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September 17, 2007 12:21 PM PDT
EU ruling deals setback to Microsoft
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September 17, 2007
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A number of Microsoft competitors have previously weighed in on the interoperability issue in complaints to the Commission. These include the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), a nonprofit trade association that includes as members Adobe, IBM, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems.
"This landmark judgment sets a clear standard for Microsoft's future conduct and empowers the European Commission to impose it in the European market when necessary," said Thomas Vinje, a spokesman and legal counsel for ECIS.
Linux distributor Red Hat also voiced its support for the court's decision.
"In our business, interoperability information is critically important and cannot simply be withheld to exclude all competition?we were pleased with the overall decision and look forward to examining the decision in greater detail," Matthew Szulik, Red Hat chief executive, said in a statement.
Similar views were expressed by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA).
"After one of the most thorough investigations in the history of competition law, spanning over seven years, the Commission has taken a steady and decisive course," Ken Wasch, SIIA president, said in a statement. "We applaud the leadership and persistence of the European Commission."
But another trade group, the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), which includes Microsoft as a member, expressed disappointment in the ruling, labeling it a blow to "free enterprise in Europe."
In addition to the interoperability issue, the court sided with the Commission on the bundling of separate software products, citing three areas that affected its decision. One was the company in question must have a dominant position in the market for the tying product, such as the Windows operating system; two, the tying product and tied product--in this case Windows and Windows Media Player--must be two separate products; and three, consumers don't have a choice to obtain the tying product without the tied product.
"The court considers that the factors on which the Commission based its conclusion that there was abusive tying are correct and consistent with community law."
RealNetworks, which makes the RealPlayer media player, had raised such an issue in the past, eventually reaching a $460 million settlement to address antitrust claims with Microsoft in 2005. Microsoft also agreed to pay RealNetworks $310 million to support RealNetworks' movie and game business.
In recent years, the software giant has been paying multimillion-dollar settlements to its rivals to address previous antitrust litigation. Microsoft also paid longtime archrival Sun Microsystems $700 million to settle antitrust disputes with the company over interoperability issues and another $900 million over patent issues.
Legal experts previously weighed in on what a favorable court ruling would do for the Commission. Some legal experts said that with a favorable court ruling in the Microsoft case, the Commission would likely remain on its current aggressive track in pursuing antitrust cases, whereas an unfavorable one would have likely "taken the wind out of its sails."
Reuters contributed to this report.
See more CNET content tagged:
antitrust, commission, market share, court, European Union
39 comments
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> pull all of their operations out of the EU market!
What? And do Europe a favor?! ;-)
Sure, in the short run it would be very painful, but in the long run
they (and the rest of the world for that mater) would be much
better off.
It is not about the ISO, and the ISO by the way are corrupt and take bribes from special interest groups to approve standards anyway. It is all about money and running legacy software. Most legacy software runs on the 32 bit Windows platform, but Microsoft has to stop anti-competition practices like bundling software that competes with others out there.
The rest of your statement is political based nonsense, not even worthy of my time to analyze it and tell you how non-intelligent it really is in real life.
the U.S. based Microsoft Corporation) such as global warming!
How many French citizens and residents died on 9/11? Now,
that was a real and present threat!"
Not only is this illogical, but absurd. Let's just let all the
criminals out of gaol because their crimes obviously pale in
significance compared to global warming and 9/11. The
Microsoft case is quite independent of these matters. Because
this is illogical you are obviously not the real Spock... what have
you done with him?
1. Netscape. Where the Bush Administration, the DOJ and the Judiciary practically rewarded MS.
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 $600 million,
thus seeding schools with their software, and getting a giant foothold.
2. Java-Sun negotiatated a settlement, which was MS' intention; let the victim litigate like hell until he the victim gives up.
3. SCO-Linux: MS could not cover their tracks here, there was no doubt that the litigation was driven solely by MS's self interest.
4. Apple-that was a long time, when Windows 95 came out. I think Steve Jobs finally agreed to a negotiated out-of-court settlement.
IBM, at one time, was the king of the digital world. Big Blue was synonymous with IT in the
70s and early 80s. But IBM learnt some hard lessons from from the big bruising antitrust
suits filed against it. IT CHANGED.
Enough to look at a new world-view. Enought to drop some of its businesses closely identified with the company: PCs and laptops. And move to a new business model where it is now the leader in IT Integration, Tech Outsourcing, BPOs, Call Centres, et al. It is today a big champion of Open Source. And Linux.
Microsoft's mindset, unfortunately cannot embrace anything that does not bear the MS tag. If there's any hint of a competitive threat, it works to spread FUD. The systematic campaign, sponsored polls and reports on total cost of ownership (TCO) vis-a-vis Linux, the threat of suing users of Open Source products because they allegedly violated 258 of MS patents, all these
suggest it will be very hard for MS to change.
And, maybe it's too late. Companies like IBM, which have a huge stake in Open Source, will battle Microsoft every inch of the way.
The EU defeat will now tell on MS in other ways. The loss of an affirmative ISO vote for OOXML is now going to be a definite negative one, come
2008, when a final vote is taken.
A question, computer hardware has dropped dramatically in price in the last decade - why has microsoft's productivity not been able to keep prices of software down? (Are indian wages to high :-)
Micro$oft was basically on trial for using all OS before XP. They weren't complient, they'd rather pay the fine, and continue to be out of compliance. Take their ability away to control the previous OS, they're not supporting them anyway. Anything in those OS would be available to anyone for developement. Anything in the new OS that is not in the old OS would still be protected. Some entity could take say Windows 98 SE upgrade it, sell the upgrade along with a copy of Windows 98 SE which is now available for copy and distribution without Micro$oft's ability to stop it. Walla almost instant competition. to present day Micro$oft.
It would also deter Micro$oft or any other monopoly from abusing an order to cease in desist. Make them more willing to compy with requests from the powers that be. Governments take guns away if guns are miss used, cars, pets, children, why not a patent/copyright? They would only be taking away the protection they afforded to the intities now, not the product.
you want to do business in the EU you need to obey the laws of the
EU.
If you don't want to obey European laws please take your business
elsewhere.
- Apple, for the monopoly in MP3 players
- Adobe, for the monopoly in editing tools and formats, and Flash.
- IBM, for monopoly of the last remaining mainframe systems (AS400 anyone?), which are the majority of EU banking backbone.
- Cisco, for monopoly in routers, etc.
And so on..
The trick is to identify what's a market and define the company's share on that. If you cut the pie the "right" way, even Sun, with its pathetic market share, is a monopolist in some area.
These court findings are just the justification EU has now to protect its local technology companies against any international competition through law, instead of quality and inovation, the same way they do with agricultural products, chemicals, etc.
The US companies that sided with EU this time for greed will soon realize that you sometimes should think twice before making your wish...
You might get more than you asked for...
Court ruling, not only for the US, but also the EU, and the rest of
the world for that matter.
On the other hand, this is Microsoft we are talking about and
they have used a lot of unethical business practices to get where
they are today. And their very recent activities (e.g., OOXML)
demonstrates that they must be kept on a tight leash.
Now it is time to start taking a look at EU exports to the US.
Adobe: Nope - there's more out there than Photoshop and Illustrator, esp. in the pro market ;)
IBM: Mainframes? Well, you need to Add Fujitsu, Amdahl (a subsidiary of Fujitsu now IIRC), and a whole host of other manufacturers in this (by now) niche market. PS: A/S-400's are more or less dead. zSeries and pSeries is what you can direct your bile towards if you'd like.
Cisco? Nope - Juniper runs quite strong out that way on the high end, as does Huawei, with HP , Netgear, and a whole host of other folks on the bottom and middle ends competing just fine w/ Cisco.
Microsoft's marketshare hasn't remained so high based on competition and innovation but rather inertia and institutional bad practices.
The market may well provide remedy down the road because geographic wins can only go so far.
You might not understand it, but many people here in the USA believe they should leave Microsoft alone as long as they are not doing anything like burning down the competitor's factories, murdering the competitor's employees, kidnapping their kids, etc.... You know, stuff that's REALLY criminal.
Europe leans more socialist. And, if you're going to do business in the EU, you have to follow the EU's rules.
I doubt any of this is going to have any effect, other than to punish Microsoft and their shareholders. At the end of the day, Microsoft will still have most of the market share, and most Windows users will have Media Player installed.
They are jealous that the Americans dominate the tech industry... So they want to make some money off it and hurt the consumer and big company. What I call "SOUR LOSER"
In my mind the best solution, to create fair competition, would be to split Microsoft into one OS company and one applications company. The latter should then have insight into the OS as any other competitor - no less info, no more info.
Also with less links to a, too, dominant player on the market - consumer driven document standards would have easier to survive for the benifit of the consumer - not the producer.
Why should 95% of all desktops in the world be controlled by one huge monopoly? Why do you feel so threatened? Are you a Microsoft shill or what? Is your complaining going to change anybody's mind?
I'm glad to see the wheels of justice flow towards other alternatives consumers can use.
Consequently, prices of proprietary legal O/S software products can often be more expensive in Indonesia (developing country) than in USA or Europe,for instant in contrast with the price of Mac Donald hamburger or Kentucky fried chicken in global market which follow purchasing power of the people in a country (competitive & fair competition market).
Alternative legal products (GNU, Linux & Open Source) are still scarce and less popular, so many still end up using illegal software (pirated copy) that are readily available in the market.
Strong lobby of dominant players on the IPR and Anti Monopoly law also seen in many developing country such as Indonesia, where dominant position in IPR products issues are excluded from Anti Monopoly and Unfair Competition law, thus monopoly might exist for IPR products, which made the EU court ruling on unfair competition a start and a wake up call for other courts in global competition in many part of the world today.
Hoping it can be used as case study for other courts and countries globally to give fair competition to small players and customer of Microsoft global market dominant products.
Association of community internet center ( APWKomitel - Indonesia)
In siding with the EU, I'm agreeing that somebody else has no right to forcibly rob me of my life and work value and provide it to their own kids so their own kids can live a better life than me.
I don't see why not. Microsoft has time and again been brought up on anti-trust cases. The only difference is that the EU doesn't have America's legal system on their side.
The legal system that allows unfair anti-trust practices to continue if you throw enough money to the lawyers!
The U.S. needs to learn from this and follow suit and PROOVE this Bottom Line to be false.
Walt