RSSMicrosoft Stay Denied
By David Worthington | Published August 17, 2001, 2:40 PM
While Microsoft's request for a Supreme Court hearing is pending review, the Federal Appeals Court that upheld eight antitrust violations has denied the company's request for a stay. The ruling cited Microsoft's failure to demonstrate that any substantial harm that would result from the reactivation proceedings in the district court. A new judge will be assigned at random to begin deliberation on a remedy for the company's anti-competitive practices. Microsoft continues to press for judicial review, and seeks to hammer out a settlement in lieu of a court mandated penalty.
Siding with the Department of Justice, the ruling stated, "It appears that Microsoft has misconstrued our opinion, particularly with respect to what would have been required to justify vacating the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law." Subsequently, the court decided to move onto the next phase of litigation against the company, calling for proceedings to resume in seven days. Microsoft still holds firm that the appearance of bias mandates that the decision be vacated entirely.
In a prepared statement, Justice Department Spokesperson Gina Talamona expressed the government's exhilaration saying, "We are pleased with the court's decision and look forward to proceedings in the district court." A coalition of 18 states and the DOJ are seeking a rapid and firm conclusion to the case on the heels of the upcoming release of Windows XP.
In response to the day's events, Microsoft Spokeperson Jim Desler told BetaNews, "While we believed the process was best served through a stay, we are prepared to move ahead with getting the remaining issues in the case resolved as we await word on Supreme Court review. We will move forward with a case that has been significantly narrowed with many of the district judge’s findings against the company rejected. We are committed to resolving the remaining issues in this case through settlement."
Today's decision comes as a setback for Microsoft as it continues to fight off its legal woes.
Surely this is a mistake MS would never stoop so low. HAHAHA
http://seattletimes.nwso...4332634_microlob23.html for the rest of the article
Thursday, August 23, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Microsoft lobbying campaign backfires; even dead people write in support of firm
By Joseph Menn and Edmund Sanders
Los Angeles Times
Letters purportedly written by at least two dead people landed on the desk of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff earlier this year, imploring him to go easy on Microsoft for its conduct as a monopoly.
The pleas, along with more than 100 others from Utah residents, are part of a carefully orchestrated nationwide campaign by the software giant that may be backfiring. Microsoft sought to create the impression of a surging grass-roots movement, aimed largely at the attorneys general of some of the 18 states that have joined the Justice Department in suing Microsoft.
The Microsoft campaign goes to great lengths to create an impression that the letters are spontaneous expressions from ordinary people. Letters sent in the last month are on personalized stationery using different wording, color and typefaces, details that distinguish Microsoft's efforts from lobbying tactics that go on in politics every day.
State law-enforcement officials became suspicious after noticing that the same sentences appear in the letters and that some return addresses appeared invalid.
"It's an obvious corporate attempt to manipulate citizen input," said Rick Cantrell, community-relations director for the Utah attorney general.
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|Microsoft does not own 100% of the OS market..more like 75%. A monopoly is a corperation that owns 100% of a certain thing and there are no alternitives. Yet alternitives exist BeOS, Linux (all flavors), BSD (all flavors).
The argument is if Microsoft used unlawfull stratigies to get where it is today. In particular the intergration of the Internet Explorer into the OS to "trash the competition". Certainly intergration of the Internet Explorer engine into the OS is a great way to improve compatibility and abilities of the OS yet the courts say this is "wrong".
Personaly I believe Microsoft should be let alone.
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|Microsoft has used its monopolistic position to harm and destroy the competition. Its products are often inferior to those they crush. Netscape used to be a good browser, Microsoft couldn't beat it even by giving it away. They had to integrated IE into Windows to "win". Now that 80% of all internet users us IE, Microsoft wants to charge for it (smart tags). Next it will be straming media, instant messaging and god only knows what's next. Only a fool would not be able to see why they do what they do. Only a fool would not want active competion on all fronts of such a powerful and potentially lucrative economic engine the Internet will one day be. (when everyone has BroadBand)
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|Sorry but that is complete crap and you know it. I have always preferred Internet Explorer over Netscape. It is THEIR operating system, and they have EVERY dang right to bundle whatever they please with it as long as they don't prevent other programs from being installed.
If Microsoft gets told what they can and can't bundle with XP, then the goverment and the people will have every right to tell Linsux what they can bundle with their operating system.
Anyone with any common sense whatsoever knows that.
According to some people, they seem to think nothing should be bundled, oh how wonderful that would be, then we will all get stuck paying through the nose to buy the products seperately.
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|AMEN. I do admit that MS could have done something different in the past to compete... yet that is the past. People have alternatives now.
And the government still steriotypes microsoft's plan to intergrate IE code into the OS to make IE take over the market.... yet they do not even consider the possibility that putting IE code into the OS actualy HELPED developers at coding apps for the OS using HTML code as a base.
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|But microsoft wont even include browsers such as opera, netscape, and mozilla in windows. Only IE. The minute someone starts windows for the first time, there's a 'The Internet' (or something similar) icon right there that starts up IE. Computer newbies then just stick with IE. That sucks for windows newbies who don't like IE and aren't familiar with windows enough to download and install other browsers. If they dont know how to install new programs yet, they're stuck with IE, even if they don't like it.
I have installed both Mandrake Linux and Red Hat Linux. Sure, there was Konqueror, the KDE browser pre-installed. But, it also came pre-installed with Mozilla and Netscape, and there were icons to both of them in the menu. That's great for linux newbies who don't like konqueror and aren't familiar with linux enough to download and install other browsers. If they dont like Konqueror, they have 2 other choices.
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|Well Mozilla and Netscape are closely related.... Netscape is teaming up weith Mozilla to make Netscape 6.1
I would, personaly, ---- and moan if Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and Netscape 6.1 were included in the OS. What I hate is 3rd party bloatware.
Internet Explorer nicely intergrates with windows and therefore makes it more stable.. Netscape/Opera on the other hand are not as stable.
If ANY form of netscape was included you would see AIM clients installed allongside them, then it moves on to the AOL clients. It is a pattern... Fist Netscape which installes AIM then if the AIM client is installed why not the AOL client then Real Player.
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|Your arguments totally convinced me.. Youre so right afterall. Microsoftf isnt a monopoly. How could i have ever thought it was??? I must have been stoned, drunk, trippin out of my mind to have ever even considered such an insanity to be possible. Please forgive me Bill. I will never stray from the path again.
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|I *still* cannot understand why some people believe that Forcing MS to include competitors software in their OS is being competitive. I have my own store, I sell certain items, and I build my own systems. Soon as someone tells me I *Have* to include my competitions overpriced, sub-standard systems/crap in my store to "stimulate competition", I am going to close.
With regards to bundling the browser- virtually all flavors of Linux I have seen seem to have browser integration. So, why can't MS put THEIR OWN browser in THEIR OWN OS??
James Wheat
http://belprecomputerwizard.com
(yes, I know it is built with MS FrontPage. Deal with it!)
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|Well our local ISP (Telusplanet) includes Netscape into their ADSL package and sign on software and its a nightmare. Netscape is slow and it uses waaay to many resources and crashes waaaay to much... but its free right. Now your going to say that if MS was more open with their code Netscape would run better right... well I don't think it would and I don't care. I like using IE in the sence that I am not unhappy with it. I have felt that way since the first time I used IE 4... AFTER I downloaded it for the first time! I know that there are alot of other people that feel the same way and the numbers bare that out.
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|Personally i think MS is a modern day mob. With extortion at the top of thier agenda.
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|While it appear that Microsoft is trying to encoyrage people to use Internet Explorer more than Netscape. But what's the problem with that? It's the nature of competitive business. Imagine if you're a car maker. You made engine also. Will you use your own engines or your competitors? Sure you would use your own, since it is cheaper to do so. Only a fool here will use their competitor's engine. We only depend on thers if we don't have capabilit to do it. But when we have the ability, it's better to be self-dependent. Microsoft force consumers o upgrade? That's nonsense. They never force. They just ENCOURAGE. You can use windows 95 running Microsoft Office 95 if you want to. No one wants to force you. You just force yourself.
Ever since the rising of the napster. I've seen the power of consumers increasing. Consumer is King. Hpw true is it. Although some laws seem to favor the corporations' side, like the DMCA law that prevents copying, I've seen consumer becoming more powerful. Some even more powerful that the company itself. That's all I have to say. Please, think before you speak. Use our common sense. Don't biased before you learned.
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|Whether or not Microsoft is a monopoly, I still do not think it's the government's place to toil with business... what happened to capitalism.
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|yes but if it is an ILLEGAL monopoly shouldnt the government do something? Just like if someone ILLEGALly broke into your home and stole something, the government will do something (put him in jail) All the courts are trying to do is keep things legal
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|It seems you completely missed his point.
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|What I was trying to get across was that in a capitalist society, government should have no place telling business what they can and cannot do. It's called Lazie Faire (sp?). Your analogy to someone breaking into my house misses the point completely. Business should be regulated by business, and nothing more. For example, many people have become sick and tired of Microsoft’s practices, and have stopped buying their products. If enough people do this, eventually Microsoft will lose money, and that’s where you hit them the hardest. When government starts interfering, you have idiots like Senator Shumer (D-NY) going off the mark like he did.
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|I don't think you really mean business should be regulated by business, do you? That's a bit extreme. Without some of the protections provided by government regulations, health and safety would be at extreme risk. I'll grant you that government is overly burdensome on many businesses, but to suggest that government doesn't have a role to play here is just plain wrong.
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|The problem that I have with the government pursuing MS is that I don't beleive that they are doing it for my best interests. I beleive that the governments action against MS is politically motivated. Politicans are using this action to gain favor with constituants or the Netscape/AOL/Oracle groups.
The other thing that bothers me about the US government action against MS is that fact that as a Canadain I can not participate and didn't vote for this government that is deciding for me what I should and shouldn't have on my computer. I am a big boy, I can decide for myself what products I use and what I don't. I don't think that if this action is successful the computer industry will change or improve (like there was anything wrong with it in the first place).
Wheather or not MS is "forcing" me to use their products is not a valaid question, because by its nature it is a subjective question. You would have have half the people answer the question "yes" and the other half answer "no", the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
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|Yeah.... I do believe the DOJ is sleeping with some "fine" aol rep. This is the reason for the existance of this trial.
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|Laissez-faire economics is even more idealistic than communism. It just won't work. Adam Smith's "unseen hand of capitalism" does not exist.
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|OK. Lets put it this way:
Lets say Gateway is the only company that makes computers in the U.S. There's no apple and no buying seperate parts to build your own. Now we all know that gateway makes crappy computers, I know from experience. Now, not only can gateway charge whatever they want, they can make s***ty computers too, and we can't do anything about it. Now would you say the government shouldn't interfere with it? Of course not, and everyone who disagrees with the MS trial would want the government to do something to make it possible to buy computers from other manufacturers.
What if firestone was the only company in the US that made tires and the government didnt do anything? We would all be dead from car accidents caused by their tires.
So I think the govermnemt has every right to do what they are doing
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|Well if MS was a Canadian company and the Canadian govermnent was doing something about it, everyone from the U.S. would be complaining.
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|So that makes what the US government is doing right? I notice that you didn't respond to my other point about the fact that the legal action against MS is politically motivated.... God knows that there is no corruption in the US Government..
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|ok Ill reply to the second comment.
It is not politically motivated. MS is breaking the law, the government is punishing them for breaking the law. Doesn't get any simpler than that.
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|Be careful how you use the term "Law". Anti-trust violations are under the Civil Code of law. Anti-trust violations are not a criminal offence, nobody is going to jail. The DOJ in fact is sueing MS for anti-trust not punishing them.
The reason that I beleive that these proceeding are politically motovated is
a) the apperance of inproprity... it was Microsofts competitors that presured state officals to get the DOJ involved unlike the break up of US Bell in which the consumers presured the US government to look into anti-trust problems with the phone company.
b)It only takes one state or federal offical (Governors General) to file anti-trust charges for the DOJ to look into the matter and decide if it needs to proceed. So why did 18 states file charges... it couldn't be because the politicains saw a way for their names to get on the front page of a news paper? (not involving a missing intern was a bonus) It's not because Netscape/Time Warner-AOL/Oracle threatened or promiced these politicains support is it? nah that doesn't happen in Washington.
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|whoa ... sorry for the poor spelling I should have checked it before I posted it.
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|Be careful how you use the term "Law". Anti-trust violations are under the Civil Code of law. Anti-trust violations are not a criminal offence, nobody is going to jail. The DOJ in fact is suing MS for anti-trust not punishing them.
The reason that I believe that these proceeding are politically motivated is
a) the appearance of impropriety... it was Microsofts competitors that pressured state officials to get the DOJ involved unlike the break up of US Bell in which the consumers pressured the US government to look into anti-trust problems with the phone company.
b)It only takes one state or federal official (Governors General) to file anti-trust charges for the DOJ to look into the matter and decide if it needs to proceed. So why did 18 states file charges... it couldn't be because the politicians saw a way for their names to get on the front page of a news paper? (not involving a missing intern was a bonus) It's not because Netscape/Time Warner-AOL/Oracle threatened or promised these politicians support is it? nah that doesn't happen in Washington.
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|Yeah! Watch your speeling! No one else evur speels pourly here. You mutant! :-)
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|that is still no excuse for pour spelling... damb the spell checker didn't get that one. :-)
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|Buddy you just blew your own argument... your hypothetical reference to Gateway being the only maker of computers and equating that to Microsoft being the only maker of OS's is well, laughable. In case you are not aware, Microsoft ISN'T the only manufacture of OS's. Unlike the break-up of "Ma" Bell, Microsoft has competition.
Now granted its not much of a competition, but, is that Microsofts fault or their competitors? In any other business model it's the
competitors fault for not adequately defending their market share.
Coke has lots of competition from every angle yet, year after year Coke products consistently out sell everyone else's product. Why? Is Coke being unfair somehow? Maybe, they just market their product better or maybe, it just tastes better. What ever "it" is it doesn't matter.
How many media adds do you see for Netscape products or *unix OS's or Corel products ... none? Why not? How many people outside the "nerd" community have even heard of Linux? I will even go so far to say that if you gave the option of MS Windows and the exact same product by a different name 99% of of the consumers would choose the MS product. Why? for the exact same reason that Coke products outsell Pepsi products.
If these companies where better at marketing their own products they wouldn't need to get a referee to change the rules of the game.
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|Actually, it was MCI and Sprint who got Ma Bell broken up.
That said, it does seem politically motivated. Not gonna pay the ransom fee to crooked politicians to keep your company? Too bad.
WTF, isn't Boeing one of the largest mfgrs (by far) of planes in this country? Did we ever think of splitting them up?
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|http://www.latimes.com/b...l=la-headlines-business
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|This is totally off topic but I found a few interesting points in that article:
'Microsoft will provide additional marketing money to merchants that agree to include the software giant's games in their bundles.'.....Wonder who's going to say no to additional marketing money :)
'Loyal Xbox fans will have to dole out hundreds of dollars more than they expected to secure an Xbox'.....What loyal fans? It's not even out! It's not even similar to Sony or Nintendo etc both of whom have had console systems in the past, so fans of those systems are looking forward to the next generation console. Who's a loyal fan of the x-box? home pc owners? why would u want to buy an x-box if you already have a pc?!
'In contrast to Microsoft, Nintendo Corp. is not attaching incentives for retailers to bundle its upcoming GameCube console with software or accessories.'.....Probably because Nintendo want to get back as much market share as possible and they believe that they can do that by selling the cheapest/smallest and one of the most powerful systems.
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|Your URL appears to reference XBox rather XP. And who in "nerd" cares about XBox?? I figure Microsoft is hoping on some sweeping judgement from the "Supremes" similiar to the election farce to give them the go-ahead to like put XP in the XBox or anything they please.
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|"the end is near, the end is near, and o we hold it so dear..."
Billy's is almost out of options....lol
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|Even M$ will have to pay the piper for lying and doing wrong.
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|can I be the 1st one to say... "who cares"... I'm personally getting sick of hearing all about this... just rule on it already and stop... it's annoying...
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|Amen to that! I'm sick of people carrying this thing on for so freakin long. MS is going to be around for a very long time, people. And they are still going to be making the OSes that the majority of us are going to buy. Think about this: what OS is the most prevalent on DOJ computers? Certainly not Linux. Methinks it's time for this bull**** to end.
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|Its because betanews likes to promote Linux. I sent them a news story recently about Linux's game developer/converter filing for bankruptcy, $100,000 in debt to game companies. Yet they reported NOTHING on it. They have no problem trashing Windows though.
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|Well they did report about Redhat not cutting it on Dell desktops (big suprise). However I have noticed that most of their "reporting" is biased, but, I thought it was just me.
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