If interested, here's a link to the entire text of the ruling issued today. In the infamous words of U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ( << >> taken from the judge?s ruling) my comments follow. Dave
<< The claim of advantage need only be plausible; it need not be proved >>
Oh yeah, prove it. Never mind, apparently you don't have to.
<< While the Court agrees with plaintiffs, and thus holds that Microsoft is liable for illegal tying under õ 1, this conclusion is arguably at variance with a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a closely related case, and must therefore be explained in some detail. Whether the decisions are indeed inconsistent is not for this Court to say. >>
Hmmm, you seem to be confused here. It isn't possible that the Appeals court disagrees with you, is it?
<< Microsoft paid vast sums of money, and renounced many millions more in lost revenue every year, in order to induce firms to take actions that would help enhance Internet Explorer's share of browser usage at Navigator's expense. >>
Does this mean that I can't have a sale on Big Macs in order to draw customers from Burger King? Can AOL no longer give away free AOL disks in order to take market share from MSN?
<< Specifically, Microsoft successfully pressured Intel, which was dependent in many ways on Microsoft?s good graces, to abstain from aiding in Sun's and Netscape's Java development work. >>
Ohhhh, how awful. In a competition for $billions and $billions of sales, Microsoft used 'pressure'? How horrible! Who ever heard of pressure in a deal between the largest companies in the world? This is outrageous! The nerve of Microsoft to use pressure.
<< Microsoft bound Internet Explorer to Windows with contractual and, later, technological shackles in order to ensure the prominent (and ultimately permanent) presence of Internet Explorer >>
Ok, so a Microsoft was told to stop using contractual methods of tying IE to Windows and so they stopped doing so. You should say thank you. Next you say that they used 'technological shackles' to reestablish that tie. Judge, did you know that I could teach a 6 year old how to break those technological shackles in about 5 seconds?
<< Microsoft sought to convince developers to concentrate on Windows-specific APIs and ignore interfaces exposed by the two incarnations of middleware that posed the greatest threat, namely, Netscape's Navigator Web browser and Sun's implementation of the Java technology >>
They wanted developers to make products that would work with Windows in lieu of their competitor's platforms. I'll agree that that is kind of damning. But, what should they have done? If you could roll back time, would you really expect Microsoft to do anything other than promote their own products?
microsoft.com |
