Microsoft Must Share Code With Rivals

[Azure]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070917/D8RN77CG0.html

LUXEMBOURG (AP) - Microsoft lost its appeal of a European antitrust order Monday that obliges the technology giant to share communications code with rivals, sell a copy of Windows without Media Player and pay a $613 million fine - the largest ever by EU regulators.


The EU Court of First Instance ruled against Microsoft on both parts of the case, saying the European Commission was correct in concluding that Microsoft was guilty of monopoly abuse in trying to use its power over desktop computers to muscle into server software.


It also said regulators had clearly demonstrated that selling media software with Windows had damaged rivals.


"The court observes that it is beyond dispute that in consequence of the tying consumers are unable to acquire the Windows operating system without simultaneously acquiring Windows Media Player," it said.


"In that regard, the court considers that neither the fact that Microsoft does not charge a separate price for Windows Media Player nor the fact that consumers are not obliged to use that Media Player is irrelevant."


But it did overturn regulators' decision to appoint a monitoring trustee to watch how Microsoft had complied with the ruling, saying the Commission had exceeded its powers by ordering Microsoft to pay for all the costs of the trustee.

[FlamesPuck12]

$613 million fine

[Kev]

"In that regard, the court considers that neither the fact that Microsoft does not charge a separate price for Windows Media Player nor the fact that consumers are not obliged to use that Media Player is irrelevant."

Yep, this sounds like a pretty unbiased decision to me.

[arsenal]

I am not sure about this. There is a hate on in the EU for pretty much everything MS. Except in England / Ireland where MS seems to be the defacto standard.

MS is not that bad. Perhaps some of their practices in the past have been questionable, but I think recently, they have done a lot of good things, and are on the path to being a very good company again.

Just because they bundle their own Media Player, Web Browser, IM Client with their operating system, does not mean that the user cannot download and use something else.

3rd Party software for Windows has gotten a lot better recently as well.
In this instance, I don't think the courts are being fair to MS.

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by arsenal

I am not sure about this. There is a hate on in the EU for pretty much everything MS. Except in England / Ireland where MS seems to be the defacto standard.

MS is not that bad. Perhaps some of their practices in the past have been questionable, but I think recently, they have done a lot of good things, and are on the path to being a very good company again.

Just because they bundle their own Media Player, Web Browser, IM Client with their operating system, does not mean that the user cannot download and use something else.

3rd Party software for Windows has gotten a lot better recently as well.
In this instance, I don't think the courts are being fair to MS.

I dont think that the courts even understand what MS does. Bundling apps isnt what makes them a monopoly, its there business practices. They have gotten a lot better though.

[llama64]

Yeah, for some reason (likely thanks to Netscape) Microsoft's rivals have sought to gain a toe hold in their market using litigation and government channels. This is in contrast to more traditional methods such as innovation and marketing.

Definetly an unfair descision against Microsoft. Usually I exalt in anything that slams that company down, but in this case, MS got screwed.

[Bobblehead]

Well, the Media Player part of the decision is weird, but the big part deals with the code to be opened up for networking protocols.

This lawsuit has been ongoing for years. The big issue are developers who want to make non-windows products (like Linux) to work with the Windows machines. Samba does that, but it was reverse engineered and is under an open source license, companies want the ability to create products without conflicting with an open source license.

Microsoft had earlier tried to argue that they had complied with the decision, but they were forcing people to only look at the code under severe restrictions, so severe that the EU decided MS wasn't really abiding by the decision at all.

The Media Player portion is kind of petty, although in the grand scheme I think it is kind of minor. MS will just remove the GUI and leave the rest of the code behind. The first update a user does will offer it as a download.

[arsenal]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

This lawsuit has been ongoing for years. The big issue are developers who want to make non-windows products (like Linux) to work with the Windows machines. Samba does that, but it was reverse engineered and is under an open source license, companies want the ability to create products without conflicting with an open source license.

So if I am reading between the lines right... companies want MS to open up their code to them, so that they can produce applications that run on windows, and don't fall under the GPL, so that they can keep it closed source, so they can make money of it.

That's what the whole point of the Windows API is.. and recently, it has gotten A LOT better. Hell, even I can understand most of the documentation they have on the API now. It's not it used to be back in 2000 when trying to write anything that would call the Win32 API was a huge pain in the ass.

[Bobblehead]

Actually, The Economist online has a good summary (and it was Sun that started the ball rolling):

Those obligations refer to demands made by the commission in 2004 after it decided against Microsoft in a case begun nine years ago. Then Sun Microsystems charged that Microsoft was refusing to share information that would allow “interoperability” between its servers and equipment produced by the software giant.

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/...23880&fsrc=nwl

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by arsenal

So if I am reading between the lines right... companies want MS to open up their code to them, so that they can produce applications that run on windows, and don't fall under the GPL, so that they can keep it closed source, so they can make money of it.

That's what the whole point of the Windows API is.. and recently, it has gotten A LOT better. Hell, even I can understand most of the documentation they have on the API now. It's not it used to be back in 2000 when trying to write anything that would call the Win32 API was a huge pain in the ass.

Kind of - Sun started the ball rolling when they wanted to get their offshoot of Unix (Solaris) to run more effectively with Windows.

[Barnes]

Didn't Sun just announce they will be selling Windows based servers?

What's next! Windows on a Mac?

[arsenal]

Originally Posted by Barnes

What's next! Windows on a Mac?

That sir.. is crazy talk!!!