“Nine states seeking stiff antitrust sanctions against Microsoft showed the judge on Wednesday a commercial version of the Windows operating system that already has removable features — similar to one of their key demands. Microsoft has said requiring a version of Windows that can be customized by computer makers and rival software companies would fragment the operating system, cripple Microsoft, harm consumers and hurt the entire computer industry.” Read the story at Reuters.Our Take: Where this silliness of the nine States will finally go? The states showed the judge… WindowsXP Embedded. While XP Embedded shares a similar product name and some low level code (kernel/VM/HAL) from its desktop cousin, it is a specialized embedded operating system and it does not play with the same rules, code or product goals as its desktop OS counterpart. It is like saying to QNX: “Sure you can remove Photon from QNX RtP. I saw a version of QNX that did not have the graphical Photon shell, running on the spaceshuttle Columbia. It can be done!” Sure it can, but what’s left? And what are the implications if doing so? What the States forget is that these are different markets, different goals, even different code we are talking about. WinXP Embedded is not even binary compatible with the retail WindowsXP. I have already stated my opinions on the subject here and here today.
States Show Microsoft Judge a Variation of Windows
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Eugenia Loli
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Hmm, is it just me, or does it seem to everyone else as if the burocrats are not really listening to the advice of engineers on this one?
Sure XP Embedded *is* windows at the core, but what good does that do anyone? It sure won’t typical user apps (i.e. Office, Opera, Gimp, …).
YOU are the one not listening. Did you read the article? Can I hear someone tell me how windows needs MSN so desperately?
>> Hmm, is it just me, or does it seem to everyone else as
>> if the burocrats are not really listening to the advice
>> of engineers on this one?
burocrats have a habbit of not listening to engineers.
I hope we don’t turn into MicrosoftTrialNews.com.
Everyone here seems to ignore that Microsoft broke the law when it stifled competition. The Court of Appeals unanimously held that Microsoft illegally added Internet Explorer to Windows.
The issue is how to bring competition to the operating systems market. Right now, anything that offers a hope of offering a platform for developers ultimately gets stuffed into Windows and Bush’s sellout – er, settlement, doesn’t change that.
What do you think will create competition in the operating systems market?
The idea that Microsoft “broke the law” is pretty subjective at this point. If Microsoft keeps appealing the decision all the way up to the supreme court then the ‘decision’ is always officially ‘under appeal’, not final.
Until the supreme court has spoken on the matter and Microsoft can no longer continue appealing, there is simply no real mandate yet to “create competition” at this point beyond hypothetical.
i dont how understand how consumers would be “harmed” by having windows peices uninstallable. i seriously dont think “harm” is the word. I mean, do people’s brains explode when they are faced with a choice of what browser to use?
actually the only one it can harm at all is microsofts profit margins.. people will always buy the cheaper version and just download the extra peices.. unless microsoft stopps offering them.
“I mean, do people’s brains explode when they are faced with a choice of what browser to use?”
Users have choice though, they don’t have to use ie (I still use opera occasionally, and even mozilla when they do a big release, i.e. 1.0).
I think the real question is since taking ie out wouldn’t really harm people (annoy some of us sure), will it do anyone any good? I mean since the courts couldn’t stop ms from having it on the cd (or say a link on the desktop of oem models saying install internet explorer, and clicking it would install it from a temp directory) then most people are still going to use ie. This wouldn’t benefit consumers, or ms’ competition. Continuing to drag this case out only wastes more taxpayer money, for no gain. The best case scenario at this point is a large (10 billion+) settlement (divided amongst all states), plus repayment of legal fees to states (based on what they spent) and an agreement that would protect ms from further private suits (a circuit break at the state level) against ms by companies suing over items covered in this lawsuit (if ms comes away with nothing it would be cheaper for them to keep fighting this for the next 20 years then opening themselves up to suits by aol, sun, real player and any other companies that claim to be harmed by “middle ware”). It would set a precident, but no matter what the outcome this will set a precednet.
Please stop saying “our” take when it’s just your take. “My Take:” would be more appropriate.
I think it is interesting that Mr Gates is using the argument that XP embedded is different from a desktop OS because users will not be able to add new applications. Given that even mobile phones these days can download new games, etc. it makes XP embedded look a bit limited. Or is the story he’s telling to the court different to the one he tells his customers ?
The idea that Microsoft has broken the law is a little less than subjective. In fact, its already been upheld once by an appeals court. It would be extremely difficult for Microsoft to appeal that decision any further, as there might not be much basis for an appeal. (And no, “I swear it isn’t true Judge” isn’t good enough.)
You might as well get on with your life knowing that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist.
A more common theing to do (in the UK anyway) would be to put
(Editor: the comment)
rather than
Our take: the comment
“You might as well get on with your life knowing that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist.”
You can’t be a convicted monopolist. Being a monopoly isn’t a crime. In this case ms was found guilty of breaking antitrust laws (and ms could appeal, you can appeal all you want until a court your appealing to refuses to hear you).
IE has a lot of MS specific hooks within its Javascript implementation. Plus, I would assume some other new things to tie it into the .NET framework. Keeping the libraries with the OS would be nice to help all of the people that have used those libraries, but MS would still be able to push its way of doing things on people, like it does now. If they want to keep the libraries, then they should have to remove all of the MS specific hooks. If it is there, people will use it, because it’s free.
I agree that .NET could be nice, but, it has not even been proven yet, and everyone is starting to jump on the bandwagon. Even the MS people at my company, say they are not recommending .NET for large projects yet. It could be nice, but I don’t trust MS, one bit. To top it off, we have people freely porting it to other OSes. People that are supposed to be competitors of MS. Really, this makes NO sense to me.
My fear is that .NET will become popular, and it will become impossible to do almost anything internet related without an MS product, because somemany people blindly jumped on the bandwagon so early on, believing that MS would try to interoperate, be open, use standards, and then once they have you, BAM, your f*cked.
ok, I think I’m done ranting for today.
I think the states are listening to the engineers and they do realize that to make these changes would mean a massive undertaking. That is the whole point. This is a punishment, designed to restore competition. If all MS has to do is make a couple changes, write up a new license and say “sorry” then what was the point of this whole debacle? No. The states couldn’t get MS broken up, so the next best thing is to send them back to the drawing board. Make them redsign windows so that it is modular easily configured and reconfigured. Hell who knows, it might actually turn it to a *better* OS because of it. Its not supposed to be easy. Its a punishment, and the govrnment needs to put its foot down, cut the crap, and stop hearing appeals on the issue. The longer MS draws this out, technology just marches on and it makes the whole issue even more irrelevant.
MS Needs to be punished, and it needs to be now.
MS does need to be punished, but not by 9 states. Especially if the tax payers in those states don’t want to spend the money to do it (as I mentioned in the other trial thread here in Minnesota there is a call to end it, but because the ag is backed by sun it won’t happen). I’m all for justice to be done, but why should people who don’t care have to pay for it so some politicians can get more contributions from sun, aol, oracle, palm, etc.?
Genalder scribbled:
:In this case ms was found guilty of breaking antitrust laws (and ms :could appeal, you can appeal all you want until a court your :appealing to refuses to hear you).
As I recall, Microsoft did appeal. The Appelate court ruled the decision stood, i.e. Microsoft is guilty of violating anti-trust laws, but over-ruled the remedy. Microsoft still did not like the decision and appealed further to the Supreme Court, however, as it was not a Constitutional issue that august body told Microsoft, essentially, to bugger off and stop wasting their time. There is no more appeal for Microsoft in this instance. The guilty verdict stands, so, obviously, subjectivity is not at issue.
FWIW, it is meaningless to compare Microsoft with Linux and KDE or whatever. Microsoft is a monopoly. As a result, the rules (read laws) for Microsoft are different.
Oh yes, one more thing. Though “Big Business” does contribute heavily (to both sides) politically, so does small business (which are very much in the “pro” camp when it comes to anti trust laws), which being composed of far many more personages (read voters) tends to have a wee bit more political pull than larger corporations (in spite of the fact that many believe otherwise). That is why the states are not giving in so easily.
On a personal note, though I am not technically proficient in OS programming (or any programming for that matter), I still can’t see why it is absolutely mandatory for Windows to come bundled with IE and, say, WMP. Some here have argued that Microsoft should be allowed to bundle what it wants, but is this not forcing the OEMs and the end-users into using non-OS Microsoft products? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to have Netscape or Opera bundled instead? Shouldn’t the OEMs have a say on what THEY want to have bundled on THEIR computers? I apologise if I simply cannot see the logic, or the fairness, in allowing Microsoft, or anyone, tell us what “extras” come with an OS, and that is all IE is, another product, and that ladie(s) and gentlemen is the issue.
MPR
Your right ms has appealed, but they can still appeal further, including to the supreme court. The argument could be made that this is a free speech issue (its there os so they could argue that telling them what they can and can’t include impeeds their right to free speech), or they could try and make the case that anti-trust laws are unconstitutional. The second one would be a streach (and really bar pr), but with the quality of lawyers ms has they could successfully push the free speech issue to the supreme court.
The laws don’t change for you because your found guilty (it just doesn’t happen that way). The courts have to find a punishment within the law (not make up one on the fly). My big beef with this continuation is it doesn’t take into account the fact that only other big businesses and a small % of the public want it to continue. Not to mention the fact that anti-trust laws should be at the federal level (not the state).
I do agree that most of the ms claims that it can’t be done are fud, but I heard a valid point today, since so much of the code is used in “middle ware” and the os itself (windows explorer and ie are very similar) that seperating it out would lead to security problems. The reason being that instead of having to do 1 patch users and sys admins will have to do 2 (in the case of a flaw in the code that creates a hole for a hacker or a crash bug). Given the fact that so many users are too lazy to do 1 making them do 2 would make computers even less secure. Besides you have to ask yourself how will this benefit consumers? I don’t think it will, so all its doing is wasting 9 state’s taxpayer’s money for the benefit of companies that compete with ms (or plan on suing ms later and using this to back up their suit, which would lead to more taxpayer’s money spent in court administration costs and still no gain by consumers).
Instead of continuing the case the state’s should bring ms to arbitration (much cheaper) and come up with a solution that punishes ms, but one they won’t spend years fighting against. It would be cheaper and could possibly make consumers lives easier (say convice ms to include mozilla and opera on windows install discs but allowing them to leave ie tied to the system). That won’t happen though while politicians reap the benefits of this suit in the form of campaign contributions.
Simple: most of their apps just won’t work. The states seems to ignore this.
The punishment is for Microsoft, not for it’s customers and Win32 developers. Something the states also seems to be ignoring.
To the nutjob, who thinks MS could successfully argue in front of the Supremes that this is a 1st Amendment issue: have you just been reading AP news wires from lame writers? The core of MS’s defense before the District Court and the Appeals Court was that because it was MS’s Intellectual Property they could do whatever they want with it. The Appeals Court figuratively and literally laughed at this–I can’t quote it exactly, but it basically went like:
MS argues that it cannot be found guilty of doing anything illegal because it is only using its own IP, which it is sole owner and director of… This argument borders on the frivolous and amounts to someone saying they cannot be held liable for tort claims for smacking someone upside the head because they used their own bat in the process.
That’s what I mean by laughing at a defense–and I think an IP claim is more valid than a free speech one–hell, DeCSS isn’t considered free speech when it appears on a teeshirt.
Boy, some people have silly ideas of what is right and wrong and wrhat MS is capable of.
It seems to me that Microsoft should easily be able to get the Supreme Court’s attention on appeal by just saying that “the future of the PC industry, a huge sector of the economy that is now larger than the auto industry, is at stake and the outcome of this case will effect the economy of the entire world. Please take the case.” That should do the trick, I would think. It would probably work for the DOJ, why wouldn’t it work for Microsoft?
If Microsoft already appealed to the Supreme Court and failed and can appeal no further, as Michael says, then why is the DOJ so prepared to negotiate a settlement with Microsoft at all at this point? Wouldn’t the DOJ have all the leverage and not have to do this?
Replying to: The idea that Microsoft “broke the law” is pretty subjective at this point. If Microsoft keeps appealing the decision all the way up to the supreme court then the ‘decision’ is always officially ‘under appeal’, not final. Until the supreme court has spoken on the matter and Microsoft can no longer continue appealing, there is simply no real mandate yet to “create competition” at this point beyond hypothetical.
The VERDICT has already reached the Supreme Court, and they declined to get involved, meaning that the GUILTY verdict stands.
We’re in the REMEDY phase now.
If Microsoft already appealed to the Supreme Court and failed and can appeal no further, as Michael says, then why is the DOJ so prepared to negotiate a settlement with Microsoft at all at this point? Wouldn’t the DOJ have all the leverage and not have to do this?
Yes, it did make it to the Supreme Court, and was upheld. But there was a change in administrations in Washington after the 2000 election. To put it mildly, the new administration is much friendlier to the interests of large corporations. The new administration unilaterally gave back several concessions that the previous DOJ had already won. There are suggestions that Microsoft’s very large campaign contributions may have had something to do with it, (similarly to an earlier incident in which the South Carolina Atty General dropped that state’s claim against Microsoft the day after a very large contribution to that state’s Republican Party.)
It is very hard for me to believe that the Supreme Court would voluntarily avoid getting involved in a case of this magnitude and allow a lower court to decide the fate of a huge sector of the economy. I would expect that they would do exactly the opposite and prefer to make the decision on this case themselves, if anything. That just seems to be more politically realistic to me. I thought that these huge anti-trust cases always made it to the Supreme Court eventually, throughout recent history.
Admittedly, I am out of my depth on this particular subject and don’t know all of the facts or the details of how the system works, so that is only my $0.02.
“If ordinary consumers had access to it, they could avoid “bloatware”–the unrequested features that average people never use but that are likely to make their PCs crash. Consumers could build truly personal computers–machines designed not to extend one company’s stifling dominion but rather to meet their own day-to-day needs. ”
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000029612apr26.story?coll=la~*…
“…”bloatware”–the unrequested features that average people never use but that are likely to make their PCs crash.”
Good grief – and people like to accuse Microsoft of spreading FUD campaigns. It’s pretty hard to imagine “software that you never use” crashing your machine, wouldn’t you say?