Marginal stuff..
April 29, 2006
Many titans of the software industry backed European regulators initially, but Sun Microsystems settled with Microsoft for $1.6 billion in April 2004, while Novell settled in November 2004 for $536 million. RealNetworks dropped out in October 2005 after settling for $761 million. From New York Times, April 28, 2006
Wonder if there will be competition in the software marketplace in ten years? Not if this continues. Microsoft simply pays off competitors who allege unfair practices. It's so rich, it can afford to do that. Those companies see a large, immediate payoff. The executives in charge of those companies don't, apparently, care much about the long-term prospects of their corporations competing against Microsoft.
Microsoft is rich because it has succeeded in becoming a monopoly, so it uses it's incredible wealth to buy off those whom it cheats, who file legal challenges to its hegemony.
George Bush's Justice Department will do nothing. The Republican Party can be bought off too, you know. If you think it's just government, think again: the Clinton White House pursued an aggressive strategy against Microsoft and was on the verge of taking real action when Bush was elected. It's not just "government". It's the Republican Party.
The Europeans do take this all seriously and the European Court of Justice (doesn't that sound to you like a redundancy? Like the "Army of Warfare" or the "Department of Bureaucracies" or whatever.) is looking into competition. The Free Software Foundation Europe is fighting on behalf of the consumer and smaller software companies for "interoperability". Microsoft which makes all the software you need disdains "interoperability" while bragging about it in their sales advertising. Interoperability means you can use a Palm Pilot with your Outlook mailbox. But why should Microsoft allow you to do that? Why don't you just buy one of the many PDA's that use the Microsoft operating system, even if you think you prefer the Palm OS?