Re: RE my XP Windows got broke in a Hailstorm

> 1990 - FTC begins investigation of MS, focusing on what they perceive as a
> collusive effort by MS & IBM to split the OS market.
> 1992 - Justice steps into the purchase of Ashton-Tate by Borland, and
forces
> Borland to license dBase technology to Foxpro as a condition of the
> purchase. Huge mistake - MS buys Foxpro 1 month later. Strangely enough,
> Justice doesn't interfere at all in that purchase. We all know how it
turned
> out.
> 1993 - After *three years* of investigation, they reach a deadlock vote on
> whether to proceed.

Okay, so you know, the FTC and the DOJ are two separate entities. Now, I
have no idea why the FTC failed to act, but I don't think it appropriate to
blame their failure on the DOJ. The two agencies are not supposed to
duplicate actions. In other words, the FTC's Bureau of Competition and the
Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice consult before opening a
case. If one of them is involved with an investigation/prosecution, the
other isn't supposed to duplicate efforts.

> 1993/94? - Antitrust division takes over the case which results in the
> first -virtually meaningless-- Consent Decree.

Now, this was the DOJ, yes they did accept a Consent Decree which I (and
Judge Sporkin) feel was too weak. However, it was intended to stop the
bundling of software packages to be forced on vendors. It was the ignoring
of this decree that brought them back into court.

> 1995 - Justice blocks MS purchase of Intuit.

I believe this was DOJ opposes, MS backs off.

> Same year - decides not to oppose the bundling of MSN with Win95.
>
> Same year - begins investigation that leads to current situation.

So, basically, what you are saying is that the FTC failed, and the DOJ
hasn't succeeded well enough. I'd agree. But you should have said that
first, instead of just laying it all on the DOJ.

Also, you might take a moment to think of the realities of the situation.
They don't just get to bring it to court, they have to win it, over and
over. Not an easy case like the OJ Simpson case where you have DNA evidence
and he only has $8 million to defend himself, but in a case where your
evidence is mostly the opinions of economists and the defendant has billions
to spend.

So, as in the example in the articles you referred to, while the first
consent decree may have been like "a misdemeanor plea to OJ Simpson, " in
retrospect the DA in the OJ case might have preferred the misdemeanor plea.

Other companies, like IBM, have fought and won. To give you an idea how good
a chance they have of winning you can look at Microsoft's own case. For
instance, the DOJ filed against them for forcing vendors to bundle Windows
on every machine, thus not allowing for anyone to buy a machine with any
other OS. MS stated this was their way of preventing pirating, since their
license of Windows does not allow it to be transfered from one machine to
another when a customer buys a new machine if vendors sell machines without
any OS then there is a chance of piracy occuring.

Microsoft won this point. It couldn't be proved that Microsoft did this for
the specific purpose of denying access to the market for other OSs like DR
DOS or OS/2 or BlueWave. If you can't prove that they did it for the purpose
of being anti-competitive, you can't win in court.

See, a company can be anti-competitive by accident, but not on purpose. I'm
not sure what recourse there is for the accidental anti-competitive
behavior.

The only reason that the DOJ won the case they did was because there were so
many emails and other forms of documentation where Bill Gates and other
execs pointed out that NetScape was a threat to their dominance and that
they needed to do something about it and their solution was to bundle IE
etc. etc.

>
> References:
>
> http://www.lgu.com/publications/antitrust/9.shtml
> http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-345514-0.html
>
>
> I point these things out to show that while they have been persuing it for
> that long, they've displayed a remarkable lack of understanding with
respect
> to the technology industry, and they haven't recognized that they need to
> change the way they operate to be effective in today's economy. You can't
> afford multi-year investigations in this industry.

You act like they have a choice. This seems to be a common theme with you,
as I notice you do the same with IBM (re. desktop marketplace).

I have no love for the DOJ, nor especially the FTC, but I do understand
their difficult position. Just because a multi-year investigation is going
to end too late doesn't mean that the DOJ can do something about it. If you
will recall, when they got an order for the documents from MS, MS not only
appealed the orders fully and often, but they decided to deluge the DOJ with
documention. So, when the DOJ is buried under years of Microsoft's emails
and memos and they have to sift through to find evidence that the execs
actively sought to use their monopoly power to force out competition and
then they have to prove each email or memo is actual and genuine, I can
understand why it isn't easy to resolve this stuff quickly.

> > While we are on the topic, I am curious what Canada has done about the
> > situation? I know that the European Union is pursuing Microsoft
> > in a similar
> > antitrust trial, but I tend to not pay too much attention to stuff
outside
> > our borders. Is Canada pursuing it?
>
> Good question. I wish I had an answer for you.
>
> We're set up quite differently than the U.S. The government agency that
> enforces our federal Competition Act is called the Competition Bureau. The
> Competition Act specifically prevents the bureau from publicly commenting
on
> any complaints they receive, or investigations they're persuing.

That is the same with the FTC's Bureau of Competition.

> While it is widely speculated that MS was/is being investigated, I think
we
> need to recognize that the Canadian government is largely powerless to do
> anything. We have no jurisdiction to enforce a structural remedy, so all
> that we could do would be to restrict their trade practices. And with a
> population of less than 30 million people across the entire country, we
are
> hardly a market to be reckoned with. If MS stopped selling in Canada
> altogether, it wouldn't even be noticable on their income statement.

I'm not so sure that is true. But, maybe Canada really is powerless to
affect MS. I would think they could file a suit requiring MS to meet certain
criteria if they want to do business there. For instance, requiring that
Canadian OEMs be receive the OS without any bundled products or some such.

> > If blame is important, I would suggest that this situation is directly a
> > result of the greed and ego of Bill Gates. All of the reports I
> > have seen or
> > read indicate that this behavior comes directly from him. Much of the
> > evidence used in the court cases has been emails from him or
> > those following
> > his orders.
>
> Yes, but who's been letting him get away with it all these years?

I usually don't confess this, but I am very liberal about some things. I am
a strong advocate of prisoner's rights. I firmly believe that punishment
should be solely for the purpose of making society safe and never for the
purpose of revenge. But even I think it is quite a reach to blame someone's
crimes on the DA who's been trying to convict him.

> > Well, if you read the findings of fact I think you'll see that the
> > Application suite doesn't count as a monopoly. Customers do have a
choice
> > about their desktop suite. While MS used the leverage of their OS
monopoly
> > to put their office suite into place, that doesn't necessarily
> > mean that the
> > suite "controls" any part of the market. In a break up, I think the
market
> > conditions will give Lotus, Corel, and whoever else opportunity
> > to compete.
>
>
> Are you seriously going to tell me that you don't think Office is a
> monopoly? I realize that the findings of fact don't technically recognize
it
> as such - that was my point. But if you rely on the limited findings of
fact
> for an understanding of the situation, then you're missing a whole lot of
> the big picture.

Well, actually I'm thinking you are missing the big picture. Antitrust laws
aren't for the purpose of protecting the vendors who want to break into a
market. They are for the purpose of protecting consumers. So, if a consumer
has a valid choice, then there isn't a monopoly problem.

> > I've noticed you mentioning the problem with Bush and this
> > administration. I
> > have read a lot of such comments not just from you. But I haven't seen
any
> > evidence at all in the real world to support this sort of conjecture.
>
> > I'd appreciate any reference you have that might show me some
> > reason why you
> > have this ongoing feeling that because Bush is president the Justice
> > Department is pursuing this differently than they have.
>
> This is way too easy:
>
> http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,21321,00.html
> http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/7564.html
> http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/pr022701MS.shtml
> http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2686922,00.html
>
>
> Just read the news, and you can't miss it.

I read this, but what I'm missing is actually seeing something happen that
says, "Okay, this is where the last administration would have done X, but
this one did Y." What I'm saying is that it is a little early to be whining
about the DOJ backing off or giving up or whatever when NOTHING has changed.
The case went to appeals, and was sent back to the lower court.

Now, if the lower courts asks the DOJ for a new remedy and the DOJ comes
back with something different, then that would be different. But I think it
really is off base to make such claims. For instance, it is the previous
"aggressive" DOJ that settled for the consent decree you were complaining
about earlier. I don't think we could ever have expected anything else.

Surely, I wish there would be a split up, but I have never felt that it
would become a reality. I believe it is the right solution, but that doesn't
mean it will happen. I think that people who count on political winds to
change that are often very mistaken. Case in point is that it was two
conservative choices, Sporkin and Jackson, that felt Microsoft needed a
strong remedy.

> John Taylor


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