EU court crushes Microsoft's antitrust appeal

Court upholds a landmark 2004 decision against Microsoft in a crucial victory for the European competition regulator.

The story "EU court crushes Microsoft's antitrust appeal" published September 17, 2007 at 1:25 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[BobZune]

Justice, finally

Finally there is justice. It took the Europeans to impose it. There is one more possible appeal to go, which, if exercised, will delay things for another year or two, but qualitatively, changes nothing (quantitatively, perhaps some). Microsoft and the world will be MUCH better off if they learn there lesson from this and make significant changes. They have the opportunity to make this day as a historic and significant turning point in their behavior. If not, its future will be marred by many other similar lawsuits from States, in addition to investor lawsuits questioning why behavior changes are not made instead of paying billions (yes, in total) of dollars in fines.<br /><br />Combine that with the fact there is nothing that came out of Microsoft in the last several years that customers really WANT. Mswindows and MSofffice have been around a long time, and they are the only two of their profitable products. <br /><br />How is the stockholder/investor money being spent by management??<br /><br />It is always nice to have a winning prediction - and here's mine in a previous comment.<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.news.com/An+anxious+wait+for+EU+court+ruling+on+Microsoft/5208-1014_3-0.html?forumID=1&#38;threadID=31111&#38;messageID=310613&#38;start=0" target="_newWindow">http://www.news.com/An+anxious+wait+for+EU+court+ruling+on+Microsoft/5208-1014_3-0.html?forumID=1&#38;threadID=31111&#38;messageID=310613&#38;start=0</a>

[NickH]

"finally"?

The court made its judgement several years ago. As a result of which:<br /><br />1) Microsoft had to made a version of Windows without media player, which they did.<br /><br />2) They got hit with a huge fine, that they have paid.<br /><br />3) They were ordered to provide protocol specifications. Whether this is yet done or not, is a matter of diffing opinions.<br /><br />(I thought that this disclosure would have been to anyone, but according to the text of this CFI judgement "By way of remedy, the Commission required Microsoft to disclose the ?specifications? of its client/server and server/server communication protocols to any undertaking wishing to develop and distribute work group server operating systems".<br /><br />4) There was this trustee/monitor thing, also complied with, but now overturned. Even this was not overturned in its entirety - what the CFI objected to was, in effect, making Microsoft payroll the guy.<br /><br />My prediction is that as a result of this judgment, Microsoft will now move a little more quickly to get compliant with the specification disclosure, but not much else will happen.

[MMC Racing]

Nothing customers want?

The server business has been growing for decades now and products like Exchange continue to displace Notes and Groupwise in businesses. Maybe you are too home user focused to see that.

[RMarch]

Bad news for US Tech

While you may or may not hate Microsoft, this ruling is about much more than Microsoft. The EU is a very political environment and they view European competition on a global scale as critical. This ruling enforces the fact that the EU courts agree with the commission.<br /><br />What does this mean? It means that it will empower the EU Commission to continue to go after US tech powerhouses. They are currently investigating Intel, Google, and the beloved Apple. They even went after Qualcom, and Motorola recently. The Microsoft decision will empower them to accelerate actions agains any heavyweight tech company as long as they are not European (What's to stop them from going after Cisco, EMC, etc.). Where is the investigation of Nokia, Philips, Infineon, etc. This is politically driven and not in the interest of global consumers (just leveling the playing field for Europe to catch up). <br /><br />In the short run, the EU may be able to make a false sense of hope that European companies can compete, but European tech companies will do just fine by themselves (Nokia does not need the EU to go after Qualcom / Motorola). The free market will take care of Microsoft in the end. If the EU Commission continues winning big verdicts agains US companies, it will become less and less attractive to do business in Europe. This will ultimitly hurt the global marketplace.

[Russell McOrmond]

Of course this is protectionism.

I agree with you that what the EU is doing is protectionist in nature.<br /><br />Where we may disagree is that the laws that create excessive exclusive rights that are being pushed worldwide by the USTR/USPTO are also protectionist in nature. In the global opposition to free/libre trade and global fair competition, from my observation the worst offender is the United States.<br /><br />Microsoft isn't the problem. The root of the problem is laws which give exclusive rights on computing interfaces (mis-named anti-circumvention legislation, or any Patent or Copyright on an Interface such as an API, network protocol or file format) or rights on information/mental processes.<br /><br />While I may put some blame on Mr Gates and his followers for pushing the ideology of "some exclusive rights are good, more is better, and the only way to make money with knowledge is to charge a marginal price", but I do not blame any companies for the obvious failures of this ideology.<br /><br /><br />Until countries address the underlying problem, they will then be continuously claiming that these companies are "abusing" the law when in fact they are simply (most often foreign) successes at obeying bad laws.

[bhushan bhaagii]

It's Really A Blow, But How Big...?

Without dredging up digital sources, let's just have very brief look at the (antitrust) litigation filed against MS.<br /><br />1. Netscape. Where the Bush Administration, the DOJ and the Judiciary practically rewarded MS.<br />Remember, in one instance, when a fine was imposed on their anticompetitive behaviour, the penalty was that MS would supply to schools THEIR OWN SOFTWARE, to the tune of about $600 million,<br />thus seeding schools with their software, and getting a giant foothold.<br /><br />2. Java-Sun negotiatated a settlement, which was MS' intention; let the victim litigate like hell until he gives up.<br /><br />3. SCO-Linux: MS could not cover their tracks here, there was no doubt that the litigation was driven solely by MS's self interest. <br /><br />4. Apple-that was a long time, when Windows 95 came out. I think Steve Jobs finally agreed to a negotiated out-of-court settlement.<br /><br />IBM, at one time, was the king of the digital world. Big Blue was synonymous with IT in the<br />70s and early 80s. But IBM learnt some hard lessons from from the big bruising antitrust<br />suits filed against it. IT CHANGED.<br /><br />Enough to look at a new world-view. Enought to drop some of its businesses closely identified with the company: PC and laptops. And move to a new business model where it is now the leader in IT Integration, Tech Outsourcing, BPOs, Call Centres, et al. It is today a big champion of Open Source. And Linux.<br /><br />Microsoft's mindset, unfortunately cannot embrace anything that does not bear the MS tag. If there's any hint of a competitive threat, it works to spread FUD. The systematic campaign, sponsored polls and reports on total cost of ownership (TCO) vis-a-vis Linux, the threat of suing users of Open Source products because they allegedly violated 258 of MS patents, all these<br />suggest it will be very hard for MS to change.<br /><br />And, maybe it's too late. Companies like IBM, which have a huge stake in Open Source, will battle Microsoft every inch of the way.<br /><br />The EU defeat will now tell on MS in other ways. The loss of an affirmative ISO vote for OOXML is now going to be a definite negative one, come <br />2008, when a final vote is taken.

[fred dunn]

So Stop Selling MS Products In The EU...

And while they are at it block all EU IP's from the MS servers for a period of time, say a month or two.<br />I would be willing to bet that the EU would reconsider.<br />I agree with the other reader that this is not as much about Microsoft as it is about the EU's lack of an alternative OS authored in the EU.<br />The story states that now they are going to go after several other American companies. This is more of a "NIH" (not invented here) situation. It appears that the EU is tired of seeing it's money go to US companies....PERIOD.<br /><br />If I were MS I would take their bluff and just stop selling to the EU for a period of time then let the EU's constituency decide whether they want MS the way they were and not a group of EU tech companies.<br /><br />It has already been indicated that while the EU has the options of not having Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer installed the vast majority DID order their computers with those components.<br /><br />Mark my words, this is not about MS as much as it is a witch hunt against US technologies.<br /><br />It will cost the EU jobs and vital technology if MS were to just stop selling products and threaten to close all of their EU offices.

[Penguinisto]

Sure...

[i]"And while they are at it block all EU IP's from the MS servers for a period of time, say a month or two. I would be willing to bet that the EU would reconsider."[/i]<br /><br />I bet they would simply shift over to Linux and OSX and not give a damn after that. Europe is where MSFT is losing marketshare the fastest, IIRC. <br /><br />The long-term effects would be catastrophic for MSFT: the EU would simply feed gargantuan amounts of money towards increasing Linux development and mindshare. This in turn insures that those new products would be available to everyone, which in turn undercuts MSFT both in the US and globally (thanks to the fact that users and businesses in the US can simply download and implement equivalent or better solutions which in a MSFT or Windows-only world would cost a mint).<br /><br />Your sword cuts in both directions, eh?<br /><br />MSFT cannot afford to lost that much strategic ground, and they know it.<br /><br />/P

[Jim Harmon]

Not sell in Europe

When this whole witchhunt started I made this very recommendation to Microsoft. I'm "nobody", so of course they didn't listen. I'm glad to see I'm not alone in this line of thought.<br /><br />Let MS just plain LEAVE. It's a global economy now. Why should they cater to the European market when it's clear they're unwelcome? There are plenty of other places to make billions of dollars.<br /><br />(I wouldn't go so far as to block IP's from MS servers - that WOULD be crossing the anti-competitive line)

[Russell McOrmond]

Attempts at solving the wrong problem isn't a solution at all!

The following is a link to an article I wrote in the context of the US settlement with Microsoft. <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4157" target="_newWindow">http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/4157</a><br /><br />"The focus on Microsoft has always seemed silly to me, with Microsoft simply being the most successful company at utilizing a critically flawed technology law regime which creates an anti-competitive environment. The "Evil Empire" isn't Microsoft, but the US government and governments which follow their "lead".<br /><br />Some of the key US created problems? Software patents and laws which disallow citizens from making their own software choices such as anti-circumvention, broadcast flag, mandatory watermark detections, and various harmful attempts to "close the analog hole". With the USTR/USPTO pushing these very bad ideas worldwide this "evil empire" is causing harm not only to the US domestic economy but the global economy."

[Jim Harmon]

Evil Empire

Not to mention the fact that they're seriously considering OUTLAWING ad blocking software!! <br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://tinyurl.com/32coab" target="_newWindow">http://tinyurl.com/32coab</a><br />(CNet news from Sept 14)

[whizkid454]

Ludicrous...

This whole deal with the EU is plain BS. Microsoft is selling a product like any other product by any other company. Next, they'll tell Apple they can't sell OSX because it only comes with one set of software programs. The EU needs to worry about other important matters, not why Microsoft has WMP embedded in the OS.