By Andy McCue, 24 March 2004 13:40
NEWS Microsoft will appeal the European Commission's record €497m fine and ask the courts to suspend the antitrust sanctions imposed on it until a final judgement is reached.
Brad Smith, general counsel for Microsoft, said in a conference call that a final ruling is likely to drag on for many years yet.
"This case has another four or five years of litigation ahead of it," he said. "The EC has had the first word but the European courts will have the final word."
He described the EC ruling as "negative" and "unfortunate" and said it offered consumers less choice than Redmond's proposed settlement, which was dismissed last week.
"This is a path that gives consumers less value for their euro," he said.
Smith revealed that Microsoft had offered to ship globally the Windows desktop operating system with both its own media player software and that of a rival.
As part of the appeal process Microsoft will ask the European Court of First Instance to suspend the EC order to offer a stripped-down version of Windows within 90 days and open up its server APIs and protocols to rivals within 120 days.
"We will ask the court to suspend sanctions in both areas," said Smith.
One of the areas that Microsoft will pursue as part of its appeal is that the EC decision "infringes its IP rights in Europe" and "runs foul" of World Trade Organisation agreements with the European Union.
Comments
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1. Richard james
IT seems to be the only industry where a clear monopoly isn't challenged. Imagine there was only one car manufacturer. using their vast monopoly profits to refine their vehicles. Every time someone came out with add ons say halogen lamps, the car manufaturer said "I'll offer those for free". Why would they do that? to maintain their revenue and profit and maintain barriers to entry. The cost of a PC has constantly gone down but Microsofts %age of the sale price has risen. They're a monopoly and should be controlled.
2. anonymous
Microsoft has known about this case and the possible decisions probably for more than 1 year. Why should any judge give them any time to comply with any order that they could have already fixed in the last six months? Microsoft is arrogant and their arrogance must be answered by the arrogance of a righteous judgement.
3. Bob Hallsworth
Without Microsoft's innovation, the computing industry would be nowhere near what it is today.
Monopoly or not, the power of the Microsoft Desktop and Application is delivering business benefit.
To further the previous analogy, without Microsoft, we would be putting torches on a model T Ford.
For businesses to be able to get away with saying "We can't produce products as good as Microsoft, so stop them doing it" seems perverse.
Bob
4. Mike McCreadie
Without knowing all the facts of the case, this is how I see it:
Computing was a small thing for geeks but then along came Microsoft and Apple and they brought the GUI. Overnight the usability and hence popularity of computers increased beyond recognition. In most scenarious of this type the inovator seldom stays the course, instead others take the idea and develop it in different directions. Old Bill however is a canny bloke and he's managed to stay on top of the pile. Is this a bad thing though?
I remember what things were like before Microsoft with all and sundry touting different software with different standards and none of them worked with each other. This was a time when one operating system could not interact with another without serious headaches and committing yourself to one system was a decision for life.
The downside of Microsoft is (possibly) a lack of choice. The upside is interoperability and standards everyone trys to adhere to and, in my opinion, we're better off with Microsoft than without. I don't want to see their source code opened up to hackers, spammer, virus writers, anyone with a grudge to bear, etc because without a governing body to take over from the current monopoly of Microsoft and maintain industry standards the gates will be left open to chaos. That will make my job much more difficult.
5. anonymous
Microsoft is getting undue criticism here I think. It seems very fashionable to bash MS and whinge about them but there are alternitives if people want to use them. Use Linux for free and all that free open source software. I've seen all these companies whinging on about forcing MS away from providing FREE 1st class software which is against the consumer interest. As a consumer I very much like MS providing free software part of my OS of choice. If I want something different I can use that instead. There is no monopoly as users and companies are totally free to choose whatever OS or application software they wish. Those that dont like MS or windows should just pipe down and quietly use something else.
6. David Tyrrell-Collins
I feel that Bob (above) has forgotten a little history. Bill Gates started his monopoly when IBM selected DOS. Whether this was because the owners of the company that produced CPM and Concurrent CPM were playing golf or flying when IBM paid them a visit, or whether it was because IBM did not want an OS that could run 16 terminals on an 8086 to compete with their expensive System16 is unimportant – it gave Bill the lead and in my view was a step backward. We had already written a 15 till EPOS system for concurrent CPM that ran in a smaller space than the simplest of DOS apps. GUI OS’s came along soon after (initially two). MS Windows 1.01 was the one that fell over most with memory allocation problems; however Bill had already got his hold and one memory allocation bug (reported back to MS) was not fixed until Win 3.1.
Now it’s horses for courses, we have a selection of GUI’s for Linux, Unix, Macs etc. As I need to run more than just Word, XL, Access etc, I now find myself toggling between machines with a KVM switch, and to an increasing degree relying on a Linux GUI.
If it hadn’t been for MS’s monopoly and their insistence to create their own standards, we would have far more powerful desktops (with less bloatware). Furthermore it is reasonable to assume that the companies who produced other OS’s would have followed (as closely as possible) to an industrial standard, rather than their own, thereby forcing MS to do the same.
I would much rather see a greater choice for the next generation. In spite of the failures we have seen to-date, I believe that it won’t be long before we do.
Adding free application software to an OS kills the innovators of competitive products and drives people into the same dark tunnel. It’s time to move on guys and gals, let’s not leave behind something else to increase this much-publicised generation gap.
We may not have a Model-T Ford now, but we still have to progress beyond this old Ford Capri. It may look almost sleek, but doesn't go very well and keeps breaking down.
7. Richard Ash
"I remember what things were like before Microsoft with all and sundry touting different software with different standards and none of them worked with each other. This was a time when one operating system could not interact with another without serious headaches and committing yourself to one system was a decision for life."
Today we have a stream of proprietary file formats and interfaces that only work on windows systems: entire websites that are impossible to use other than in IE, audio streams only playable in Media Player (exceptions where others reverse engineer the codes - hardly a comercial proposition). Maybe if Microsoft did provide interoperability then people would attack it less.
I moved to a Linux Destop and 6 months on am still finding files I have to take to a windows machine in order to eopen and re-save as a format I can read, even with an armoury of converters and software installed.
8. Mike McCreadie
Richard, you say, "I moved to a Linux Destop and 6 months on am still finding files I have to take to a windows machine in order to eopen and re-save as a format I can read, even with an armoury of converters and software installed" - Call me old fashioned but isn't that more a failure of Linux than Windows?
As for your statement that there are websites that only work in IE? Which ones? A web designer would have to be damn stupid to design a site that the vast majority of people can't browse. Stupid or just plain awkward.
Nobody is perfect and I'm not trying to make Microsoft out to be the elixor of computing but come on guys, there isn't an OS out there that comes remotely close to being such an all round performer.
When a non-it person buys a PC they want to be able to use it easily. Unbundling the Microsoft addons doesn't do that. I'd rather go with Microsoft's suggestion of incorporating competitors software so that people have a choice as opposed to no choice and no software. Because of this ruling I'm not now looking forward to Christmas morning when I can expect friends/family/colleagues to phone me to ask why their new expensive computer doesn't do anything.
9. David Mohring
The role of trade practice and antitrust legislation is to provide the consumer with protection from abusive business practices and monopolies. In one of the most serous cases of monopolization in the information technology industry, the agencies charged with protecting the competitive process and the consumer have utterly failed to stem the offending corporation's anti-competitive practices.
See
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
A plea for relief from Microsoft's escalating anti-competitive tactics.
An open letter to antitrust, competition, consumer and trade practice monitoring agency officials worldwide.
http://itheresies.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_itheresies_archive.html
10. Bob Robinson
Linux developers have done a good job for the server market but it is still nowhere near good enough for the desktop. Come on, if we are going to get real competition a packaged finished end-user product is needed. Fedora is getting closer but still built by geeks for geeks. Package it and let the smart users get in behind, don't try to be Windows, inovate. Sell it like Windows, market it and start getting real end user feedback to refine it. Then we may have a viable alternative to Microsoft.