Published in September 14th, 2007
At a time when most people agree that Google or Apple have replaced Microsoft as the tech industry’s top player, government regulators on two continents are going retro, pushing old antitrust arguments. This backward-looking thinking threatens innovation for all companies and needs to stop now.
While the technology community has moved from obsessing over operating systems [...]
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Published in June 5th, 2007
From Cnet:
The European Union’s second highest court is expected to rule on September 17 whether the European Commission was right in 2004 to find that Microsoft violated antitrust laws, sources familiar with the matter said.
September 17 is the final working day before the retirement of Court of First Instance President Bo Vesterdorf, who is presiding [...]
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Published in October 9th, 2006
For years, Microsoft has come under heavy fire for not making its systems secure enough. Now, with the upcoming release of its new operating system (OS), Windows Vista, the company is being unfairly attacked by self-interested competitors for adding more security to protect consumers.
Back in 2002, when Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates announced that the company [...]
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Published in September 24th, 2006
A decade ago, Microsoft thought it could ignore bureaucratic rumblings with little or no fallout. That attitude led to the historic Microsoft antitrust trial and the realization that bureaucrats can indeed wield bigtime impact. Google is now learning a similar lesson, albeit in a different way.
In the race to provide WiFi access to Internet [...]
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Published in September 15th, 2006
European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes is touring the United States this week. Her visit comes during a nasty spat between the commission and Microsoft that could seriously hurt technology businesses and consumers.
Microsoft is planning to launch its new operating system, Windows Vista, in November for corporate clients and in January for consumers. Before launching in [...]
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Published in July 14th, 2006
This week, European Commission (EC) regulators fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros (US$356 million), adding to the 497 million euros ($630.7 million) the company has already been forced to pay.
Noncompliance with a mandate to disclose technology documents is the official reason for the fine, yet the deadline for such compliance has not yet passed. This bizarre [...]
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Published in July 12th, 2006
EU regulators today fined Microsoft 280.5 million Euros ($357 million USD) for supposedly not complying with their demands. Of course, the regulator’s demands are currently in the appeals process and the Commission dragged their heels in making their demands clear, but still, they argue that it’s Microsoft’s fault. That seems pretty unfair, and prompted MS’s [...]
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Published in June 28th, 2006
News reports are saying that EU antitrust authorities plan to recommend that Microsoft pay as much as $2.5 million (USD) in penalties for every day it finds the company failed to disclose information on Windows to competitors. The penalty would be backdated to Dec. 15. That’s a huge amount of money and [...]
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Published in June 15th, 2006
In an unfortunate turn of events, Adobe has threatened an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in Europe. That two American companies may have their fate decided by European bureaucrats is bad enough, but the underlying assumptions make it even worse.The dispute centers on two issues. First, Microsoft announced that it was adding a “save as PDF” [...]
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Published in June 2nd, 2006
Today, the WSJ reported that Adobe is threatening an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in Europe because Adobe doesn’t want Microsoft to use PDF in MS Office. So why is Adobe going to Europe?
They are both American companies, so it might seem pretty strange. That is, until you realize that the Europeans are much [...]
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Published in April 30th, 2006
Below is my summary of last week’s Microsoft hearing at the CFI in Luxembourg. You can read the entire column here.Â
The European Court of First Instance (CFI) buzzed with energy this week as Microsoft and the European Commission squared off over a damaging 2004 ruling that, along with a fine of 497 million [...]
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Published in April 30th, 2006
On the last day of the MS hearing at the European Court of First Instance, the topic du jour was the record fine the EC charged MS. Not surprisingly, MS wanted the fine dropped and the EC wanted to keep it in place. And while 497 million euros is a lot of dough, [...]
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Published in April 27th, 2006
It’s day 4 of the Microsoft hearing and today the Judges asked some really great questions about interoperability. Judge Cooke, whose Irish accent comes and goes, really cut through the blather on both sides of the argument and got to the core of the issue. The basic issue is that in 2000, Microsoft [...]
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Published in April 26th, 2006
Today was day 3 of the Microsoft hearing in Luxembourg and, as I noted in my last post, the focus switched to MS’s intellectual property and whether or not the company should be forced to share it with rivals. When most people are presented with the idea of government taking one company’s property and [...]
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Published in April 26th, 2006
Yesterday, the CFI wrapped up its examination of the EC’s order to force Microsoft to remove 200 files from Windows to create the wildly unpopular Windows XPN. Now that the Court is done looking at the EC’s attempt to design software code, today everyone is focused on the issue of Microsoft’s intellectual property. [...]
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Published in April 25th, 2006
Today, everyone at the Court of First Instance noticed something that I think is a really huge difference between this Microsoft hearing and the original trial that occurred in the US. That is, the judges today are VERY familiar with the technology involved in the dispute. Use of the Internet has grown significantly [...]
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Published in April 24th, 2006
Today’s hearing at the European Court of First Instance (CFI) focused on the Windows Media Player. Below are some key ideas that came up during the arguments.
On RealPlayer:
Some groups like ECIS – the European Committee for Interoperable Systems – attempted to argue that RealPlayer is dead. Their press release said this:
“Just as [Microsoft’s] [...]
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Published in April 24th, 2006
This afternoon, the European Commission’s (EC) attorney made his case. One of the things he said was that Microsoft put its unbundled version of windows on the market and contrary to their claims, there is no evidence that it is malfunctioning. It’s true there’s no evidence of malfunction, but it’s also true that there’s [...]
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Published in April 24th, 2006
This morning, Microsoft’s attorney said that the company is under the gun for what he called an “efficiency offense.†That is, because MS kept improving their operating system to work well with media products for the consumer, somehow that is an abuse. He’s right that that’s what Microsoft is facing, and it’s also [...]
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Published in April 24th, 2006
The Court of First Instance (CFI) just finished its first morning session where the lordships (really – that’s what they call the judges) heard Microsoft attorneys and supporters discuss why the company shouldn’t be forced to remove code from its operating system. As someone who closely followed the US antitrust proceedings, I have to [...]
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