Will The DOJ Split Microsoft In Three? 539
cbull writes: "Yahoo! has an article that indicates the judge in the Microsoft case thinks splitting Microsoft into three companies is attractive to him. This is based on a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the
Computer and Communications Industry Association and Software and Information Industry Association."
And mfinke wrote: "Just saw the CNN article here about Judge Jackson's ruling that DOJ's proposal to split the company will still be considered when he rules. " Finally, mizhi pointed out this ZDNet coverage of the proceedings, saying "Basically, the government says that instead of splitting Microsoft into an operating system company and applications company, it should also split it into a third independent company for Internet Explorer."
Re:Split horizontally, not vertically! (Score:2)
http:// partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/biztech/a
The proposal called for forcing Microsoft to auction the source code for the Windows operating system to other companies, which would develop and improve it, creating competition in the operating system business. [...]
But as the states quickly found out, there was one big problem. When they talked to the various companies that might be bidders in the Windows auction, they learned that none had any interest in bidding. The consensus was that the computer code was too complicated, and the price was likely to be too high.
Presumably, Oracle was one of the companies that wanted nothing to do with a horizontal split.
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Re:Let's try again... (Score:2)
Could have been a troll, but I've seen too many people expressing the very same thoughts here. Valid questions if you don't know much about what's gone on, which many people apparently don't. Might as well take the opportunity to inform some people.
Ack, when did Ed Muth start posting here? (Score:2)
Whatever. Look, MS may have "established" themselves in the hardware arena through leveraging OEM relationships, or they may not have. As a consumer, I don't know.
Yeah, the sheeple don't know much of anything. That's why Microsoft gets away with all this crap for so long. I don't give a damn how good their hardware is. They should NOT be able to force it on the OEMs, which is exactly what they are doing, with hardware and software both. They've been doing this crap for nearly 10 years. Microsoft has way too much power over the OEMs for the market to be fair. With that kind of control, the OEMs can't ship a better product, even if some peripheral company makes one available to them, without charging the customer a hefty premium for that product, which makes it very difficult for that peripheral company to compete with Microsoft. Thus the market is tilted heavily in Microsoft's favor. That's not a healthy market.
The difference here is that Microsoft actaully does research into usability and ergonomics. Their products are the results of billions of dollars of said research.
Ahh.. ok, now I see exactly why we should let them force the competition out of the market by leveraging their monopoly to strongarm the OEMs. It's all perfectly clear now. Yeah right. What difference does it make how much money they spend on researching stuff? Why should that give them the right to illegally stifle competition?
Also, regardless of what is shipped with a new computer due to OEM relationships with ANY company, the user is empowered to change anything they want.
Yeah, you're right. We should just give our money to Microsoft for crap we don't want like good little sheeple. Then we can go out and buy the stuff we really wanted in the first place. I don't see any problem with that. Anyone else have a problem with that?
Re:NT Times Coverage as well (Score:2)
http://partners.nytimes.com/ [nytimes.com] etc. (article has since moved)
The new and supposedly brilliant URL is
http://partners.nytimes.com [nytimes.com]
Now, since you are so wise, you want to explain why that's an improvement? Cripes, indeed.
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Simple (Score:2)
Corel does not have monopoly power. Leveraging is only illegal if the product that is leveraged is a monopoly product. Since Corel is nowhere near being a monopoly, there is no foul.
Additionally, Corel Linux is just one distribution, and it is basically compatible with the other distros. Hard to leverage that.
There's also the issue that most of Corel's products only run on Windows, although this is likely to change.
If Corel does eventually become a monopoly, then yes, they should face the consequences of abusing that monopoly, just as Microsoft should.
Re:Ack, when did Ed Muth start posting here? (Score:2)
ROFL! Funny, I'll bet Logitech, ALPS, and Mouse Systems would strongly disagree with you on that point...
MouseSystems and Logitech between the two of them had nearly 100% of the OEM mouse market sewn up until Microsoft started leaning on the OEMs. While some of Microsoft's newer hardware products are good, there was certainly nothing compelling about the original Microsoft mouse except that it kept the OEMs license cost lower. Even their "innovative" products, such as the wheel mouse and the natural keyboard were intended primarily to promote Microsoft lock-in, since for a very long time, only Microsoft hardware supported the "new" scrolling features and Windows keys.
The new Explorer mouse may be the first real piece of innovation we've seen from them in the hardware space (and it *is* cool), so I think I'd hold off before getting so enthusiastic...
Re:IE, Inc.?? What's their product (Score:2)
An IE-only company could make money perhaps by offering a different product. IE Lite, along the lines of Opera for example. Something - anything. But I never seen Microsoft innovate in such a way, and I wouldn't expect its ilk to..
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Re:Need to prevent desktop to server monopoly! (Score:2)
Servers is the only arena in which Microsoft (as today) is really vulnerable. Linux (and other non-ms OS) are competing well on the servers, but except for a (admittedly large) couple of geeks, are not used on the desktop.
I do a great deal of development for MS backoffice platforms, IIS, SQL-server etc. The advantage of developing for a MS platform serving MS Clients from a MS desktop is scary.
That is why Back Office must be separated from the OS company just like the regular Office suite. No bundling of Word and IE with Windows 98, no bundling of IIS and SQL server with Win 2K.
NT Times Coverage as well (Score:3)
Whither VC++ (Score:2)
Re:Morally wrong... (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:IE wouldn't be the internet MS's only holding (Score:2)
That's just my point -- it would be horrible to have both content and presentation companies locked together.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:2)
LOL
Actually, I do think that frames and scripting are pretty cool - they're just REALLY misused. (Frames that don't link out to the top level for outside-site links, or worse tries to hijack content -- I'm not even going to get into the evils of scripting, particularly ActiveScript (some of which are only now becoming apparent - ie: LUVbug, etc...)).
But just because these "features" are misused doesn't mean they're not cool. I tend to be anti-frames myself, but when used properly, they're not that bad. I get a bit peeved when someone overwrites the status bar with their corny message - but intelligently used mouseovers and DHTML forms that calculate order totals without a page reload (or sending any data back to the originating server) are wonderful.
Of course, without people abusing the technology, we won't see its flaws and limits very clearly - and there will be little in the way of progress, so even the misuse isn't that bad in that respect.
Still, there needs to be a balance of functionality with security - these loopholes in the code that allow scripts like LUVbug to occur are tough to justify or forgive.
It's easy under the circumstances to say that scripting is a "bad thing"(tm) because of this. It's like saying "guns are bad" because people can be shot by them, without taking into account the legitimate uses (hunting, protection, etc)
(Although [getting a bit off topic here] I'd love to see guns and artillery on the whole abandoned in favor of more personal means of combat - it's easy and takes very little skill to shoot someone - but to use a sword or axe effectively takes considerable skill, and is MUCH more personal - putting a greater emphasis on human life in general - I figure we'd have a lot less conflict if it meant going toe-to-toe with your enemy rather than just pressing a button or pulling a trigger.)
Internet Explorer and then some (Score:2)
They'll probably have to take other applications/ parts of the company with it. Maybe MSN or some other stuff to support it. That way you get:
1 Windows OS + LAN Stuff
2 Explorer + Web + WAN Stuff
3 Office + Development (VisualWhatever)
Anyone know what the friend-of-the-court brief looks like? Are they more detailed on what splits off with what?
-jpowers
Re:What about the hardware? (Score:2)
Amici recommend 3d co. or "open source" for IE (Score:2)
The Openlaw [harvard.edu] Microsoft Case [harvard.edu] page has more of the filings.
Information is not the only resource (Score:2)
But money is another story.
Under this split, the IE company would have to find it's own money, not get financed by raising the price of the OS - which is possible due to the monopoly.
The point of the whole IE situation, if you think back, was to shut down Netscape, which was threatening to make Windows less relevant by providing an alternate platform for applications.
So MS developed IE, but the software didn't gain enough market share. So they gave it away. Still not good enough. So they changed the OS (which, you may recall, you pretty much had to pay for unless you bought a Mac or built your own computer) so that you had to have IE. At which point, %50 percent market share was guaranteed even if nobody ever used the software. And most people prefer not to have two different software packages that do exactly the same thing.
This enabled Microsoft to raise the price of Windows.
So yes, I like this idea. It directly addresses the problem.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
The SIAA's amicus curiae brief (Score:2)
Gates Email Unsealed (Score:2)
Re:Dismembering Microsoft (Score:2)
There are at least two massive flaws with the idea that open-sourcing windows would be a useful way to break Microsoft's monopoly.
First off, there is the issue that Kawlyn mentioned: the cost of other companies diving into the Windows source code. It would be an enourmous expense for a company to get developers to the point where they could do anything useful to the source code. Buying programmers from Microsoft would likely be equally expensive. And Microsoft would definitely still have more than enough money to buy them back, leaving you behind ground zero. Getting the incoming capital to do this would be hard, in great part because of the second flaw.
The second major flaw is the marketing problem. Microsoft, for good reason and with a fair bit of truthfulness, can push the advertising angle that these other companies don't know Windows as well, and can't provide the level of support that Microsoft can. Other comapnies that try to do something useful to the Windows code base before they understand it fully are likely to introduce bugs, and so Microsoft can, for once, truthfully claim that their product is more stable and reliable than the competitor. The only market share that won't fall victim to this marketing is the part of the market that cares more about cost than quality. And Microsoft, given its enourmous coffers, can probably undersell any competing company that is still trying to pay its develoeprs to understand what the hell the source code is doing.
Open sourcing Windows might make it more stable in the long run, but unless the open sourcing was to a license that forbade commercial sale[1], it probably would have minimal effect on Microsoft's monopoly.
[1] The problem with this is that Microsoft could probably win an appeal against this because it would basically be forbidding them from doing business in that market sector. As much as Microsoft pisses me off, even I don't think that such a thing would be just, especially because of the precedent it might set.
However, I don't think that breaking up Microsoft will do a lot to reduce their monopoly. It will split the monopoly into pieces, but those pieces will probably retain their monopoly. Microsoft's applications already are geared to work well with Windows. Splitting up the company won't change that. It would make it easier for other companies to gain inroads, however. The government could make reasonable demands that would limit the amount of sharing of secret and/or undocumented APIs between the babysofts. The government could require that such APIs are made available to competitors.
Even with that, though there is the age old problem of our love of stagnation, despite its lethality. Companies and people alike don't like change, and for good reason. It takes significant time and resources to migrate from one version of a software package to another. Upgrading from one version to another can be painful too, but it usually isn't as painful as switching. Every sane company includes in new versions of their software the ability to import data from the old versions.
So, if a breakup of Microsoft is to break the software monopoly, at least for something as big as the office suite, the government would almost have to demand that the babysoft assigned to applications create worse software than it previously did!
So what is my solution? I don't have one. I haven't thought about it very hard, either, to be honest. It's a tricky problem, and it is likely that the only real solution is to stop the further expansion of the monopoly, provide some incentives for competition, and then let time do its thing. All things are impermanent. Microsoft, Linux, *BSD, BeOS, and even our current concept of an operating system or a piece of software will eventually be left behind.
-Matt
Re:Microsoft should be divided into 15 companies (Score:5)
Oh. Wait. That's what we've got already and are trying to get rid of. My bad.
So why hasn't anyone suggested tossing them into Mount Doom? :-)
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
Re:Gates Email Unsealed (Score:3)
Re:*yawn* (Score:2)
Re:My Ideal Breakup (Score:2)
- Microsoft OS core, plus related apps
- Microsoft OS drivers (inc. DirectX, OLE, etc), plus related apps
- Microsoft Applications, plus related core & drivers
- Microsoft Research (who would hold all current MS patents)
This would avoid the question of split-off companies fighting each other, as they'd each have just enough cross-over to function independently, but no more.Judges shows incompetence (Score:2)
Breaking up a software company is much different than breaking up a telephone company or oil-company too. Unlike the previous, there is no concept of territory to divide amoung. For the most part, all of Microsoft resides in one location...what are you going to do, have all the companies on the same campus? Make them waste 2/3 of their infrastructure over this? No, breaking up makes no sense at all, especially for the relatively minor violations they have done.
You could solve all these problem by requiring that Microsoft simply have published price schedules for all their products and an inability to discriminate on who they sell to.
Re:My Ideal Breakup (Score:2)
On Number 4, I don't think that Micro$oft would mind losing Hotmail, since the fact that they still can't get it ported to NT must be getting pretty embarassing. What does anyone think the chances are that a non-M$ Hotmail will ever move their servers off of Solaris? Me either.
Re:Good lord, not this again (Score:2)
Good question. And history already provides the answer.
DR-DOS/Novell DOS was just as good as MS-DOS, but it never won more than a few points of market share. Future Windows clones would suffer the same fate, unless MICROS~1 were subject to the conduct restrictions that everyone is trying to avoid.
Re:The Beast That Would Not Die. (Score:2)
Seems to me that they're doing the best they can. If Microsoft's pieces collude, they'll get smacked. There isn't much else you can do...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
The real question is (Score:3)
Re:Good lord, not this again (Score:2)
I beg to differ. Compaq is not going to hire a mess of coders to re-write Windows in some herculean Mozilla-esque rewrite to produce a better product. It'll simply make it easier to change refrences to MS into Compaq and release the same buggy, crappy code over and over.
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
IE, Inc.?? What's their product (Score:2)
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It's not about hurting MS ... (Score:2)
I agree that there are other alternatives that could be better for the software industry as a whole. Unfortunately, the courts will be more concerned with what MS has done wrong and how they should be punished and prevented from doing so again. Their primary concern probably won't be the overall welfare of the industry.
Looking at Stallman's article, he quickly writes off exactly what the US courts will be most concerned with. "The latter (breaking up MS) would mainly help others proprietary application developers compete, which would only offer users alternative ways to let go of their freedom." Sure those are alternate ways for users to buy into secrecy - but that's exactly what this trial is about, competition in a capitalist market. He then goes on to give alternative measures which would benefit FREE SOFTWARE - not what a court in the capitalistic USofA is likely to care much about.
This court case isn't about freedom to the US gov, even if advocates of free software wish it were.
You know what to do with the HELLO.
Judge doesn't seem to care (Score:2)
Re:My Ideal Breakup (Score:2)
2. Applications (Office, Games, Wordpad, Solitaire and other apps that are now included in the Windows operating environment)
3. Media (MSNBC, MSN (including Hotmail), MicrosoftPress)
So you would put IE with apps instead of Media. As I ponder that, it makes a lot of sense. It prevents the media group from putting special stuff in IE that only they can really take advantage of, etc. I have long been a proponent of basicly the same breakup as you outlined with a few differences. For one, let the OS group keep Wordpad, Solitare, etc. These programs are so basic that they have to be given away free for anyone to want them. The OS group can probably keep anything simplistic enough that no one would BUY it. They need to have basic text editors and such to have a prayer of competing with Linux and *BSD fo long.
The next question is who gets hardware? They have mice, keyboards, etc. right now and are theoretically designing the X-Box. I am inclined to give it to the Media group so that they have a chance to actually make some sort of money. This is not the preposterous figures you could point to from Office, so they can do little to support themselves through one line of products paying for all the others.
B. Elgin
Re:FYI (Score:3)
Of course he does. Of course they extend to his vision of what software should be far more than any legal court in the US could ever consider. There is no legitimate way a court could direct a company to only use its patents in defense, for example.
The issue is quite simple. What do we do to M$ to prevent them from using their monopoly in ways that hurt consumers in order to hurt their competition more (and preserve their monopoly). Well, one thing they do is leverage their operating system monopoly to allow applications to become monopolies. Witness Office and IE. So, to prevent that, break them apart, and allow all application developers equal access to Windows, in whatever form that may be. Further, the OS company would not be allowed to develop consumer applications that have their own markets, like Office Suites, Database servers, Mail Servers. And, Internet Explorer, as it is the focus of the trial, would necessarily be split from Windows and belong to the application company.
A second tactic used by M$, demonstrated in this trial, is selective licensing to strengthen its monopoly (IBM paid more for Windows than anyone else because it didn't ship Windows on ALL its machines). In that case M$ is hurting the consumer in order to hurt IBM more. Therefore, no more selective licensing.
That ought to take care of it. It isn't rocket science. They need to stick closely to things demonstrated in the trial for this to be robust against appeal anyway.
The suit is ridiculous (Score:2)
Slapping Microsoft for having a monopoly on the browser is about as relevant as punishing a company for having a monopoly on hood ornaments at a time when the state of the art is a Model A Ford.
The US is the laughing stock of the world. We took one of the most successful companies in the history of commerce to court, to punish them for being too successful.
The browser is irrelevant. By the time this case finishes the appeals process, and a final judgment is rendered, the irrelevance of this suit will be evident. Yet the damage will already have been done, and there will be no benefit to consumers, to the industry, to the economy, or to the US in general.
But! (Score:4)
I really don't think that this would solve the problem at all. If MS#3 decided to write their own antivirus software (which sends me into gales of laughter...), then eventually that would become the most widely-used antivirus software on MS#3-windows. Why? Because it would run faster (since they know all those secret APIs), know the OS inside+out from the start, and, most importantly, MS#3 could offer it bundled with MS#3-windows. If someone already has a product which is adequate, why go out and buy (or even download for free) another?
No, I am still firmly of the opinion that MS must be split into OS + Apps companies in order for true competition to begin.
Re:Wouldn't 3 Microsofts be more dangerous? (Score:3)
Is anyone else afraid that splitting MS up would results in three smaller, more nimble, more competitive, and more aggressive companies?
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Isn't that the whole idea?
They'd have to work for their success, instead of having it handed to them on a platter...
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Large corporations move more slowly than smaller ones, and the last thing we need is a faster, deadlier MS
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If they actually make products deserving of success, they'll get it. This isn't about punishing the entire company, but rather making it where innovation (the real kind - not the Microsoft kind) is fostered. As much as I'd like to see MS spanked, forcing them to actually make decent products and letting others swallow them up if they don't is far more fulfilling in the long run...
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com [velocinews.com])
Re:FYI (Score:2)
He believes the only group (the group most ignored by the prosecution and the judge so far) to be split off should be the languages and libraries group. Basically, if Windows (and therefore Internet Explorer) lost the "secretness" of its APIs (including file formats since they're all shared within ms applications), the market would quickly get more competitive.
Cringely actually thinks the COMPILERS should be split off.
But, as you point out, that was not covered in the trial. Thus, it will be regarded as irrelevant to all in the trial.
Besides, not having compiler control would severely limit their ability to make an operating system in the first place. Can you see it ?? The OS becomes nice and robust, and WHOOPS - the compiler company changes the compiler on them. The shakeout in bugs would be 10 times worse than it already is.
The judge needs to stick very close to things covered in the trial for this to actually happen. And he knows that.
Yeah - and even then (Score:2)
But then, as we used to say, "The bigger they are the harder they fall".
MS Should be split into 3.141592... companies. (Score:3)
So that everyone can get a piece of the PI.
Re:It's not about hurting MS ... (Score:4)
The alternatives that he mentions would also benefit non-free software. If you look at them (publishing interfaces, preventing MS from using patents offensively, making hardware certifications "open") they aren't really geared toward free software specifically. They are geared toward free development and competition. RMS' desired remedies don't say anything about how MS competitors license their software; the remedies simply allow competitors to exist (freely and independantly). I guess RMS has faith that this would lead to some free software (and he's probably right).
Actually, it is. It's just that there's two parties who want freedom. RMS wants to protect the freedom of users, and in order to get that, the users' agents (developers) must be free to do whatever is necessary. DoJ's motivation is a bit more abstract: to protect freedom in the market, ostensibly to benefit consumers. The two motivations are a bit different, but they're compatable. And if the judge "realizes" that you can't have a free market without developers having certain freedoms, then RMS will get his way.
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Re:Third Company should have more to it (Score:2)
Which might not be a bad thing; I very much dislike the idea of pay-per-use software.
Re:Will the DOJ splitting up MS do ANYTHING? (Score:3)
No they won't. That's the whole point of breaking up a company -- breaking up assets and code and giving them to one of the new companies. The Baby Bills will be fighting over which company gets to keep what.
The government would never allow that to happen. They'd get dragged back into court the second the even thought about it.
Seriously though, what exactly will it do? Microsoft's employees, from what I understand of it, talk to each other -- the OS team, the IE team, and the Office team -- so that they can interweave their applications together. What's going to stop them from doing it after the breakup?
I have a nude photo of a woman. It is porn?? (Score:2)
In Unixy terms, this would be a bootloader, the kernel, perhaps init, and a shell. Of course, there may be req'd libraries included in the bunch as well.
In Windows =95(+NT), the OS basically consists of everything up to the 'logon prompt' when loaded in 'Safe Mode' (for 95/98) or a fresh install (for NT), with the exception of user applications that may have been preemptivly loaded in Startup, via a regestry run_once, or through the
IE Company? (Score:2)
Re:Third Company should have more to it (Score:3)
Re:Microsoft should be divided into 15 companies (Score:2)
Who writes this stuff? (Score:2)
That would obviously raise the price of the socks (since it was earlier bundled with the shoes), and will allow other socks manufacturers in the game... that was the issue in the example right? Extending monopoly in one market into another?
In Microsoft's case, if these two/three companies need to stand on their own, they will realize the STUPIDITY of the EEE approach used MS.
In any case, where will the server products go? especially IIS and MSSQL?
BTW, I must say that the ONLY good product put out my MS EVER (except DOS when it came out) is MS SQL 7.0 - what simplicity & power for that price!
Six Pieces -- My Ideal Breakup (Score:2)
2) Back Office/server applications
3) Office/buisness desktop applications
4) Development tools
5) Internet properties (MSN, Hotmail, etc.)
6) Internet Explorer, hardware, and home software (Works, Encarta, games, etc.)
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:*yawn* (Score:2)
OK. "Here's my arbitrary definition of an OS. Here's my arbitrary definition of an app. No companies in the industry which abuse monopolistic market share may sell an OS and an app.""
Do Corel, Sun, or Apple abuse monopolistic market share? No, so the above decision would not apply to them. There's your consistency.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:2)
LK
Re:Dismembering Microsoft (Score:2)
Why should we assign any merit to an idea promoted by a man who can't even apply his own analogy accurately? To properly represent the DOJ proposal, the government of Bedrock would order the shoe company divided into a shoe company and a sock company, not brown shoe and black shoe companies.
Oy Carumba! That's so obvious.
I still like Stallman's idea of forcing MS to open their file formats and interface protocols.
Re:Who will own the 3 seperate companies ? (Score:2)
-Adam
The paperless office will come right after the paperless toilet.
Ambiguous criteria (Score:2)
Just because the internet is so much popular don't mean that IE is NOT an application.
On the other hand, they haven't integrated the whole Office thing into the OS...
The whole criteria to put what product into what company seems ambiguous to me. Setting IE apart means Netscape 'win' their claim, while the splitting up should be done to create equal competition, and MS has more competitors than only Netscape.
Re:Split horizontally, not vertically! (Score:4)
from using its unique position to leverage its monopolies, not to sate
our vindictiveness. Separating the OS from the applications
accomplishes this goal.
Remember being a monopoly is not the harm that antitrust law sets
out to correct. It is using that monopoly power in restraint of
competition. I'm in favour of the original DOJ submission (split MS
in two). I think the more drastic remedies would hurt current MS
consumers.
Already did this (Score:2)
Now if I can just convince the judge to route a fast appeal to the US Supreme Court, I can cash out and use the money for some of my OpenSource investments
Re:FYI (Score:2)
I can't help but think that Stallman wants to use the MS trial as a means to further his own agenda: the elimination of all commercial software.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:3)
"dir" is a basic system tool to browse a filesystem (in this case FAT and/or its derivatives) - Admittedly with Windows' emphasis on GUI rather than CLI, it's deprecated (MS would probably prefer you use Explorer to browse the filesystem), but it's still an essential tool for basic use of the OS under a CLI interface (DOS).
So no problem there...it's a part of the OS - since you've paid for the OS, it's only natural that you get enough tools to effectively use it.
Notepad is a simple, no-frills text editor. It allows basic access to ascii text files, which are the de-facto standard for cross-system text data transfer (although HTML is making some inroads in this area, it's not quite there yet - and there are some other formats like RTF, etc... but none as ubiquitous as plain ascii text)
Again, this is a basic tool. Would you believe it if a user-targeted linux/*bsd distro shipped WITHOUT a text editor (vi, emacs, hell, even pico or nedit!)?
So again, this is a basic tool for effective use of the OS. No problems here - they're making $ off the OS. (Or more likely breaking even on the OS and making the big bucks with licencing fees to manufacturers and development tools to developers)
They originally released IE for free. Two reasons: One - they wanted to dominate the market by forcing Netscape out of business (pay $40 for theirs, or try ours for free!), and Two - they planned all along to add it to the OS once the market was theirs.
Splitting IE off to a company of its own isn't a smart idea - a product that is free doesn't make much money on its own - people aren't going to pay for IE - they're used to getting it for free. So there's no money to be made there.
Selling support is tricky business, and MS's support doesn't exactly have the best of reputations. In addition to this, if your only method of income is selling support, there is a real urge to release a buggy product, simply because it means more people will need support.
Selling documentation isn't going to help MS in the web browser market - the web browser should be (and in most cases is) implicitly easy to use. Click on a link. Press back to go back. etc... An argument could be made that this would give MS a new urge to break compatibility with existing standards to FORCE developers to buy their documentation - but again, without a standards-compliant browser, people aren't going to use it - so there'll be little demand.
In the even that IE is split off into a seperate entity, MS will have effectively shot itself in the foot. Sort of a "They made the browser free, now they've got to deal with the consequences." thing.
I'd expect one of two things to happen - either the IE html rendering engine to be made public (open-source), or the company that is IE to fold under its own weight. The former is probably not possible (this being MS), and the latter most likely in this instance.
Another thought while I'm rambling here - Since the IE html renderer is a DLL that can be used by (really) any app - is there a chance that during such a breakup that the library itself might be allocated to MS, while the application that is IE (which calls on the renderer) would go to the IE company and there die a quick, rather painless death, leaving us in about the same situation as if the OS company were to still have control of IE?
Just MHO - and a little food for thought.
As always, I can be, and sometimes am wrong.
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:2)
The problem with this (or the best part of it, depending on your point of view) is that Microsoft has made the browser WORTHLESS. By releasing IE for free, they forced Netscape to do the same. Just desserts for MS if they DO do this? Possibly - but it's tough to imagine a company that has no product that makes $$$ having the $$$ to pay it's workers to improve a product that costs nothing.
Open Source? (Score:2)
I don't, however, know what they should call themselves, IElla? NewIE? Any other suggestions?
Devil Ducky
Re:Internet Explorer (Score:2)
Re:What about the hardware? (Score:2)
Thats right.
And Red Hat doesn't make anything except a colorful shrinkwrapped box.
And some scriptin croft and proprietary packaging schemes, of course.
Pretty much, except for any software made by those coders they hired...
Wow, an AC who actually understands business.
The name of the game is to be as profitable as possible, you don't do that by making stuff yourself, you do that by getting others to cheaply, then packaging it as your own.
-- iCEBaLM
What I want to know . . . (Score:2)
Seems to me like it would make sense to split the Mac group off into its own company, which would still make beaucoup bux, rather than try to split it up along lines of functionality (Mac IE goes with the Internet group, Mac Office goes with the Apps group).
The same question could apply to apps for other platforms, although taken as a whole they're a pretty minimal piece of the company. Or <insert theme="X-Files"> at least the ones we know about . . . </insert>
--
They can still do an end-around. (Score:2)
IETF standards as Law - the next crusade.
Need to prevent desktop to server monopoly! (Score:5)
Don't believe me? Have a look at the number of attractive features in Windows 2000 that don't work unless you also have Windows 2000 servers. This matters! As much as the crowd here likes to bash MS, Win2K is a pretty damn good OS, and the things it offers when deployed on both servers and desktops are things like TCO that companies care about right now. (And, sadly, the things I see the Linux community ignoring...) As a practical matter, deploying W2K on the desktop demands its deployment on the servers as well, or there's no point in migrating. (As one industry pundit has noted, the ugly secret of W2K is that its great so long as you don't mind replacing all of your software and hardware.)
Microsoft is using its desktop monopoly to deadly effect to ensure that it controls the servers too - all the way up to the datacenter, through Active Directory, Intellimirror, Terminal Server, and the bundling of dozens of apps that are "just good enough" to prevent "competitors" from making a living selling them. (Go do the math - there is a very long list of products displaced by Win2K, many of which provide functions not commonly part of any OS distribution today.)
Until and unless Microsoft is prevented from using its desktop monopoly to drive a server monopoly, nothing the government does will have the slightest effect.
Note that splitting Microsoft in *either* of the ways proposed does not eliminate this problem. Since this is driven primarily by the OS monopoly, any split that allows the OS company to operate across desktop and server platforms is ineffective, as are the "baby Bill" scanarios like Ellison's in which Microsoft is split vertically (not horizontally as a poster says elsewhere) into three or so companies containing all of MS's assets. Any effective remedy must prevent MS from using is desktop monopoly to force customers into giving it a server monopoly as well.
This may be the only aspect of a structural remedy that matters, but it looks like it's not going to happen, and Microsoft will laugh all the way to the bank again...
(Note: these comments are mine and may or may not represent my employers' views.)
Open File Formats! (Score:3)
I don't think it was addressed in this case but MS Office is very close to being a monopoly (if it isn't one already). The biggest barrier to entry for competitors is that MS proprietary file formats dominate both new and legacy documents. After all, no one want's to risk "loosing" all thier old docs to incompatability. And a lot of people end up using office cuz they get sick of getting mailed otherwise unreadable office files. If 3rd parties could have unlimited file format access, then they could compete on a much more even playingfield.
*yawn* (Score:3)
Let's just wait and see, and stop capitalizing on the fact that everyone is curious by posting supposedly blow-by-blow accounts of where the case is headed. At this point, nobody seems to know.
My Ideal Breakup (Score:2)
Re:Splitting M$ up would be bad.... (Score:2)
It is actually a very thorough point-to-point remedy solution that compliments the Findings of Fact.
Agreed. In its goals, the DOJ has everyone's best interests in mind, including (as I am about to argue) Microsoft's, because it will force them to spend their energy on their products, and not the perpetuation of their monopoly.
It's important to remember what the DOJ is trying to remedy here. The point is not to punish Microsoft by blowing them into bits; the point is to keep them from harming other companies and consumers by abusing their monopoly power. This power stems IMHO primarily from their dominance of an office suite, a set of OSes (95/98, NT/2000) and a browser technology which have monopolistic-level market penetrations. However, the real power (and thus the potential for abuse) does not come from the quality of those products (as some of us know all too well), or even from their high level of penetration. It comes from MS's relentless tying and blurring of the lines between them, so that if you need to use one of them, you more or less roped into using them all. In other words, their incentive structure in that position is to invent new ways for you to need all things Microsoft, not to produce better products. That practice is what the DOJ wants to eliminate, and rightly so.
The originator of this thread is correct in that the post-split companies would have monopoly-level penetration in their of their product areas. However, they would have none of the ability to tie the products together, and indeed would not have any real ability or economic incentive to do so. The incentive they would be left with would be to compete by improving their products.
There are a lot of smart and talented people at Microsoft. Until now much of their collective coding hands have been tied insofar as the primary business strategy has been the market dominance of the Windows/Office empire. Split up, and with remedies properly applied, they will be forced to focus on the quality of their product to maintain market share. Everybody benefits from this, including, perhaps especially, Microsoft. It will mean that in the long run you may be seeing more, not less, of things MS. One of the reasons that surveys are finding consumers to be deeply ambivalent about the DOJ's actions is that there are huge network effect benefits to having almost everyone running the same OS and office software, and people are worried that the wrong kind of remedy will somehow mess up those benefits. If the 3-way split forces MS1, 2 and 3 to improve their products, then it seems to me those same consumers should embrace those products more, not less. So if what you secretly wish for at night is for Bill and his buddies to go down in flames, consider the possibility that the split will unlock a lot of potential in the new companies. Remember: "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."
Re:Who will own the 3 seperate companies ? (Score:2)
Actually, he will. The court will first order shares in the new company issued to all stockholders 1 for 1. Then the court will order Bill (and all the other officers of the companies, and their boards) to sell (or swap with Steve) all his stock in all but one of the resulting companies. People with less than some percent of the companies can keep their shares in both.
Probably the current officers will just split up amongst the companies and swap stocks, to prevent crashing their value, so Steve & co. (the board et al) gets Bill's share of MS#1, and Bill gets Steve & co's share of MS#2, then Bill offers to swap the public for the remainder of his shares...
From a Mac perspective (Score:2)
Without Office/MSIE, the Mac would be a third rate platform today: there are no other high end office suites available, Netscape for the Mac truly blows, Mozilla is worse than a disgrace and iCab is nice but not at the level of MSIE yet.
IMHO, the Mac division of MS is being kept around mostly to placate Justice: it ranges from slightly profitable (Office) to a major loss (MSIE). Certainly the Mac version of MSIE wouldn't survive the split into 3. (It may even be dead now if you believe Macintouch rumors.) Office might well not: talented coders could be better used elsewhere in MS Apps writing more profitable Windows apps.
It would be truly ironic if the first impact of the suit would be to lower platform diversity. Eric
Amicus proposes Open Sourcing MSIE (Score:3)
Excerpt from the CIIA brief:
). In the alternative, the Court should order that the applications company make the Internet Explorer product -- which provides no royalties now -- an "open source" product so that other software developers could use the source code. Either of these small additions would ensure that the monopoly over productivity applications that Microsoft holds does not supplant the operating system as the point of leverage for a monopoly over the software used in Internet computing.
This is what (Score:5)
Microsoft will do. [lostbrain.com]
Yep, I've been waiting a long time for this one! tcd004
Re:Internet Explorer Company (Score:3)
Dismembering Microsoft (Score:3)
What do you think? Would an open sourced Microsoft lead to real competition in the Microsoft market (which must exist if it is truly a monopoly)?
Split horizontally, not vertically! (Score:4)
Not only that, but it seems (in my eyes) that the DOJ is making unreasonable demands on the conduct of Microsoft once it is broken up... Just for starters, requiring them to notify all affected developers if they intend to change the OS in such a way that their programs will break... It just seems unworkable, because there are slews of compilers and programing languages, each with their own nuances, so that Microsoft will have to test too many 3rd party apps to be assured of compatiability. I know what the DOJ is trying to accomplish with that demand, but again, I think it would be better solved with a horizontal split, because then the companies would be forced to compete and gain customers and therefore wouldn't make any wholesale changes to the OS just to break a competitors product, because all the users of that product could switch to Microsoft #2's Windows operating system.
Jackson for President! ;) (Score:3)
His comments to David Boies were _so_ hip they were like another level of the findings of fact- startled me even though I already expected him to be clued.
Boies: "We want to break them in two, that might be the easier path since they'll fight having IE broken off"
Jackson: "Are you kidding? Forget their response just for a second and think about what will provide maximum relief in a structural way (without lots of little regulations and overseeing). Nothing about this is going to be simple- hell, you could try to fine them 2$ and they'd take it to the Supreme Court. Quit pandering to what you think their lawyers would like and go for a real solution. There _is_ no softer path that they will consent to honorably cooperate with. Haven't you been listening all this time?"
*g*
I _love_ hearing this stuff. This judge is a smart cookie and understands Microsoft all too well. It's absolutely great to see how clearly he understands the situation in spite of the massive confusion, FUD and propaganda everywhere (even on Slashdot o_O )
Short form: Microsoft is guilty, they are unrepentant, they are pissed off and actively trying to do as much damage as possible, and they have the economy _hostage_. In no sense is that a worthy justifiable position deserving of being protected- so Jackson is not going to try and coddle them. But at the same time there has rarely been such a totally amoral, remorseless, psychotic and sociopathic corporate criminal- so Jackson is not going to try to negotiate with them in good faith.
GOOD. Negotiating in good faith doesn't work with Microsoft. Three cheers for Jackson and hopefully the heavy hints he dropped will be enough.
Third Company should have more to it (Score:5)
The third company should have IE, and all the Internet products. Like IS, Exchange, and anything else they have dealing with the internet. The other two companies should probably stay the same, one OS, and the other Applications and the rest. For the third company to survive they
I can actually see a forth company coming out of this, one dealing with hardware. They keyboards and mice are actually quite good. That way you'll have four baby bills: OS, Internet software, General Software, and Hardware. Each of them have products that they can use to make money on.
Just my 2 cents.
The problem is *monopoly* (Score:3)
The legal with monopolies is that they are able to take advantage of their position to unfairly compete against others. (IE in such a way that the other companies have no chance of getting into that market.)
Therefore, there's nothing wrong with Apple selling a single computer system, and not licensing the OS or the hardware. But if they were to have nearly the entire market, and play with compatibility to prevent others from competing, then that would be a different story.
The government is simply saying that MS is in a position to keep others out of the market, and is doing unfair things to keep it that way.
The hammer will fall. (Score:5)
The key point to realize is that the interim conduct restrictions DOJ proposes (which, note, Judge Jackson did not ask DOJ to remove) kick in while appeals are pending. The rationale here is that Microsoft is engaging in ongoing illegal conduct, and it's appropriate to stop that while appeals are pending. If Microsoft wins on appeal, maybe they get to resume their monopolistic practices at some future date. Meanwhile, Microsoft is going to have to start disclosing those hidden interfaces. Probably by fall, the way things are going.
This is great for the Open Source community. Among other things, the WINE people will finally get the info needed to make it work right. One of the big Linux players may pick up on WINE and do the grunt work to make it run Microsoft Office. At that point, Linux on the desktop looks a lot more attractive.
As for the breakup, the financial community seems to agree on what the applications part is worth, but estimates of the value of the OS part are all over the place. This reflects reality - Microsoft Office is a good, useful product that sells on its own merits, and Microsoft's operating systems require coercive, monopolistic sales practices to sell them.
MS monopoly and hardware (Score:4)
Put yourself in the place of a PC manufacturer for a moment: Guess what happens to the cost of your OS and apps licenses if you decide you *don't* want to ship MS keyboards and mice? The simple fact is that if you want "most favored nation" pricing from MS, you *will* ship a significant portion of your orders with MS hardware. You'll also build your hardware to conform to Microsoft's hardware specifications and do whatever else they tell you to to, simply because you can't afford not to. It's precisely this sort of abuse of monopoly power that's illegal, and for good reason.
Back in your role again: You don't have to sell MS hardware of course, but remember that the OEM PC business has become one of thin margins and volume, so if you pay another $30/unit for your OS and apps license simply because you'd like to specify your own keyboard, you are now at a significant disadvantage to your competitors in a world of $150-$300 margins for desktop PCs.
It would be interesting indeed to see how many OEMs would continue to buy Microsoft's hardware if they didn't have to.
Don't ever forget that the computer makers don't even get to decide what the hardware standards are for your next PC: that's Microsoft's turf (PC9x, et al), and again, if you don't play, you pay - big. This control will bite Linux and other alternative OSes big-time in the near future, as it already is to some degree with the new "legacy-free" PCs required by the newest versions of the specs.
(Opinions here are mine.)
Doctor, I've got Breakup Fever! (Score:4)
You know, listening to all of these breakup plans until this very moment, I hadn't been swayed. The idea of the government interfering in the computer industry, particularly in the workings of a single company, repulsed me. The idea of tearing apart the wealth people had built up from a little piss-ant company that started back in the seventies appalled me (and don't give me the "stock boost" stuff - at least some of the proposals specifically ban Gates and others from owning stock in both or more companies, so all concerned WILL lose money). The idea of a bunch of someone's competitors using the DOJ to attack one's company when they couldn't out-compete disgusted me.
But now I've seen the light!
It's silly, at best, for a company to produce more than one product, and at worst, it's an attempt at evil corporate dominance! Some companies use their multiple product lines to reinforce the profits of all their products. This is clearly a manipulation of consumers.
Let's look at our own beloved computer industry.
Further, these companies also make a crucial, horrible mockery of the open software market - they don't release the source code of their products so that any chump with GCC and a CD-R can compile and sell "his" or "her" own competing versions of those programs. That's just wrong.
I think I see a glorious future for our industry, and maybe many others. There are a lot of companies that just need to be broken up into smaller, more intelligent businesses. The people running the companies and the shareholders can't be trusted to judge this for themselves. Who is better-prepared than the lawyers of the DOJ to perform this sort of micro-management of the market? Certainly, this will cause a temporary period of adjustment, and the legal profession's ranks will swell, but in just a few decades the computer industry would be unstrung enough from the courts to come back to life and start work on the long-awaited next versions of all those products...
And then, all those out-of-work lawyers can start taking a look at the "GNU/Linux" racket. I mean, come on! They give all these things away, then start leaning on any companies that makes use of the software to release versions of the companies' products that are compatible through astroturfing by users who barely use any of the software to begin with...
Yeah, my karma was getting too high, anyway. ;)
Re: Call me crazy (Score:3)
Suppose your opinion to be the prevailing one. What should be done to a company that has done something which is illegal but should not be? Enforce the law because it is the law, or ignore the law because it is a bad law?
I would prefer that all laws be enforced, primarily for two reasons. First and ironically, generally unenforced laws give too much power to the government. If people/companies begin engaging in tecnically illegal activities that have become tacitly accepted, they give the government leverage over them because they could be prosecuted at any time. Second, I believe that the best way to eliminate bad laws is to make their consequences felt. Mitigating their effects just lets them live longer.
Freudian Slip? (Score:4)
Has Microsoft bought them out too?
My Letter to Judge Jackson (Score:3)
As a software developer who has studied intellectual property law, I would like to present an alternative remedy for the Microsoft anti-trust case. I strongly feel that the root cause of our difficulty is an imbalanced copyright law, which is being used by Microsoft and many other software companies in a manner which undermines its constitutional justification and causes adverse economic effects. While remedies on the table will correct symptoms, the following proposal may additionally restore balance and could be applied industry wide.
In an emerging market, where prior investment is negligible, consumers desire highly differentiated software offerings; our legal environment supports this need exquisitely. However, in established markets, where consumers have invested in and have become dependent upon a particular software, these same consumers no longer desire competition for new and different software offerings. Instead, if given a choice, they would prefer competition for the change in the software they currently use. Unfortunately, our current legal practices, focused on emerging markets and justified with natural-right copyright thinking, deny the marketplace this alternative style of competition.
I do think that a contractual remedy for Microsoft, designed to establish such a competitive market for software upgrades, could prove more effective than a breakup. This proposal necessitates the creation of a non-profit registry-of-deeds tasked with maintaining records of software produced by revisions from competing authors. Specifically, the registry would administer access to source code and would calculate royalties from the licensing of administered software. The proposal rests on the following principles:
1. Before offering software to the marketplace, a developer would deposit into the registry all source code, description of patents, and design materials necessary to understand and build the program offered.
2. As part of each deposit, the developer would also specify a per-end-user licensing fee for programs derived from the material deposited.
3. Anyone can then retrieve these deposits and build from the material contained provided that any derived or competing work which the reader is thereafter involved is registered according to this same method.
4. When a derivative program is licensed, the sale price is calculated with the licensing fees for the materials upon which the program is derived. A technique involving anonymous serial numbers can be employed so that a given deposit is only licensed and charged once per user.
5. The developer may at any time reduce the posted price for their deposits; but may not license use of the material separately for amounts less than the posted price.
6. When fees are collected, royalties are distributed to each developer according to the number of licenses issued for each of their deposits.
7. The license for each deposit does not extend to trademarks, intellectual property of other parties, or material that was deposited separately. Deposits which would overlap in material must be decomposed into smaller units; the original treated as a derived work.
While the above may seem complicated, it will administer software that is a composite of revisions from competing authors. I am positive that most of this process can be automated so that developers, customers, and distributors are shielded from the administrative burden.
I believe that this mechanism could bring about more professionalism within the industry. It would eliminate bait-and-upgrade schemes. It would also improve software reliability. Lacking serious competition for upgrades, established software vendors have little incentive to work on quality control issues. Furthermore, with source code and design documents publicly available, retired programmers could be independently contracted for the evaluation of commercial applications. I can even imagine professional review organizations emerging, helping the consumer sort through the hype to identify those products with good, solid engineering.
I feel that the consumer benefits to this proposal are more clear than those benefits resulting from a breakup. Further, this proposal is not necessarily a penalty for Microsoft, but a more industry focused solution which other software organizations could voluntarily adopt. This proposal also does exactly what is needed for Microsoft, it forces a decreasing price non-discriminatory license. And the proposal opens up the operating system market for competition, albeit a different style of competition. With a bootstrap, such as the Microsoft Windows Operating System, this type of competition could gain much credibility as consumers realize the benefits and demand registration for other commercial software.
In short, this proposal provides the community of users with some say in the destiny of the software they have invested in and have become dependent upon.
FYI (Score:5)
Richard Stallman has his own views [linuxtoday.com] on what should happen to Microsoft, which seem a lot more reasonable than simply splitting up the company.
What needs to be done is to get beyond the "We must *hurt* Microsoft" mentality into the "How will doing this to Microsoft effect the industry in the long-term?" mentality. Splitting the company up just seems like an appealing way of hurting them. It doesn't seem like it is doing anything constructive.
Splitting seems like changing one successful company with popular products into three.
IE would not be a viable company. (Score:5)
I don't see any problem with Microsoft giving away its browser. You get netscape and lynx with Red Hat, and konquerer with KDE, and nobody is complaining. It isn't the giving away for free that's the issue, its unnecessarily tying the software into the system in a way that makes it non-trivial to replace, and bullying its OEMs into installing their browser exclusively. I use Notetab for editing text on the PC; I'd hate to see notepad tied deeply into the guts of the operating system. It just doesn't make technical sense and doesn't benefit the user.
IE's tight integration with windows is because the browser is the linchpin in Microsoft's strategy to leverage Desktop dominance into dominance in the server market, on to content creation and ultimately to content itself. It is critically important to thwart the use of monopoly power to implement this strategy. If MS sucessfully ties even two of these areas together it would severely restrict customer choice.
If I were to go to more than two companies, I would split off these areas:
In other words, force each of these strategic areas to cooperate via public standards.
Re:Splitting M$ up would be bad.... (Score:4)
Breaking Microsoft up, in anyway, will lessen their dominace of the industry... Split horiztonally, they'ed have to compete against one another. Splet vertically, the windows group will no longer be able to trust the fact that Office is basically developed solely for them...
If the office group decided to start developing for Linux, BeOS, Solaris, or any other OS, today (yes, they do develop for the mac, but the mac isn't a commodity x86 platform, so many corporations shy away from it), Windows sales would stand to take a beating because then people and offices could run their operations using cheaper OSes... Therefore alternative versions of Office never surface. If the Office group was separated and didn't have to keep the OS group happy and prop up their income, Office might still remain the only game in town for Office Suites, but the OS landscape would change dramatically. And with more and more online applications arriving, the application landscape stands to shift on it's own.
Re:My Ideal Breakup (Score:3)
1. OS (DOS, Windows operating environment, NT)
2. Applications (Office, Games, Wordpad, Solitaire and other apps that are now included in the Windows operating environment)
3. Media (MSNBC, MSN (including Hotmail), MicrosoftPress)
The idea of splitting the company into two pieces always seemed a bit dumb to me.  Under that scheme, the media (specifically MSN) could operate at a loss under the profits from Office and other software.  This way MSN and other media outlets need to compete fairly in the marketplace and not ride of the coattails of other established monopilies (eg. the Office suite.)
Re:Third Company should have more to it (Score:3)
What about a Beowulf cluster of...
oh wait, never mind.
--
Re:*yawn* (Score:3)
"Here's our letter to Microsoft!"
"Metallica still hasn't answered; just thought we'd give you all the chance to comment."
"Ask Slashdot: Is God Real?"
"Our phone rang and we were in the bathroom, but it MIGHT have been Microsoft's lawyers."
"Feature: Jon Katz on why Microsoft and Metallica might be doomed in the New Digital Age(tm)."
"Nothing happened on the Microsoft/Andover front today, but we'll give you a forum to vent anyway."
"Ask Slashdot: Should Napster be illegal?"
...and so forth. The ratio of actual news articles to page-view-generators has taken a steep nosedive in the past months, and I don't see it coming back anytime soon...
Back to fantasizing about moderating stories -- then we could browse without seeing all these (-1, Redundant) and (-2, Obvious Page-Hit Troll). Ah, well.
--
Who will own the 3 seperate companies ? (Score:3)
Not wishing to throw water on this idea - but given that this isn't socialist Europe - Bill is not going to lose ownership of shares in all three companies is he - nor are all the other stockeholders. So how does this work ? Microsoft won't be nationalised...
I like the comment about Microsoft losing the thing that gives them the monopoloy power - IP protection... (copyright, trademarks, patents, trade secrets).
Winton
Re:Splitting M$ up would be bad.... (Score:3)
On another note, the version of the story I read stated the third company would not be IE, but microsoft's Internet holdings including MSN. MSN is actively competing with AOL. Office and the other microsoft software products have their competitors. Then the OS division has its competitors. Makes perfect sense to me. Cheers to Judge Jackson!
The friend of the court brief is here: (Score:3)
It suggests how Microsoft #3 (IE, Inc.) might turn a profit (hosting a web portal on the new default home page, ala www.netscape.com; selling engineering services, to customers including Microsoft #1 and Microsoft #2; pp. 59-60), and even mentions the Microsoft vs. Slashdot battle over the Kerebos extension specs (p. 53).
Who says appeals will last forever? (Score:3)
Remember that in a Sherman case, the government can ask to bypass the Court of Appeals and go straight to the Supreme Court. The idea is that breaking up a monopoly requires fast action without all of the delays of appeals, because the economy changes so quickly. Neither Microsoft nor the Court of Appeals can prevent the government from asking for this -- if the DOJ wants it, then it's up to the Supremes to decide whether to accept the task. They could say no and send the case back to the Court of Appeals, but in that case the government loses nothing for having asked.
Now IANAL, but here's how I figure it. The DOJ has a good case for asking for the fast track to the Supremes, because the software industry does indeed move very quickly, and the Feds can whip out dozens, maybe hundreds of M$ quotations in the court record saying exactly that. They've been emphasizing the fast-changing industry as a part of their defense, and now the DOJ can use their own words to get the fast track. So if they do ask, I'd be very surprised if the Supremes refuse.
The Court of Appeals has already indicated in earlier rulings that it may be more sympathetic to M$ than Judge Jackson, having overruled him on some key issues. Certainly M$ wants to head there; but the DOJ doesn't have to go there at all if it doesn't want to.
The current Supreme Court is relatively conservative and hence maybe sympathetic to big business, so the Feds may worry that they won't prevail there. But on the other hand, if the case is destined to end up in the Supreme Court some day anyway, then they might as well face that music now rather than later. Perhaps some justices will die or something if the case doesn't get there for a few years, but who knows if the replacements will be any more or less on M$'s side than the current justices are? No point in betting on that now; might as well just take your chances.
And after all, the current Court, despite its conservatism, does not appear especially beholden to industry in anti-trust cases. This Court is most passionate about matters of federalism and respecting the decisions of lower courts. They certainly won't overrule any of Judge Jackson's findings of fact, and these are particularly harsh for M$ (which is precisely why the Judge made his findings of fact so emphatic). Moreover, they are not likely IMO to overrule any of his findings of law unless there is a major, controversial and unclarified matter of the constitution or judicial procedure at stake. I don't know of any such issue in this case. For these reasons, I believe that the DOJ can win in the present Supreme Court.
M$ wants to delay and postpone as much as they can, since they'd rather have the Court of Appeals, who may be on their side, and they want to fight off a breakup for as long as they possibly can. But most of all, they want to wait out this November's elections. If George W. is elected, then they might get a sympathetic Attorney General who will stop the suit, or at least scale it back, for example by accepting M$'s proposed remedies rather than a breakup.
All the more reason for the DOJ to push ahead to the Supreme Court right away, before the election. The Court takes a break in the summer and begins its term in October. The DOJ should see to it that they have the M$ case on their docket when the term begins. If they do that and the Supremes accept the case, then the case cannot be stopped no matter who wins the presidential election. George W. Bush himself may end up with the job of presiding over M$'s breakup on orders from the Supreme Court, whether he likes it or not.
In fact, I can imagine that one of the reasons for Judge Jackson to press ahead with his decision so quickly is so that the DOJ has the time to do all of this. I can't imagine why the DOJ wouldn't try it. No wonder the M$ lawyers are pissed off.
So rather than years, we may very well have the final appeal before the Supreme Court in about three months; and after that, the Supremes can reach their decision any time they want to. They could rule in favor of the government within weeks, if they so desire. The Micro$oft monopoly may not survive to see the year 2001.
Re:Dismembering Microsoft (Score:3)
The only way to force MS to compete on the basis of features and functionality is to stop them from using a monopoly on desktop OSes to establish a monopoly on Desktop apps (Office) which would then allow them to use those two monopolies to establish a server OS monopoly. The only way to do this is to break up the company. This is still fraught with peril, as the OS division might be able to leverage a desktop OS monopoly into a server OS monopoly (witness the Kerberos (sp?) excitement).
Cheers,
Slak
Re:My Ideal Breakup (Score:3)
1. OS
2. Apps (Office, games, etc)
3. Internet (MSN, IE, etc)
4. Tools (Visual Studio, MSDN, etc)
All 4 of these pillars support the others in maintaining the monopoly. Breaking up along these lines would place MS in direct, level competition with other established companies:
1. OS (Linux, BE, Unix, etc)
2. Apps (lots of examples)
3. Net (AOL, Netscape, Opera)
4. Tools (Symantec, Borland)
Let's try again... (Score:3)
Is (2) true because of (1)? Is (2) true in spite of (1)?
These regulations didn't just spring magically into being. They are the result of our experiences trying to keep the market working. When it goes out of whack somehow, we usually try to figure out what went wrong and then make some regulation that will keep it from happening again. Kind of like fixing bugs in code.
If regulations are good, are more regulations better? Are regulations good up to a point, then bad beyond it?
There is no ideal amount of regulation. It is created as we deem necessary. When something happens to screw things up, we try to fix it. Granted, some regulations are created for political reasons, and are probably bad, but most, and I include anti-trust laws in this, are generally good and helpful in keeping the market free and open and running properly.
Did the congressmen receiving campaign contributions from microsoft's competitors happen to stumble on the perfect level of regulation?
First of all, Microsoft can easily outspend any of its competitors when it comes to political contributions. So, if you have actual numbers, it would be very helpful. It might be interesting to see who spent how much in contributions. I think it would say more about the quality of our congresscritters and our election system than that of the contributors though.
Second, whether the current trial occured because of Microsoft's competitors' complaints or not is irrelevant if they actually broke the law, and it seems abundantly clear that they did. As I've said before, selective enforcement is a bad thing, but that doesn't mean we should just let any offenders go, it means we should work to make sure that all offenders are prosecuted. If you think other companies are guilty of anti-trust offenses, then please, point them out and explain it to us.
Do you have any support beyond "obviously"?
Don't think I even used that word, although it does seem obvious to me that regulation is needed if we are to maintain an open, free market. Simply because the natural instincts of a corporation are to try to get rid of anything that hurts profits, which competition can certainly do.
Assuming that consumers would, in fact, benefit from a break up of microsoft, would this breakup still be desirable once the effect on aspiring entrepreneurs' incentives in the future is considered?
Even ignoring the fact that nobody made Microsoft break the law, and that they had abundant warning that this was coming, I still find that statement to be utterly ridiculous. Does someone need to think that they'll be able to make billions upon billions of dollars before they start a business of their own? Most people are happy to make a good living. The fact that some corporations get huge is a nice dream for some people, but it's not what makes most people start a business. Entrepreneur's everywhere will still come up with new ideas and still create new companies and new markets. A break-up of Microsoft won't change that one bit, just as previous break-ups didn't cause entrepreneurs to throw up their hands and go apply at McDonald's.
Re:Doctor, I've got Breakup Fever! (Score:5)
Look, we, as a country, have set up a fairly decent market system that tends to accomplish at least the majority of what we'd like it to accomplish. This system is defined by countless regulations that must be obeyed in order for the system to continue to function properly and serve the needs of the people of this country. Many of these regulations are common sense to most people, but many are the result of lessons we've learned along the way, and are not so intuitive.
Now, Microsoft is accused, and this has been upheld by Jackson's court, of breaking some of these regulations. They've probably broken many more regulations, and probably many more times than they will be convicted of, but they have been found guilty of at least some violations. Just as anyone else would have, Microsoft has had it's chance to defend itself in court. They did a pitiful job. This could be considered the fault of their attornies, but I don't believe that, and I doubt anyone else here does either. Microsoft hired very good attornies. I think that it's because it's usually a lot tougher to defend a client that is actually guilty, especially when the prosecution has a mountain of evidence that proves it and your own defense witnesses get caught contradicting themselves and each other. Implying that the case is meritless is just plain wrong. There are laws on the books. The DOJ proved to the judge that Microsoft violated those laws.
Now, you could protest on the basis of the belief that anti-trust laws are wrong. In that case, consider this. Microsoft is a corporation. Corporations exist to make money. The owners face no liability for anything their corporation does. That is a privilege granted to corps by the government, and one that the average person does not have. It would be insane to grant such immunity to prosecution without also setting down some hard, fast rules about how things will be done. Thankfully, the government did this, and will continue to do it as we continue to build experience in dealing with the market system we have created. With such laws on the books, they must be enforced. This can be difficult, as the government often actively fights the enforcement of these laws. It just depends on who is in power.
It's hard to judge the validity of your examples. Perhaps something should have been done about them. But often they didn't have the power to commit the kinds of violations that Microsoft has, or to have such a significant effect on their markets. (The exception being IBM, but then they did get dragged into court, where they stayed for over a decade). We could probably analyze each situation and try to determine whether there was really any cause to charge any of these companies with anti-trust violations. Please go right ahead if you wish to do this. I'm game.