>It's a beautiful thing.
Here's my take on it, based on the limited information available in the press coverage:
It appears DOJ is seeking a $1 million a day fine for Microsoft's alleged violation of the 1995 antitrust consent decree. This is not, technically, a separate lawsuit, but a motion filed in connection with the 1995 action that led to the consent decree. The bottom line is that they want to enfoorce the consent decree, which they say Microsoft is violating by requiring OEMs to bundle IE if they want Windows 95. And yes, Reg, Microsoft will have a chance to respond by filing papers in court before the Judge does anything. My guess is that it will drag on for some time.
From the tone of the article, it appears that DOJ objects to the fact that Microsoft bundles IE with Windows. If my reading between the lines of the press release is accurate, a BIG if, it appears that there is no contention that Microsoft is forcing resellers to bundle IE EXCLUSIVELY or paying them not to bundle Netscape. Those, obviously, would be much more serious violations.
Another interesting point is that the DOJ seems to be taking the position that IE and the Windows operating system are two separate "products," while Microsoft's postion, as we have heard ad nauseam on this thread, is that the browser is just an "added feature" or "extension" of the OS. My guess is that the winner of this dispute will probably win the overall motion -- but, again, that's just my off-the-top-of-my-head impression. I could be wrong.
There is a boatload of stuff about this on Yahoo finance:
The Microsoft press release:
biz.yahoo.com
[An off-topic observation: Reading down into the body of this article, I note that only 2 million people have downloaded IE 4 to date, only 20 "major corporations" (what market cap constitutes "major" is anyone's guess) have "comitted" to standardizing on IE (not done it, mind you, only "committed" to doing it), amounting to a total of 200,000 seats. Compare that to Netscape's corporate seats numbering in the multiples of millions. I don't know about the others on this thread, but I find these figures kind of pathetic, and DOJ is going to have a tough time proving damages or injury to competition (if indeed they have to) based on figures like these.]
An article about a Computer Reseller News report that future Windows releases might be delayed because of the DOJ action:
biz.yahoo.com
From the article:
One official with a major Microsoft OEM, who requested anonymity, said he did not see why Microsoft needed the update. ''Users are already downloading IE 4.0 and installing it themselves,'' he said. ''Why do they need us to provide (IE 4.0) to them?''
Why, indeed.
And here's the initiial comments by Microsoft spokespeople:
biz.yahoo.com
My question on this spokesperson thing is: where's Bullmore?
DOJ-bashing ought to be right up his alley, but we haven't heard word one from Bullmore.
My suggestion: Chairman Bill should save himself and the government a lot of money and just agree to stop bundling IE with Windows. He can market it as a separate product, for which he can charge a separate price, and let it rise or fall on its own merits.
Microsoft and users would be a lot better off in the long run if they did it that way. |
