On 5/11/05, Neil Schneider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
1. Stealing other companies intelectual property, to incorporate into their products because "We're so big we can"
Firstly, whether Microsoft steals because they're big or not has no relevance to the issue at hand.
Sure it does. Microsoft knows it can steal just long enough, and then fight a legal challenge if it's caught just long enough, to make a particular competitor irrelevant, or at least settle in a way most beneficial to itself. The fact that Microsoft has been caught and convicted of theft has been proven historically to be economically ineffective as a disincentive for it to change its ways.
a. Stac Electronics
Stac Electronics v. Microsoft. Stac Electronics won and Microsoft was ordered to pay over $100 million to Stac.
And a perfect case in point to the above. Stac's business, and its ability to compete in its own market was damaged to the point that even though they won their case against Microsoft, they nevertheless were forced out of their core business, and eventually into oblivion.
In the meantime, Micro$oft, the magnanimous loser that it is, managed to cut a licensing deal with Stac to continue to use the already stolen technology throughout the remaining years of MS-DOS's lifetime - while Stack couldn't give away its remaining retail inventory.
b. Sun Java
Microsoft settled, ceased the infringing activity, and paid Sun $20 million.
Interpretation: Sun sold out to Microsoft by taking money and agreeing to partner in a joint fight against Linux and Apple - which continues to this day. That fight was not about Java, but merely a means of bringing a potentially damaging competitor into compliance with Micro$oft's agenda.
It is believed by many in the IT industry that the M$-Sun settlement was an even bigger travesty than the DOJ's slap on the wrist after M$'s second trial. The only bigger event might be M$'s bribing of an EU official in order to gain favorable legislation in the area of software patent laws in Europe.
Purposely breaking competitors software then blaming the competitor, or lying about it.
a. DRDOS
Originally, Microsoft stole CP/M code. They were discovered, taken to court, and Digital Research won, receiving money, and the right to clone DOS. Digital Research created DR DOS from MS DOS.
That's an original spin - not to accuse anyone of apparently just falling off the IT turnip truck, but...
Micro$oft did not steal CP/M. If anyone actually stole CP/M it was Seattle Computer Products with their QDOS, which was the basis for PC-DOS (mildly rewritten by Micro$oft for IBM).
Microsoft was sued by Caldera who acquired DR-DOS from Novell. The only vague Micro$oft-DRI connection before Caldera inheriting DR-DOS was that IBM approached DR before talking to Gates and Allen for an OS for the nascent IBM-PC.
Caldera apparently only acquired DR-DOS so that it could, as successor-in-interest to DRI and Novell, sue M$ over what basically amounted to restraint of trade. Neither DRI nor Novell gained anything out of the suit - which Caldera won. Caldera used its winnings to eventually spawn the current TSCOG vs. IBM+dog lawsuit. In the meantime, M$ has gone on with business as usual, having paid out only chump change while much of their competition died off.
Later, Microsoft made Windows to only run on MS DOS, on purpose, by detecting if it was being run on other DOSs and aborting.
Bzzzt! Wrong again. Micro$oft coded early copies of Windows 3.0 such that it gave a bogus error message when detecting DR-DOS. Windows ran just fine on top of DR-DOS if the error message was ignored. Been there, done that. Eventually the code was disabled, though not removed, and can still be seen in versions of MS-DOS at least as late as version 5.0.
That's their prerogative.
Apparently, the courts found otherwise.
They lied to customers about it.
They didn't tell their customers about it.
That's not their prerogative, it's wrong and should have been punished. In this case, however, instead of fraud, they were sued for "unfair business practices" by Caldera, then owner of the remains of DR DOS. Caldera agreed to settle out of court for a secret amount of money.
Anticipating the response that the courts didn't find otherwise, remember that the courts are a party to, and must approve the fairness of such settlements.
In each of these cases, Microsoft's wrong-doing was identified and punished.
We have different definitions of "punishment". Punishment is supposed to be a disincentive to do further wrong-doing. There has never been a financial penalty in the history of the American Justice system which, if imposed on Micro$oft, would having any economic affect on its business. The only thing coming close are the potential EU sanctions which are still pending against M$.
In none of these cases was it necessary to punish them
merely for the fact that the wrong-doing led to greater market share. Anti-trust regulation is wrong.
> [snip] > -todd
Right. They were punished for increasing market share at the unfair, and illegal expense of the their competitors. Whether anti-trust laws are wrong or not is another conversation.
-- Best Regards, ~DJA.
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