Print - US Antitrust Officials Praise Microsoft for Protocol Licensing

In sharp contrast with the never-ending criticisms and increasingly baseless investigations it faces in the European Union (EU), Microsoft is finding a surprising level of support from antitrust officials in the US. As part of a regularly scheduled status report on the software giant's 2002 US antitrust settlement, US federal and state antitrust officials recently praised Microsoft for its efforts to lower the cost of royalties associated with licensing its technologies to third parties.

In the jointly-filed status report, antitrust officials from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and several states said that the "substantial reduction in royalties are positive steps [that will] promote interoperability with Windows clients."

Microsoft announced in February that it would release thousands of pages of technical documentation related to core protocols and products such as Windows, Office, SQL Server, Exchange Server, and SharePoint Server, and then released the first batch of 14,000 pages of documentation in April. This information is available free of license or royalty. Microsoft also released information about protocols that are covered by its patents, which it made available at "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates." Additionally, Microsoft agreed to not sue open source organizations that created non-commercial implementations of its patented protocols.

A technical committee has overseen Microsoft's antitrust settlement since 2002 and is now performing a review of a beta version of Windows 7, the next major release of Microsoft's desktop OS. The committee performed a similar review of Windows Vista.

It's interesting to contrast Microsoft's relationship with US antitrust officials--with which Microsoft battled for years before settling--with its relationship with similar officials in the EU. Whereas the US has clearly moved on and can both work with the software giant and even praise it when it does the right thing, such niceties are apparently beyond the abilities of Neelie Kroes and the EU's European Commission (EC). In recent months, she has awarded Microsoft's decision to release its proprietary document formats as international standards by, of all things, investigating whether Microsoft's document formats are anticompetitive. And Kroes has publicly recommended that EU governments ignore Microsoft's products and use open source solutions instead.

Kroes, too, is overly-sympathetic to Microsoft's competitors, especially if they're from Europe. It seems that no complaint is too small to not warrant a massive investigation. A typical example: The EC is now investigating Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer (IE) with Windows because Norwegian browser maker Opera claims act this has harmed its business. What Opera can't explain, however, is how two other independent Web browsers--Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari--have both surpassed its own product in the market during the same time period. If the past is any indication, Kroes and her cronies will ignore this inconvenient truth and institute another round of unnecessary accusations, court battles, and fees.

Microsoft is becoming the Rodney Dangerfield of the era. They absolutely get no respect. Microsoft literally saves Apple from death, and Apple fans are continually disrespecting Microsoft. They announce interoperability standards and open formats. Neelie Kroes starts another investigation. I think Kroes needs to be removed from her position. She's clearly showing a bias which is something an investigator should never show. The whole point of a government investigator of any branch is to be independent. Not favoring anyone but calling it down the middle. But its up to the European Windows users to demand Kroes head on a silver platter. Infact I'd encourage our European Windows users to start a write in campaign to have her removed. None of the N versions of Windows has sold well. She's clearly out of touch with PC users in Europe. Now if Linux and Apple were number 1 and 2 in Europe, then I would be wrong. But since Microsoft is still number one with all the bad press, Kroes clearly has no idea the can of worms she's trying to open. Open source is a lot like handing our enemies the installation and battle plans. Just give them time and they'll find away to bring it down.

Individuals should be given the right to choose among closed, proprietary software and open/free software. On the other hand, governments must use open/free software for various reasons. The first one is licensing costs (this software is always paid with taxes with no public sonsultation to citizens) than can be invested in better things, like improving health or educational systems and so on. Second, no government should be a slave to any other privately held company. It's plain stupid that European governments have such a strong dependency on private companies, like Microsoft, that are driven by its own interests. Governments have a single interest: to better serve its citizens. Also, it is these governments using proprietary technologies the ones that force me to use Internet Explorer when trying to use the so-called e-government. In the end, I'm very happy that the EC is trying to ban any kind of closed source from use within the government.

Paul, I want to point you to this article. "European Commission itself uses too much Microsoft ' The European Commission, which the monopoly of Microsoft fights with verve, used mainly software itself of this business. Our own recommendation to use open standards to show the Commission not to follow. For the competition in the software market to promote recommends that the European Commission to deliver as much as possible to work with open standards. The EC itself is saddled with closed formats from Microsoft, Sun message Reuters. Christos Ellinides, which advises the EC in the areas of software, admits that in a Microsoft environment. According Ellinides studies had shown that switching to open source would cost more than it could deliver, but he admitted that it was perhaps time for a new study. The European Commission last year signed a contract with Microsoft until 2011 to 30,000 desktop computers for the software. There will each year around 4.5 million euros. The use of open formats is difficult with Microsoft Office, because programs like Word does not like to read files created with other programs. This can only happen with special software or by the removal of the formatteringsinformatie. Microsoft has pledged to change this next year, but the EC is skeptical because similar promises in the past often have not been fulfilled. Google Translated from: http://pro.tweakers.net/nieuws/54046/europese-commissie-gebruikt-zelf-te-veel-microsoft.html

Naïve thinking is clearly blinding the EC. Felipe is correct in one part of the argument; governments have a duty to use taxes collected as efficiently as possible. Where too many go wrong though is by looking exclusively at licensing, it is only part of the cost. I work for a government institution and have moved more systems over to Windows and in the process, I have dramatically reduced downtime and increased productivity. The cost of the software when amortized over its life span does not compare to the cost of all downtime, lost productivity and tarnished image of the organization. I have been able to eliminate the need for additional head count by investing in better systems which has resulted in lower overall costs. Now, that’s smart investment of public funds. I encourage people to think about the lifetime of the product and the entire cost from acquisition to maintenance and then probable upgrade. Licensing is only part of the equation.

As we in Yerp, as I believe it is known in the USA, are expected to pay twice the price for Microsoft software as in the USA, surely we are entitled to complain twice as much? In fact those countries, mostly enemies of the USA, China and others, which threaten to ditch MS in favour of open source, usually get special treatment and cheap software. Wake up USA and try treating your friends at least as well as you do your enemies.

"I encourage people to think about the lifetime of the product and the entire cost from acquisition to maintenance and then probable upgrade." that's called "TCO", and Linux just can't compete. "I have been able to eliminate the need for additional head count by investing in better systems which has resulted in lower overall costs. Now, that’s smart investment of public funds." that's called "ROI", which analysts hate to cite, although real-world case studies will prove is accurate. in an open-source world, they also expect support people to work for free since they can't account for IP (intellectual property). just ask Richard Stallman. in a Windows world, knowledge is power (read: IT $$$), and real IT workers know that, but Microsoft reduces the overall TCO through superior IT and business tools. if you know about System Center, Dynamics business platforms, and SharePoint technologies, you know exactly what i'm talking about - they have no peer in the Linux world. if they really want more aggressive competition, they should be pushing for more Microsoft-based IT workers because there's already tens of thousands of them vying for their euros, and only a single digit share of open-source IT workers, many of which don't have a clue. competition is what they want, and the market has already spoken on which platform they prefer. i guess eastern Communistic sentiment hasn't lost its touch with the EC. XP

PT: "never-ending criticisms and increasingly baseless investigations it faces in the European Union" Should the EU just look the other way when Microsoft repeatedly violates EU law on competition policy? PT: "In recent months, [EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes] has awarded Microsoft's decision to release its proprietary document formats as international standards by, of all things, investigating whether Microsoft's document formats are anticompetitive." The funny thing about Microsoft's "proprietary document formats" turned "international standards" is that Microsoft Office 2007 cannot conform to them. Therefore, by definition, Microsoft's formats are "anticompetitive" because only Microsoft software can properly read and write them. PT: "Microsoft announced in February that it would release thousands of pages of technical documentation related to core protocols and products." Why not release it? They had already been reverse-engineered. PT: "Microsoft also released information about protocols that are covered by its patents, which it made available at 'reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates.' Additionally, Microsoft agreed to not sue open source organizations that created non-commercial implementations of its patented protocols." In other words, we should praise Microsoft for producing opaque protocols, using the patent system to gain a legal monopoly on those protocols and then sucking away potential competitors' profits by making them pay royalty fees. In other words, Microsoft deserves praise for enshrining the following doctrine into our legal system: "You pay Microsoft or you pay a company that pays Microsoft. ... Unless, of course, you're an open-source hobbyist who promises not to sell your product." To some, "Open Source" is a hobby. To others, it is a business. We urgently need software freedom in our businesses! But Microsoft has never loved freedom. It has always wanted to destroy competition in the software industry!

Waethorn wrote: "competition is what they want, and the market has already spoken on which platform they prefer. i guess eastern Communistic sentiment hasn't lost its touch with the EC." Are you completely ignorant of what communism was? Communism was an economic system in which all decisions were centrally made. Because there was no competition among various products under communism, what little was produced was of horrible quality. Microsoft is the communism of IT. Microsoft decides what server you will run. Microsoft decides when you will upgrade your operating system. Microsoft decides what desktop applications you will use. Hell, Microsoft even decides what your desktop will look like. All meaningful decisions are made in Redmond. Microsoft's operating system doesn't face any competition because any upstart competitor must reverse engineer all of its secret protocols and file formats, must convince OEMs to pre-install it on their products, spend billions of dollars on advertising and convince potential customers that re-training costs will be minimal. All the EU is doing is trying to level the playing field and create the possibility of competition by forcing Microsoft to provide meaningful information about its protocols and file formats.

Waethorn wrote: "in an open-source world, they also expect support people to work for free since they can't account for IP (intellectual property). just ask Richard Stallman." There is no such thing as "intellectual property." Never has been. Never will be. There is patent law, copyright law and trademark law. Patents are a government-granted right to monopoly in a certain field. Copyright is the government-granted right to restrict republication of text. Trademark is a government-granted right to control use of images and slogans associated with your company. As regards open source ... There are many Open Source businesses like IBM, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat and Novell that sell installation, customization training and support for their products. They even make money by providing those services and they provide a return to their shareholders. I'm sure that the return they provide to their shareholders is a bit lower than the return that Microsoft provides, but that's because Open Source businesses operate in a competitive market, whereas Microsoft operates as a monopoly.

Waethorn wrote: "if they really want more aggressive competition, they should be pushing for more Microsoft-based IT workers because there's already tens of thousands of them vying for their euros, and only a single digit share of open-source IT workers, many of which don't have a clue." Don't you think the share of Microsoft-based IT workers and the share of Open-Source IT workers in a given market would be roughly proportionate to their share of Microsoft and Open Source deployments in a given market? Stop sucking on Steve Ballmer's c-ck, pick up your head and look around. Then maybe (just maybe) you'll get a clue!

Waethorn wrote: "competition is what they want, and the market has already spoken on which platform they prefer." Please remind me of the last time business customers were given a choice between pre-installed versions of MS Windows and GNU/Linux desktop operating systems. ... Oh yeah. That's right! It never happened! I do seem to remember a lot of IT workers making a choice between MS Windows servers and GNU/Linux servers and almost all of them chose GNU/Linux. Kinda sucks to be a Microsoft guy, huh? ... Oops! Apologies. I didn't mean to remind you of how much sucking you have to do everyday!

@ewdowiak Whoa, calm down. You make a few valid points, but then get personal. No need. Wae is as entitled to his opinion as you are to yours, both have merit. For my tuppence view, MS is a business, its in the business of making money. You are free to choose what you want to run, just as the business I'm in is free to. We choose MS - why, because it fits together, its well integrated and allows us to develop the solutions that allow our business to run. I make no apologies for doing what is best for the business I'm in, just as I wouldn't criticise your choices. The way you are ranting suggests you have your head as much in the sand over Open Source as maybe Wae does with MS. Maybe both could use some perspective.

"Are you completely ignorant of what communism was?" "Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production." -WP translation: everyone is equal. seems pretty clear to me. "Communism was an economic system in which all decisions were centrally made." sorry, but you are incorrect. "Microsoft is the communism of IT." sorry, but you are incorrect. "Microsoft decides what server you will run." "I do seem to remember a lot of IT workers making a choice between MS Windows servers and GNU/Linux servers and almost all of them chose GNU/Linux." now you're contradicting yourself. "There is no such thing as "intellectual property."" "There is patent law, copyright law and trademark law." "Intellectual property (IP) is a legal field that refers to creations of the mind such as musical, literary, and artistic works; inventions; and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce, including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and related rights." -WP again, you are contradicting yourself. "Don't you think the share of Microsoft-based IT workers and the share of Open-Source IT workers in a given market would be roughly proportionate to their share of Microsoft and Open Source deployments in a given market?" it's already been proven. the number of GOOD (read: educated, and will follow best-practises) Microsoft IT workers far outweighs the number of GOOD OSS IT workers. "Please remind me of the last time business customers were given a choice between pre-installed versions of MS Windows and GNU/Linux desktop operating systems. ... Oh yeah. That's right! It never happened! I do seem to remember a lot of IT workers making a choice between MS Windows servers and GNU/Linux servers and almost all of them chose GNU/Linux." that's a contradiction again. come back when you have something intelligent to say. XP

"Please remind me of the last time business customers were given a choice between pre-installed versions of MS Windows and GNU/Linux desktop operating systems." http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=ca&cs=cadhs1&l=en&s=dhs http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/321114-0-0-39-121.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_CAEN http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/webca/LenovoPortal/en_CA/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?Lan dingPage=/All/US/Landing_pages/Info/08/Linux um....is that enough of a reminder? XP

The idea that in 2008, after anti-trust suits here in the U.S., Europe, South Korea, etc... The idea that Microsoft is still forcing anyone to load Windows is down right laughable. Microsoft has paid a heavy price for its anti-competative practices. Today, Microsoft is being watch too hard for them to continue those practices. Everyone has choices now. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and saying "Load Windows or Else." Any insinuation of such coersion is just total BS. What *******off most open source advocates and hard core Mac fans, is that the silent majority of users are still using Windows. OLPC was failing until they got Microsoft Windows. How about instead of dog pile on Microsoft, how about you work on your favorite platforms of choice? I know Windows needs improvement, but Leopard has instabilities. I know that many Linux variants are frequently getting targeted by Malware and Virus writers. Instead of the animosity, work on fixing the platform and competition in friendly manner. Gates and Jobs are over the rivalry. Perhaps the rest of you can tone down the nonsense.