Harsh Words for Microsoft Technology – NYTimes.com — This woman is still the biggest hurdle if Microsoft thinks it can buy Yahoo and get away with it.
“I know a smart business decision when I see one — choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed,” Ms. Kroes told a conference in Brussels. “No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one.”
She did not name Microsoft in advance copies of her speech, but she made her meaning clear by referring to the only company in European antitrust enforcement history that has been fined for refusing to comply with orders — a record held by Microsoft.
But it’s OK to force companies into open technologies?
I would agree with not forcing people into closed technologies… but not encouraged? Isn’t the theory that people are supposed to be given choices, and the market will decide which companies succeed or fail?
Stupid nanny governments… leave us alone! We’re big kids, we can decided for ourselves what we want to buy (or not buy, as the case may be).
Those EU twats should stick it where the sun don’t shine.
If I was Bill Gates or Ballmer, it would be mighty tempting to just to withdraw from the European market.
Those frog-eating, paper-pushing bureaucrats are so full of themselves. They get off on pushing around the American company.
If I was Bill Gates or Ballmer, it would be mighty tempting to just to withdraw from the European market.
And that’s why you’re not
On one side of the scale a Billion dollar fine, onr the other side a multi billion dollar market… hmmm… tough choice…
I suggest a trade war with Europe, to settle the dispute. They can impose punitive tarrifs on Microsoft, MacDonalds and Enron to keep them out of the EU. The US can turn around ships laden with Ferrari, Bugatti, Bentley, Jaguar, Porshe, Bulgari, Yves StLaurent, Perrier, Moet, Ardenne Foi Gras, etc. That’ll wear them down in no time.
Companies do anti-competitive things all the time … like proprietary batteries, properietary power cords (think cellphones), etc.
Microsoft is just in a business where it is easier to do, has more impact and the risks to all of us are far greater.
Proprietary, closed, locked and manipulated document formats are a huge risk to the world.
Microsoft takes advantage of the world’s lazy thinkers, lazy bureaucratics and lazy corporate drones in a way that hurts us all.
It isn’t Microsoft’s fault these people can make rotten and myopic decisions, but you can’t stop people from making rotten and myopic but you can stop Microsoft from taking advantage of it hook, line and sinker.
There are usury laws to prevent banks from taking advantage of people and I have no problem with the EU trying to do their part to keep document formats from being proprietary hodge-podge just so Microsoft can enrich itself.
#7. I agree with you,that our governments are placed with a greater responsibility, to look after our interests. But their love of simple solutions often makes them inconsistent and unable to consider a greater view. The Europeans have been reliable customers of US aircraft builders since WWII, as Americans have loved to enjoy the finer little luxuries of life that appear to only eminate from Europe. I think that we all need to grow up, and learn to put asside our points of conflict and learn to appreciate that our little differences are our most attractive characteristics.
Look at the silly people. Quarelling like silly geese over a silly computer programme. Silly, silly, people!
You should be required to be able to laugh at xkcd in order to made tech policy decisions. If she paid any attention, she’d know that if MS really wanted to be anticompetitive, it would try and stop people from convert .doc files to other formats. As it stands, that’s very easy to do, even in the strictest open-source land.
Microsoft ought to leave this market high and dry and bail out of Europe. FTEU
Num. 3 – “withdraw from Europe” ???
Nah, Gate$ and Ballmer are TOO GREEDY TO DO THAT !!! You see, M$ is NOT ABOUT GREAT SOFTWARE, BUT JUST MAKING MONEY !!!
Europeans are stupid. Just like arabs or whatever else. Let’s bomb them and then put former CIA guys as their leaders and get over with it. What they need is to be liberated. USA ROCKS! PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN AND SUPPORT AMERICAN COMPANIES!
@#14 PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN AND SUPPORT AMERICAN COMPANIES!
I’m proud of this country but not enough to drink your kool-aid.
A company being American doesn’t necessarily make it noble.
Microsoft is big into planned obsolescence where they fiddle with, say, the document format over time for the sake of making their product line incompatible with itself for no particular reason except to milk the cow.
This is no different than Ford and GM making cars that fell apart by 60,000 miles in the 1960s and 1970s to make you buy a new one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
My loyalty to American products goes as far as their commitment to make the best products in the world.
Microsoft uses monopolistic tactics to gouge consumers, companies and governments.
A model company is a company such as Toyota that strives to keep prices low and quality sky high.
Not a company like Microsoft who seeks to control standards so they can fiddle incompatibilities into them on purpose.
If Microsoft wants to trade in the EU then it must follow the EU competition laws. I guess by the fact that even despite the fines Microsoft continues to trade in the EU then the market must be sufficiently profitable for them.
If an EU company wants to trade in the US then they would be expected to follow US competition laws and should expect fines if they do not.
Why is this concept so difficult to grasp for some people.
#13 — “…M$ is NOT ABOUT GREAT SOFTWARE, BUT JUST MAKING MONEY !!!”
Here’s some very flawed arithmetic to ponder: If Bill Gates has a net worth of $58 billion, and there are 300 million Americans, did he manage to get an average $193.33 out of each and every one of us? 😉
I wonder what would have happened to that U.S. Dept. of Justice anti-competitive practices lawsuit against M$ if G.W.B. hadn’t been [s]elected President back in 2000…
What happens when a company becomes a monopoly? Competition is at the root of capitalism. When it’s removed the proper context for innovation is also removed. Vista wasn’t just a little slip up, MS invested an enormous amount of resources and time developing it. It’s lack of success is a serious blow to the company. They’re now the victims of their own business success. Europe doesn’t really need to intervene, MS seems to be it’s own worst enemy. Bill Gates is a brilliant businessman, too bad he didn’t have the technological insight…
Maybe if Microsoft didn’t have to focus on lawsuits, they would have writeen better software.
@19
Maybe if Microsoft would have written better software, they wouldn’t have to focus on lawsuits.
She appears to be an Open Source bigot and using her position to put down the Microsoft proprietary option. Shameful abuse of power.
Thank goodness our government doesn’t have anyone in power to abuse their philosophy.