not be the most wealthy, purely for the fact that crap would not be released and sold. If something is fualty most companies would take it back and reissue something that worked well.
They dont sell software by quality they sell because of their sheer weight in the business.. could you imaging if microsoft made cars ? god damn would they be unreliable.
lets take mercedes as an example, would mercedes release a car they knew had obvious faults ? no, mercedes name and reputation would be subject to redicule they do the decent thing and they manufacture awesome cars.. Can you say the same for microsoft ? ill put it bluntly if microsoft could release any crap and charge money for it they would, because they could purely to make money, when you have a monopoly you control the market you can make your sofware as unreliable as you wish and get away with it, because people expect it, they release a half decent os after 20 years windows 2000 and xp, and the users are over joyed by this excellent new stuff.. Its still shit but its more reliable now, compared to the old 9x stuff anyway. In a proper open environment, if you had competition like in the car market stuff like mercedes, bmw, toyota, chrysler, vauxhall/opel, ford. You know the competiton would be paramount, people would upgrade not because they had to but because they wanted to. Whether it be the new looks or the new kernel (engine) or whatever advances were made from when 95 was released ( the time of 486’s ) to now intel pentim 4’s, itanium’s, amd xp’s, opterons etc.. the processor market has rapidly improved, how much has windows in comparison ?
if a processor made random errors and had bugs, what would happen to that processor manufacturer
the difference between a monopoly environment and a competitive environment.
This is one of the reasons that open source will eventually overtake microsoft, as within the open source community you have huge rivalry and competition. Stuff such as gnome or kde and because its all open source it adds a very nice twist to it. because it makes it competetive but they can still work together aswell, tweak new developments their own way and you decide what you like working with. Thats the way things should be.
Microsoft would have never survived in an open environment, and thats the truth.
Im pretty sure if the market is opened, if software manufacturers took their fingers out and developed on multiple platforms that microsoft would be screwed.
Thats the only thing right now keeping microsoft dominant.. Its not the quality just the fact that most software vendors write their software for windows, because windows has the majority share, and windows has the majority share because most software companies write software only for windows
catch 22
They join the games console market lets see what they have done so far.. hmm they start buying games companies outright to stop good games being developed on other platforms trying to corner the competition.. I hope microsoft get flattened.
“topic of usa, and its probs, the only thing that clearly sums it up is bowling for columbine you see a lot of things clearly through that documentary film. It just makes sense. “
The above statement proves without a doubt that there are some seriously disturbed people out there. We are all truly lost.
You’re saying taking a documentatry at face value is an indication of being seriously disturbed? I would have thought that 2 teenagers planning large scale killings in a school would be more of an indication of seriously disturbed people as compared to a certain directors perspective on the matter.