I haven’t been here that long. I’ve done a couple searches and couldn’t find anything thay answered my question. So I’ll ask here.
The Microsoft anti-trust case is creeping back into the news once more. As I understand it, the government’s position is that Microsoft is participating in anti-competitive practices by including IE with it’s operating system. At least this is what everyone is pointing at.
My question is this: How is it anti-competitive? I mean automakers have been doing this forever. A major drawback to me when looking for a new car is that it doesn’t have a CD player as standard equipment (meaning that a standard CD player is becoming very common). Wouldn’t this be condsidered anti-competitive? Could Sony, Aiwa, Bose, etc sue GM, Ford, BMW, etc for being anti-competitive since they include a CD player in their cars? In fact some of the original equipment stereos are made so that if you replace them, you need to cover the holes they came out of. For instance, my Chevy Suburban had a reciever near the steering wheel and over near the passenger seat was a tape player and equalizer. I wanted a CD player so I had to put the new stereo in where the tape player was (way over by the passenger) because the space that orginally held the reciever was to narrow. I was able to find a CD holder to go in where the revceiver was.
My argument is that this is essentially what Microsoft did with IE. They made it so integral that it would be a big pain in the a$$ to replace it. Why is the government focusing on Microsoft?
Disclaimer: I am not a big Windows fan. In fact, this post is being made in Netscape on a Sun system, avoiding the Windows PC less than 2 feet away. I just don’t understand the big to-do about packaging IE with the Windows OS.
Well, the way I have heard it, is not only does MS put IE on windows…it’s INTEGRATED. To use your example with the cars. It would be similar to having a factory installed CD player that doesn’t come out.
Also, I believe that MS also forced computer companies to NOT put Netscape on their machines when selling them.
I wish I had the link to all the things MS has done to force others out of the market. If I find it, I will post it.
Actually, the appeals court didn’t uphold the charge of browser-bundling; they did, though, uphold several other charges against Microsoft having to do with exclusive licencing deals with OEM manufacturers and other practices. It’s on those charges that the Justice Department is proceeding, having decided not to fight the browser issue over again, since MS already won that battlefield.
I haven’t followed the case, but I imagine the difference is the monopoly aspect. GM can include Delco CD players in its cars; if someone doesn’t like Delco CD players, they can buy a Ford. If Microsoft integrates its browser, the consumer can’t really buy another operating system (or at least it’s very difficult to do so). More importantly, if Dell or Compaq doesn’t like Internet Explorer, it’s S.O.L. Microsoft allegedly demanded that computer makers that wanted Windows needed to accept Explorer. No computer manufacturer could refuse that deal. Again, if GM made the same demands, the dealership could decide to start selling Toyotas. The basic idea is that we let firms in a competitive marketplace do things that monopolies may not, because if a competitive firm does something that pisses off its ditributors or customers, it’ll lose business. In a capitalist society, this is the way that consumers drive new and better products – by making companies jump through hoops to satisfy them. If a monopolist does something to piss off its customers or distributors, nothing happens to the monopolist, but the consumers end up unhappy. That is what the antitrust laws are desgined to protect against.
Microsoft is a monopoly. By itself, this isn’t a problem legally. They are the major supplier of operating systems. This gives them a certain amount of power. Monopolies get in trouble when they try to use their position and power as a monopoly to sell other products.
Most PCs use a microsoft OS. Many programs are available that use this OS. Changing to a different OS might mean fewer programs available for use.
What Microsoft was accused of during, is using its monopoly on OS to leverage their way into other products. This is anti-competitive because it can force consumers (and this can include computer manufacturers) to buy something they don’t want to get something they need (I’m assuming that microsoft OS is so commonly used that Dell and Compaq couldn’t sell many computers without it). Its this use of monopoly power that is anti-competitive. I think that we can argue whether Netscape has a better browser than Microsoft has, but if Microsoft told computer manufacturers that they can’t purchase a microsoft OS unless they also buy a microsoft browser, Netscape doesn’t stand a chance to compete on the merits of the products.
The car example doesn’t work because there is no monopoly car manufacturer. Its easy for a car dealer to walk away from GM and still have competitive cars to sell; its hard for a PC manufacturer to walk away from Microsoft and still be in business.
Be careful where you look. I’ve seen some pretty objective sites that show that Apple and IBM attempted very similar, if not worse, things in the early to mid eighties. If you’re trying to make a case against microsoft you’ll need something a little biased
As far as IE integration goes, come on. It is integrated into the system, sure. Windows Explorer, the standard tool for viewing file architechture, is probably based off IE. I know you can browse with it. You can also browse your system with IE. You can also browse your system with, AFAIK, netscape navigator. I downloaded a browser called “NeoPlanet” and I could browse my system with that. You are in no way limited to a browser for any reason, integrated or not. And all of them are free.
It is a sad day when distributing a free product is considered a “monopoly tactic.” (not that MS isn’t guilty, possibly, of other monopolistic tactics).
Another problem was with MS licensing policy. It would charge OEM’s for the number of computers shipped, whether or not those computers had an MS OS on them. Hence, the OEM’s had the incentive to put the OS on each computer, because they’d be paying for it either way.
As for having IE by default–that is a problem, considering how many security flaws have been discovered in IE. Especially since often you don’t even have to be running IE–just having it integrated allows some code to be run.
David Boies, the litigator for the Justice Department in the original trial , defended IBM in the 80s against anti-trust charges. His strategy at the time was to admit that IBM had a monopoly, but the claim they weren’t abusive. It worked, at least insofar as IBM accepted conduct restraints in a settlement. Boies often said that Microsoft should have done the same thing.
The difference between Microsoft and Apple is that Apple never was, and never will be, a monopoly. Remember, a monopoly is prohibited from doing certain things that a non-monopoly is free to do, like exclusive licenses and punitive pricing.
Windows explorer precedes IE; in fact, the ability of IE to browse the local filesystem relies on the presence of Windows explorer.
IE is not an integrated product, if you mean a necessary part of Windows, without which Windows wouldn’t function. Jim Allchin admitted under cross-examination that Windows works fine without it, and would continue to work fine with another browser in its place. Bundling IE was pure product-bolting.
That said, it’s not at all unreasonable to include IE with Windows for the same reason Windows has Notepad and a bitmap viewer–these days a browser is an expected utility of any OS.
However, monopolies can’t do what non-monopolies can in certain cases. This was one of them (until the appeals court got their turn).
I just typed up a respone that got eaten by either my server, my ocmputer, or the boards. Anyway… short and sweet version: hansel, didn’t know about the IE-WE link. Nice info.
I do not understand how free goods fall under any competition rules at all.
The problem isn’t that people don’t like getting free things. It’s what MS has done with it’s power. Strong arming companies to not put Netscape or any other browser is a problem. They are basically using their position as the only mainstream OS to push other products out of the market.
I am horrible with the link thing, but there was a thread here about how the RIAA will be making CD’s that will only play on MS Media player. Once again, MS is going to strongarm away the competition. What’s worse is, that MS MP is IMHO the one of the worst media players out there.
Just so it be known, I am not a Netscape person either. I use opera. It’s faster than either one, and it’s only 2-3mb (compaired to the 50-ish mb IE takes up).
I haven’t seen the final version of Windows XP yet, but IIRC, early reviews said that Microsoft had done similar “integration” of software into the OS in an attempt to squeeze out competitors and make more money through licensing deals. The example that comes foremost to mind is photo-editing software, where Windows XP would start up Microsoft’s own photo-editing program if you plugged in a digital camera to the computer – even if you had another company’s (Kodak) software installed and preferred to use it instead, XP made it very hard for you to do so. I think Microsoft finally changed the code after Kodak threatened to go to Congress with the news; not sure how the final product will work.
And just to reiterate other posters’ points, the problem with Microsoft and IE wasn’t that they were giving it away for free, it was that they (a) made it so you couldn’t remove IE if you didn’t want it, and (b) made it harder for you to use a different browser. For comparison, Apple Computer currently bundles a number of its own software titles with the computers they sell, but if you don’t want them, it’s a painless effort to throw them away and install someone else’s.
And for a documented history of Microsoft’s assorted “dirty tricks,” I recommend Wendy Rohm’s The Microsoft File. She skips around chronologically in some places, but overall it does a good job of documenting the dirtiest moves in Bill Gates’ playbook.
Just the part that got the most press. The Government’s case on the bundling issue was always the weakest part.
The latest Appeals court decision remanded back to trial on the bundling issue with the indication that Jackson had used the wrong standard in deciding that this was an illegal bundle. The correct standard puts a much higher bar in front of the DOJ, one that they couldn’t really get over with the evidence that they had.
My understanding is that the DOJ have decided to drop re-trying the bundling issue, and focus on what they had already won: The decision that MS had misused its Monopoly to force exclusionary agreeements with various PC manufacturers.
The worst of these was the practice of charging a royalty for each PC shipped rather than a (higher) royalty for each PC shipped with Windows. Since back in the day, most PC manufactures shipped Windows on all of their PC’s anway, they got a break on price if they didn’t keep separate books for PC’s vs copies of Windows. Most PC manufacturers loved this deal: less bookkeeping, AND a better price. And MS loved it too: Much easer to audit them. MS had formerly had a real problem (with IBM of all people) not paying royalties for all of the copyies of Windows that they shipped. They were $millions light on 3.1 royalties at the time Win95 was released.
But the side effect of this deal was to strongly encourage PC manufacturers to offer only one OS to their customers. This was ruled an illegal tactic in light of MS’s monopoly, but MS renounced it back in '99 anyway once they started to get bad press about it.
I’m not aware of any actions that the court of appeals deemed to be illegal that MS hasn’t already stopped doing. So I think the latest round of negotiations is going to be about the DOJ trying to save face.
They got their asses handed to them by the Appeals court on all of the issues that MS considers important. The exclusiionary licensing deals were never all that important to MS, they were good to have, but not critical to success.
The right to add whatever feature that they want to Windows was always the core issue for MS, and they have more or less won that one for now. The Appeals court left that issue sufficiently open for the DOJ to come back later and try again, but at this time they have decided not to persue.
He admitted no such thing. Though someone not versed in the technology might think so.
He admitted that MS sold IE as a product separately from Windows. But he also said that what was in the IE box was the same bits as what would be in a Windows Update box. The Judge heard the first part, but got lost or fell asleep on the second part.
When IE is installed on a version of Windows, it really has the effect of an OS UPGRADE, that is, it replaces the core files of the User Interface code of Windows.
On Windows, IE isn’t just integrated into the UI shell, it IS the UI shell. The fact that it shows up on the shelf at your computer labelled IE rather than Windows Upgrade is nothing more than a marketing decision.
It’s not about the cost of the goods, it’s about the actions of a (convicted) monopolist.
John Heilemann’s book Pride Before The Fall is a great read about the whole case. There’s an extensive excerpt in Wired Magazine, reprinted online. After reading it, you won’t be sold one way or the other, but you’ll have a very good understanding of how each side thought it was right. Heilemann interviewed every major figure: Gates, Balmer, Klein, Boies, etc.
Actually, don’t think MSFT is a monopoly. Monopoly implies no choice. MSFT hasa very dominant market share. Not nearly the same thing as say the old Ma Bell. You want a box that runs Linux, does word processing and spreadsheets, and has a non-Microsoft browser, you can get that quickly, easily and for probably less money.
Mac’s have a very dominant market share in graphic design work. Are they a “monopoly” in this field? Should they be broken up because of it?
In the PC/internet industry, it sure appears to be falling out along a “winner take all” model. Be it eBay, Photoshop or Excel, one program or player takes 80-90% of the market share.
You still buy windows that way. Microsoft has contracts that every PC must be sold with windows on it if they want to use windows.
I don’t think it matters wether they are a monopoly or not. They were accused of using anti-competitive pratices to force their way into things besides windows. The breakup was going to stop this by making the part that makes windows seperate from the rest.
Lets get REAL specific about how MS, even after the guilty verdict, continues to harm consumers with their “free” software.
Recently MS released an update to Internet Explorer for Windows. It had only one major feature: it broke Apple’s Quicktime. Every Windows + Quicktime user who installed the update suddenly discovered that they could no longer access any online videos posted with Quicktime. MS made no announcement beforehand that this would happen, it was a complete surprise that this update would cause problems with QT. The IE update cannot be uninstalled and there is no way to revert to a lower version. There are two solutions to this problem:
Reformat your hard disk and reinstall Windows from scratch. Do not install the IE update when Critical Updates offers it to you.
Rewrite every website in the world that offers Quicktime content. Apple released HTML code that would make your QT files run correctly under the new IE. The next release of major HTML authoring programs will automatically install the code, but until then, you must manually edit EVERY web page to insert the code.
Microsoft is guilty of harming consumers, and SCOTUS turned down their final appeal. DoJ says that breakup is off the table, but that’s not going down well with the Attorneys General, who still favor this remedy, and the court could still impose a breakup even if nobody asks for it. The European Union is actively pursuing antitrust action on their own, recently leaked documents show they are thinking of imposing penalties of 10% of MS’s world revenues, a penalty amounting to approximately US$2.5billion. If they don’t pay, no MS products will be allowed for sale in Europe, period.
As one pundit recently said, Microsoft is guilty, it is now the penalty phase, and the only decisions left are what kind of rope and how to tie the noose.
Nope. Hasn’t been that way for years. MS used to have contracts like that. They stopped back in '99.
On the contrary, their behavior is perfectly legal for a non - monopoly. But Jackson ruled that they are a monopoly, and the DC appeals court upheld that ruling.
I personally don’t think they are a monopoly either, but at this point it no longer matters, the highest court willing to hear the case has ruled.
The last time this sort of accusation of MS breaking QT (and also RealAudio’s) software came up a bit of investigation proved that it was actually Apple’s (and Real’s) fault rather than MS’s.
The smart bet is that the same will be true this time once the details come out.
I happen to have worked with QT on the PC a bit, I can tell you from experience that their code on Windows is shit. They break tons of ‘good practices’ for programming on the Window’s platform.
Ironically, QT on the Mac is an excellent piece of code. Arguably the best multi media support library out there, but QT for the PC is just the opposite. A huge memory hog and just full of little gotchas that we have to code around.
:rolleyes: Dream on, this would do more harm to the economies of Europe than it would to MS.
