[NEWS] Microsoft To Appeal EU Decision

MrGuvernment

Fully [H]
Joined
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Messages
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well, i do agree with

Their argument is
essentially that they shouldn't be penalized for becoming successful in a
marketplace."

But, what have they done to get succesfull - if Microsoft is being punished for trying to reach the top then shouldn't most buisness be in court as well ? a buisness is a buisness - goal = to make alot of money and be as successful as possible....So why be punished because someone else has not be able to create a competive product.

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| Microsoft To Appeal EU Decision |
| from the fighting-the-old-country dept. |
| posted by Zonk on Tuesday April 11, @12:05 (Microsoft) |
| http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/11/159227 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "News.com has an article on Microsoft's
upcoming [0]appeal of the EU antitrust decision. Their argument is
essentially that they shouldn't be penalized for becoming successful in a
marketplace." From the article: "Microsoft relies on the fact that its
communication protocols are technologically innovative and are covered by
intellectual-property rights ... [the company] had designed its Windows
server operating systems from the outset to interoperate with
non-Microsoft server operating systems"

Discuss this story at:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=06/04/11/159227

Links:
0. http://news.com.com/Microsoft,+EU+c...ovation/2100-1016_3-6059725.html?tag=nefd.top
 
They aren't being charged with being too successful. They're being charged with using their advantage as a monopoly to drive competition away or make it prohibitively difficult to enter the marketplace. They failed to make their stuff interoperable with others, or even make a good faith effort at documenting how to make something that operates with it. The guy they chose to review the documentation even agreed with that.
 
I'm not sure how accurate the [NEWS] tag is on this thread. You could just as well done;

[NEWS] Sun comes up this morning

Of course they are going to appeal. Their stock holders would lynch them if they didn't.
 
For starters the EU does not punish monopolies or companies that become soo successful

Have a look at ARM they have a monopoly in their field BUT they have never been threatend with being investigated for abusing their monopoly because they do not.


Microsft are in trouble because of the method they used to become an monopoly and the methods they use (and still use) to stay a monoply.


MS a guilty and are going to be fined alot and so they should be, they "conned" the US legal system, they cannot "conn" the EU legal system



Microsft keep twisting things to get the "punishment" on their terms.
In the US they were punished so they "opened" their code, but they opened it to trustes, signed-binded, paid companys. The US legal system bought this


The EU told MS to unbundle the media-player (they did)

The EU told MS to provide documentation to allow other machine to inter-connect.
MS tried to allow src-visbility to trusted companys as a way to adhere to the agreement. It isn't. So MS open up the code and put stipulation that it should not be visible to certain companies (ie Samba and some other "competition" Since the ruling was to allow competitors a chance to inter-act this violates it again.

MS then tries to pull in the US-govn to get them out of this. The US gov'n say "if you have a sound case you wount have anything to worrry abt".

Now MS are saying that it is unfair that they should provide server-server protocol that they developed. The actual EU stipulation was Server-client inter-operability AGAIN MS twisting things to make out they are being punish fore being "successful"

They deserve to be fined and fined they will be. I don't care if Americans accuse the EU of treating MS like a cash-cow, The fact is they are trading in Europe and thus MUST adhere to our rules,IF MS had not of broken any then they would not be in this situation


I stress again ARM
 
My two cents:
It seems unfare for a company to be penalized for being successful in a marketplace, and it probably isn't fair. Many companies use the same tactics with some or no success, so they are left alone. However, the final truth of the matter is going to be that a buisness exists for the benifit of the people, and a monopoly is a bad thing in those reguards. Even if busting it seems unfare, it has to be done for the people.
 
Langford said:
My two cents:
It seems unfare for a company to be penalized for being successful in a marketplace, and it probably isn't fair. Many companies use the same tactics with some or no success, so they are left alone. However, the final truth of the matter is going to be that a buisness exists for the benifit of the people, and a monopoly is a bad thing in those reguards. Even if busting it seems unfare, it has to be done for the people.
did you even read anything? they aren't being punished for being too successful. they are being punished for using their success as leverage in other areas, which is illegal.
 
eeyrjmr said:
MS a guilty and are going to be fined alot and so they should be, they "conned" the US legal system, they are having a hard time to "conn" the EU legal system.
I fixed that for you.

I think people have a hard time that being successful is not what is being punished, but being anticompetitive is.
 
santaliqueur said:
did you even read anything? they aren't being punished for being too successful. they are being punished for using their success as leverage in other areas, which is illegal.

It's basically the same thing. Many companys try to create product synergy to help pomote thier other products. The difference is, Microsoft was successfull becasue thier OS promotes thier other products, and the OS is necessary for the computer to function. This is basically the same kind of issue Apple is having in France over DRM interoperability and the ipod. Apple made aclosed system in which potential compettitors are not supposed to be able to enter.
 
Langford said:
It's basically the same thing. Many companys try to create product synergy to help pomote thier other products. The difference is, Microsoft was successfull becasue thier OS promotes thier other products, and the OS is necessary for the computer to function. This is basically the same kind of issue Apple is having in France over DRM interoperability and the ipod. Apple made aclosed system in which potential compettitors are not supposed to be able to enter.

THAT is different. When Apple launched iTunes in France they were not forcing out others and no law existed.

What France have done has passed a law (in the 1st house) that gives the customer the right to have a digital medium in whatever format best suits him. I have a creative:Zen, I cannot use iTunes. There is logic in this law - just badly presented.

basically nothing to do with the MS case.

MS have broken firm EU-laws: bundled media-player forcing Real to become a backwater piece of software.
There is proof that different releases of MS-server actuallt break Samba (read Samba man pages and the CVS-headers) to stop inter-operability. Basically using their dominance to stop ppl breaking into their market

ARM are a monopoly, ppl have tried to break in and have failed. Why? did ARM force some stupid EULA on suppliers? NO ARM have superior product

again there is nothing wrong with monopolies. It is how you establish it and how you run it that has problems
 
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