Einhorn Calls on Microsoft to Fire Ballmer

[ERICOPOLY]

Neither had a true monopoly.  All Google had to do is build a Chromebook instead of whine -- nobody is going to use it until it comes to market.  All Apple had to do is build a much better product and people are all over it.  There's no monopoly to Windows that keeps competitors from succeeding, there's only a bunch of whiners in the late 1990s who tried to litigate instead of innovate.  Once litigation failed, they innovated.  Now that innovation is bearing fruit.

 

You're misunderstanding the nature of monopolies.  Just because a monopoly was eroded over time doesn't mean there wasn't one that was kept in place longer than it should have been due to monopolistic practices.  By your definition, AT&T was never a monopoly because they eventually got displaced by the Internet.

 

No, that's not by my definition.  Apple's computer is a viable alternative to Microsoft's.  I should know, I'm using one.  It is not a new "disruptive" technology -- it's just another laptop with their own code in it.  This is not the internet destroying AT&T.  Apple brings nothing revolutionary in their laptop -- they just made it in such a way that people like it more.

 

And I don't have a choice between Comcast and some other cable company.  I just have Comcast.

 

I can walk into any Best Buy and purchase something other than a Windows PC.  I can even have Office pre-loaded on the Mac.

 

 

[txlaw]

Nobody really can monopolize in the high-tech field for long, except LVLT I hope :)

 

Key phrase, "for long."  In the interim, though, progress is stifled and monopoly profits are extracted.

 

Tell AT&T that they were never monopoly because the Internet would eventually come along to erode their business model.  They would laugh in your face.

 

LVLT is great because they are trying to be the low-cost, highest quality pipeline for the transmission of bits.  They're not trying to extract monopoly profits.

[txlaw]

Neither had a true monopoly.  All Google had to do is build a Chromebook instead of whine -- nobody is going to use it until it comes to market.  All Apple had to do is build a much better product and people are all over it.  There's no monopoly to Windows that keeps competitors from succeeding, there's only a bunch of whiners in the late 1990s who tried to litigate instead of innovate.  Once litigation failed, they innovated.  Now that innovation is bearing fruit.

 

You're misunderstanding the nature of monopolies.  Just because a monopoly was eroded over time doesn't mean there wasn't one that was kept in place longer than it should have been due to monopolistic practices.  By your definition, AT&T was never a monopoly because they eventually got displaced by the Internet.

 

No, that's not by my definition.  Apple's computer is a viable alternative to Microsoft's.  I should know, I'm using one.  It is not a new "disruptive" technology -- it's just another laptop with their own code in it.

 

And I don't have a choice between Comcast and some other cable company.  I just have Comcast.

 

I can walk into any Best Buy and purchase something other than a Windows PC.  I can even have Office pre-loaded on the Mac.

 

If you were a businessman in the early 90s, did you really have a choice other than Windows? 

 

Of course not!  That's what the network effect was all about!  The QWERTY problem in full effect.

 

 

[ERICOPOLY]

No way I can answer that one.  

 

It was well before my time, and plus I'm not a developer.

 

So why do you think Java on the client was something so important?  Did you hear that from Sun's legal department, or was it Google's?

 

It was also not the first virtual machine, just Sun's first one.

[ERICOPOLY]

Neither had a true monopoly.  All Google had to do is build a Chromebook instead of whine -- nobody is going to use it until it comes to market.  All Apple had to do is build a much better product and people are all over it.  There's no monopoly to Windows that keeps competitors from succeeding, there's only a bunch of whiners in the late 1990s who tried to litigate instead of innovate.  Once litigation failed, they innovated.  Now that innovation is bearing fruit.

 

You're misunderstanding the nature of monopolies.  Just because a monopoly was eroded over time doesn't mean there wasn't one that was kept in place longer than it should have been due to monopolistic practices.  By your definition, AT&T was never a monopoly because they eventually got displaced by the Internet.

 

No, that's not by my definition.  Apple's computer is a viable alternative to Microsoft's.  I should know, I'm using one.  It is not a new "disruptive" technology -- it's just another laptop with their own code in it.

 

And I don't have a choice between Comcast and some other cable company.  I just have Comcast.

 

I can walk into any Best Buy and purchase something other than a Windows PC.  I can even have Office pre-loaded on the Mac.

 

If you were a businessman in the early 90s, did you really have a choice other than Windows? 

 

Of course not!  That's what the network effect was all about!  The QWERTY problem in full effect.

 

 

 

Businessmen get to control what software does and does not get installed on the corporate desktop.  They can deploy Netscape automatically to every desktop with automation software from Microsoft!  Ever heard of SMS?  MOM?  How about InTune?

 

The DOJ case was about consumer choice, and in the late 1990s you could buy a Mac with Office and you could browse the web and that's all consumers do anyhow.

 

[txlaw]

No way I can answer that one.  

 

It was well before my time, and plus I'm not a developer.

 

So why do you think Java on the client was something so important?  Did you hear that from Sun's legal department, or was it Google's?

 

It was also not the first virtual machine, just Sun's first one.

 

Try from the Jackson decision and Microsoft's own internal papers that came out during discovery, all of which are publicly available documents.

[ERICOPOLY]

No way I can answer that one.  

 

It was well before my time, and plus I'm not a developer.

 

So why do you think Java on the client was something so important?  Did you hear that from Sun's legal department, or was it Google's?

 

It was also not the first virtual machine, just Sun's first one.

 

Try from the Jackson decision and Microsoft's own internal papers that came out during discovery, all of which are publicly available documents.

 

Jackson is an individual.  He was overruled by the way for being openly biased.  And it wasn't the first case where bias was suspected, so guess why he was selected for the trial?  Oh, maybe that wasn't the reason why.

 

He was also physically sleeping through some of the testimony, and he didn't understand the technology (which is why you couldn't really provide technical facts to argue a point).

 

Microsoft overreacted with making their own client VM.  It would not have taken off anyhow (Netscape failed with Sun's VM for example).  And still nobody today is shipping significant packaged client software written in Java VM.  Or maybe I'm just not aware of any.

 

[txlaw]

Neither had a true monopoly.  All Google had to do is build a Chromebook instead of whine -- nobody is going to use it until it comes to market.  All Apple had to do is build a much better product and people are all over it.  There's no monopoly to Windows that keeps competitors from succeeding, there's only a bunch of whiners in the late 1990s who tried to litigate instead of innovate.  Once litigation failed, they innovated.  Now that innovation is bearing fruit.

 

You're misunderstanding the nature of monopolies.  Just because a monopoly was eroded over time doesn't mean there wasn't one that was kept in place longer than it should have been due to monopolistic practices.  By your definition, AT&T was never a monopoly because they eventually got displaced by the Internet.

 

No, that's not by my definition.  Apple's computer is a viable alternative to Microsoft's.  I should know, I'm using one.  It is not a new "disruptive" technology -- it's just another laptop with their own code in it.

 

And I don't have a choice between Comcast and some other cable company.  I just have Comcast.

 

I can walk into any Best Buy and purchase something other than a Windows PC.  I can even have Office pre-loaded on the Mac.

 

If you were a businessman in the early 90s, did you really have a choice other than Windows? 

 

Of course not!  That's what the network effect was all about!  The QWERTY problem in full effect.

 

 

 

Businessmen get to control what software does and does not get installed on the corporate desktop.  They can deploy Netscape automatically to every desktop with automation software from Microsoft!  Ever heard of SMS?  MOM?  How about InTune?

 

The DOJ case was about consumer choice, and in the late 1990s you could buy a Mac with Office and you could browse the web and that's all consumers do anyhow.

 

 

Yeah, right.  Anybody who has worked in an office has experienced having to use shitty software because it is compatible with Microsoft technologies, which everyone else is using.

 

The DOJ case was about monopolization, and MSFT's position in both the consumer space and business space was inseparable for determining whether it had a dominant position.

[ERICOPOLY]

Neither had a true monopoly.  All Google had to do is build a Chromebook instead of whine -- nobody is going to use it until it comes to market.  All Apple had to do is build a much better product and people are all over it.  There's no monopoly to Windows that keeps competitors from succeeding, there's only a bunch of whiners in the late 1990s who tried to litigate instead of innovate.  Once litigation failed, they innovated.  Now that innovation is bearing fruit.

 

You're misunderstanding the nature of monopolies.  Just because a monopoly was eroded over time doesn't mean there wasn't one that was kept in place longer than it should have been due to monopolistic practices.  By your definition, AT&T was never a monopoly because they eventually got displaced by the Internet.

 

No, that's not by my definition.  Apple's computer is a viable alternative to Microsoft's.  I should know, I'm using one.  It is not a new "disruptive" technology -- it's just another laptop with their own code in it.

 

And I don't have a choice between Comcast and some other cable company.  I just have Comcast.

 

I can walk into any Best Buy and purchase something other than a Windows PC.  I can even have Office pre-loaded on the Mac.

 

If you were a businessman in the early 90s, did you really have a choice other than Windows?  

 

Of course not!  That's what the network effect was all about!  The QWERTY problem in full effect.

 

 

 

Businessmen get to control what software does and does not get installed on the corporate desktop.  They can deploy Netscape automatically to every desktop with automation software from Microsoft!  Ever heard of SMS?  MOM?  How about InTune?

 

The DOJ case was about consumer choice, and in the late 1990s you could buy a Mac with Office and you could browse the web and that's all consumers do anyhow.

 

 

Yeah, right.  Anybody who has worked in an office has experienced having to use shitty software because it is compatible with Microsoft technologies, which everyone else is using.

 

 

You can install Windows on a MacBook you know.  The "shitty" app is the only time you need to use Windows.  You don't even need to reboot or anything.   It all runs together at the same time.

 

It just take innovation, which they've now done.

[txlaw]

No way I can answer that one.  

 

It was well before my time, and plus I'm not a developer.

 

So why do you think Java on the client was something so important?  Did you hear that from Sun's legal department, or was it Google's?

 

It was also not the first virtual machine, just Sun's first one.

 

Try from the Jackson decision and Microsoft's own internal papers that came out during discovery, all of which are publicly available documents.

 

Jackson is an individual.  He was overruled by the way for being openly biased.  And it wasn't the first case where bias was suspected, so guess why he was selected for the trial?  Oh, maybe that wasn't the reason why.

 

He was also physically sleeping through some of the testimony, and he didn't understand the technology (which is why you couldn't really provide technical facts to argue a point).

 

Did MSFT's legal department tell you to use that argument?

 

--------

 

From the review of the Final Judgments by the US and the states, who admittedly would have a different take than MSFT:

 

To assess the effectiveness of the Final Judgments, the litigation context and the decrees' goals necessarily should be considered. This is especially true in light of the Court of Appeals' decision narrowing the liability findings against Microsoft and overturning the District Court's original remedy.

 

First, Plaintiffs alleged and proved that Microsoft maintained its monopoly position in the Intel-compatible PC operating system market by unlawful exclusionary conduct. The Court of Appeals affirmed that Sherman Act § 2 violation. There was no determination that Microsoft acquired its Windows monopoly by illegal means, however. See United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34, 56 (D.C. Cir. 2001).

 

Second, although the Court of Appeals upheld the Sherman Act § 2 liability finding that Microsoft unlawfully suppressed nascent competition from middleware -- specifically, Netscape's Navigator browser and Sun's Java technologies -- the Court of Appeals did not find that either middleware product necessarily would have developed in a way that eroded Microsoft's Windows monopoly, absent Microsoft's unlawful conduct. As discussed above, the theory of the case was that if middleware were allowed to develop without artificial hindrance, independent software developers could create competing middleware platforms that could be ported to non-Windows operating systems. Developers could then write software that runs on one of the cross-platform middleware products, thereby allowing their applications to run on any operating system supported by the middleware. In turn, OEMs would be more likely to offer not only non-Microsoft middleware products, but also PCs running competing operating systems. Correspondingly, if non-Windows products proved more desirable to users, Microsoft's Windows monopoly could, indeed, be eroded under a regime of marketplace competition. Users then would have improved opportunities to select a client operating system based on the merits of competing systems.

 

The Court of Appeals therefore ruled that Microsoft denied Netscape and Sun this opportunity to compete on the merits, and, in so doing, to assist in breaking down the applications barrier to entry that protects the Windows monopoly.(3) Accordingly, besides assuring cessation of Microsoft's unlawful activity and preventing its recurrence, the over-arching objective of the Final Judgments are to create conditions in the market that afford non-Microsoft middleware opportunities to compete comparable to those that Microsoft denied to Netscape and Sun.(4) The litigation, however, did not afford a basis for extinguishing Microsoft's Windows monopoly position or for reducing it by a particular amount.

 

As the United States explained in its Response to Comments -- in a passage that the Court of Appeals specifically quoted and endorsed in upholding the remedy in Massachusetts v. Microsoft, 373 F.3d 1199, 1243 (D.C. Cir. 2004):

 

   [T]he key to the proper remedy in this case is to end Microsoft's restrictions on potentially threatening middleware, prevent it from hampering similar nascent threats in the future, and restore the competitive conditions created by similar middleware threats. In this context, the fruit of Microsoft's unlawful conduct was Microsoft's elimination of the ability of potentially threatening middleware to undermine the applications barrier to entry without interference from Microsoft. The RPFJ addresses and remedies precisely this issue.

 

Response to Comments ¶ 17 (Feb. 27, 2002).

 

Similarly, the New York Group explained in its memorandum supporting entry of the Final Judgments:

 

   A middleware product is not in itself a competitor to Microsoft's Windows operating system products. Rather, it is the catalyst for a multi-step process that may, by lowering the applications barrier to entry, bring about conditions under which other PC operating system products can compete with Windows on their competitive merits. Microsoft's unlawful conduct therefore consisted of destroying competitive threats while they were still in their infancy. No certain prediction could or can be made whether such threats would in fact mature into actual competition in the PC operating system market.

 

Memorandum of Law of the Settling States in Support of the Proposed Final Judgment, at 6 (Feb. 27, 2002).

 

Thus, as the United States, New York Group, Court of Appeals, and this Court have all emphasized, the goal of the Final Judgments is to protect the nascent threats to Microsoft's monopoly that may come from middleware products against anticompetitive interference by Microsoft.

 

[txlaw]

You can install Windows on a MacBook you know.  The "shitty" app is the only time you need to use Windows.  You don't even need to reboot or anything.   It all runs together at the same time.

 

It just take innovation, which they've now done.

 

Yeah, now you can.  But not back in the day.

 

Plus, you have to pay to install Windows on a MacBook, don't you?

[ERICOPOLY]

You can install Windows on a MacBook you know.  The "shitty" app is the only time you need to use Windows.  You don't even need to reboot or anything.   It all runs together at the same time.

 

It just take innovation, which they've now done.

 

Yeah, now you can.  But not back in the day.

 

Plus, you have to pay to install Windows on a MacBook, don't you?

 

That wasn't Microsoft's fault that Apple didn't think of this sooner -- they were on PowerPC chips forever.    

 

It might cost them $30 or $40 bucks per employee per year for the Windows license.  Cost of the Windows license is not the reason why they don't do this.

 

Can't Apple offer them machines pre-installed with Windows for this very reason?

 

 

 

 

 

[ERICOPOLY]

No way I can answer that one.  

 

It was well before my time, and plus I'm not a developer.

 

So why do you think Java on the client was something so important?  Did you hear that from Sun's legal department, or was it Google's?

 

It was also not the first virtual machine, just Sun's first one.

 

Try from the Jackson decision and Microsoft's own internal papers that came out during discovery, all of which are publicly available documents.

 

Jackson is an individual.  He was overruled by the way for being openly biased.  And it wasn't the first case where bias was suspected, so guess why he was selected for the trial?  Oh, maybe that wasn't the reason why.

 

He was also physically sleeping through some of the testimony, and he didn't understand the technology (which is why you couldn't really provide technical facts to argue a point).

 

Did MSFT's legal department tell you to use that argument?

 

I was working with the IE product team.  It's the technical arguments that were ignored (that I understood) that led me to believe he was ill suited for the case.  

 

Here's something you might remember.  Rob Glaser went to the Senate floor to argue that Internet Explorer's installation package removed RealPlayer as the default media player for specific file types.

 

What Glaser didn't tell them is that RealPlayer failed to register as the default player for those file types.  So in setup, IESetup would check if there were already a default player (looking at a registry key) and there was none listed, so it would claim the registry key for itself.

 

It was clearly documented in MSDN how to register as the default media player for a given file type.  You know, it's part of that "hidden API" that is right here for free for all to find?  http://msdn.microsoft.com

 

These are the kind of accusations that work great on Senators and lawyers, but engineers laugh at the outrageousness of the allegations.  And good luck explaining how the registry works to a technical layman like perhaps a federal judge.

[goldfinger]

Microsoft overreacted with making their own client VM.  It would not have taken off anyhow (Netscape failed with Sun's VM for example).  And still nobody today is shipping significant packaged client software written in Java VM.  Or maybe I'm just not aware of any.

 

Java had decent success in the server area. As long as you can buy hardware power and you only develop functional areas (like ERPs and back-end) java is OK. It is cheap comparatively speaking to developing in C/C++ because most developers find it hard and you have to handle low level issues.

Java + Jboss etc...are bundled for Linux.

When you want to develop packaged software that has high performance or needs low-level OS specific (or so) technologies or both Java totally sucks.

Plus .NET is now the real alternative for server developments.

[Ballinvarosig Investors]

The debate on the Microsoft monopoly is so 1990's. What I find amazing is that no one is talking about the Apple monopoly that exists today.

 

If you ask me, the reason why Steve Jobs is such a sucess, and Steve Ballmer is viewed as a failure is pretty much down to how they've marketed themselves and their companies. Essentially, Jobs is trying to get Apple to do the exact same things as Microsoft did in the 90's (lock down platforms, control standards, etc.). Despite this, anytime Apple release a product, you've got queues of people going around street blocks to buy any new product they release, some of these guys are the same people who lambasted Microsoft for pre-loading IE onto a Windows machine, but yet see nothing wrong with being forced to use Itunes (the most obnoxious bloatware I have ever used) in order to load songs onto their Ipod! Apple technology is essentially derivative (Ipads, Ipods are nothing new!), but they have managed to market their products brilliantly. Watch any significant television series or major Hollywood produced film and you'll see people using ipods or working on macbooks. It sounds like Jobs is trying to develop a Coca-Cola type moat. As a technologist, Jobs leaves me feeling cold, but as a marketer, I think he is right up there with Michael Eisner or Roberto Goizueta.

 

If you ask me, what Microsoft really need is a Steve Jobs-type figure. Unless you want to compete with China in a race to the bottom, Microsoft needs an influential figure to generate good feeling towards the company, not a fat, middle-aged man running around the stage screaming with sweat patches under his arms.

[ERICOPOLY]

When you want to develop packaged software that has high performance or needs low-level OS specific (or so) technologies or both Java totally sucks.

 

Right, client side applications in Java are by definition lowest common denominator applications.  Any rich functionality that a given platform offers cannot be utilized.

 

"Write once, crawl anywhere" is more like it.  Client side apps were perceived too slow due to all that overhead that needed to be initialized -- on the server that initialization overhead is done once when the service is started.

 

 

[txlaw]

No way I can answer that one.  

 

It was well before my time, and plus I'm not a developer.

 

So why do you think Java on the client was something so important?  Did you hear that from Sun's legal department, or was it Google's?

 

It was also not the first virtual machine, just Sun's first one.

 

Try from the Jackson decision and Microsoft's own internal papers that came out during discovery, all of which are publicly available documents.

 

Jackson is an individual.  He was overruled by the way for being openly biased.  And it wasn't the first case where bias was suspected, so guess why he was selected for the trial?  Oh, maybe that wasn't the reason why.

 

He was also physically sleeping through some of the testimony, and he didn't understand the technology (which is why you couldn't really provide technical facts to argue a point).

 

Did MSFT's legal department tell you to use that argument?

 

I was working with the IE product team.  It's the technical arguments that were ignored (that I understood) that led me to believe he was ill suited for the case.  

 

Here's something you might remember.  Rob Glaser went to the Senate floor to argue that Internet Explorer's installation package removed RealPlayer as the default media player for specific file types.

 

What Glaser didn't tell them is that RealPlayer failed to register as the default player for those file types.  So in setup, IESetup would check if there were already a default player (looking at a registry key) and there was none listed, so it would claim the registry key for itself.

 

It was clearly documented in MSDN how to register as the default media player for a given file type.  You know, it's part of that "hidden API" that is right here for free for all to find?  http://msdn.microsoft.com

 

These are the kind of accusations that work great on Senators and lawyers, but engineers laugh at the outrageousness of the allegations.  And good luck explaining how the registry works to a technical layman like perhaps a federal judge.

 

Yes, but the excerpt I pasted above states that the Court of Appeals did not find that "either middleware product necessarily would have developed in a way that eroded Microsoft's Windows monopoly, absent Microsoft's unlawful conduct."  The Court of Appeals agreed with you, I think, in that regard.

 

You're arguing that the technical arguments for Penfield's decision were false or very unlikely, which may be true, but the ultimate ruling, after Jackson was reversed, was still that "Microsoft unlawfully suppressed nascent competition from middleware."   

 

I'm the last person who's going to argue with you that lawyers and Senators wouldn't necessarily be able to understand the technical arguments.  By the same token, engineers don't necessarily understand what sort of actions are or are not illegal under the federal antitrust laws.

 

 

[Guest misterstockwell]

The debate on the Microsoft monopoly is so 1990's. What I find amazing is that no one is talking about the Apple monopoly that exists today.

 

If you ask me, the reason why Steve Jobs is such a sucess, and Steve Ballmer is viewed as a failure is pretty much down to how they've marketed themselves and their companies. Essentially, Jobs is trying to get Apple to do the exact same things as Microsoft did in the 90's (lock down platforms, control standards, etc.). Despite this, anytime Apple release a product, you've got queues of people going around street blocks to buy any new product they release, some of these guys are the same people who lambasted Microsoft for pre-loading IE onto a Windows machine, but yet see nothing wrong with being forced to use Itunes (the most obnoxious bloatware I have ever used) in order to load songs onto their Ipod! Apple technology is essentially derivative (Ipads, Ipods are nothing new!), but they have managed to market their products brilliantly. Watch any significant television series or major Hollywood produced film and you'll see people using ipods or working on macbooks. It sounds like Jobs is trying to develop a Coca-Cola type moat. As a technologist, Jobs leaves me feeling cold, but as a marketer, I think he is right up there with Michael Eisner or Roberto Goizueta.

 

If you ask me, what Microsoft really need is a Steve Jobs-type figure. Unless you want to compete with China in a race to the bottom, Microsoft needs an influential figure to generate good feeling towards the company, not a fat, middle-aged man running around the stage screaming with sweat patches under his arms.

 

I very much agree with all you say. With Jobs circling the drain, Apple will have the same issue as far as a new face for the company soon enough.

[Guest misterstockwell]

 

Google's interest is aligned with consumers, except one might argue on the privacy front, which is what Microsoft does argue.

 

 

I'd argue that too. I uninstalled Chrome after I saw how much it was communicating with the "home planet". Frankly, it didn't impress me anyway. Firefox had issues for me too. IE9 is great.

[ERICOPOLY]

I'm the last person who's going to argue with you that lawyers and Senators wouldn't necessarily be able to understand the technical arguments.  By the same token, engineers don't necessarily understand what sort of actions are or are not illegal under the federal antitrust laws.

 

We sat through a lot of compliance training after the fact.

 

People had this impression that Microsoft did absolutely everything in it's power to push all rivals out of business.  The govt lawyers then presented only the emails they could find to defend that argument.

 

What they didn't present are examples of us working overtime to help third party software companies fix their bugs, for free!  

 

I once debugged a program called Cleansweep in the late 1990s... I didn't have the application source code or symbols, I had to do it in assembly code in the wdeb386.exe debugger (the Windows 95 kernel debugger).  When people installed IE5, they reported it crashed all the time.  Turns out, cleansweep installs windows hooks that get's their hook dlls into the IE process.  I discovered a compiled section of assembly code of theirs where they were taking an address to an allocated block of heap out of a global variable, saving that address on the stack, and then grabbing a synchronization mutex.  Then they'd pop the address off the stack and read/write the values from it.  So in the meantime, some other thread had freed that block of memory -- you see, by saving it locally on the stack before acquiring the mutex, this operation was completely unsynchronized across threads. So the writing was then often corrupting the values of that memory being used lawfully elsewhere on another thread, or perhaps corrupting heap structures within the allocator itself.  So, you'd have random crashes and every user would say that IE5 crashed a lot.

 

So they were very grateful and amazed that I was willing and that I was granted the time from my managers to describe to them exactly what the problem was.

 

We did this kind of thing all the time.  That was never presented by the goverment.  There was no balance.  Of course we looked bad when only the negatives were cherry picked!  Justice?

[txlaw]

Essentially, Jobs is trying to get Apple to do the exact same things as Microsoft did in the 90's (lock down platforms, control standards, etc.). Despite this, anytime Apple release a product, you've got queues of people going around street blocks to buy any new product they release, some of these guys are the same people who lambasted Microsoft for pre-loading IE onto a Windows machine, but yet see nothing wrong with being forced to use Itunes (the most obnoxious bloatware I have ever used) in order to load songs onto their Ipod!

 

Apple is not in the same dominant position that MSFT was in back in the day. 

 

Like I said before, if Apple were to obtain a dominant position in the market, you can bet that they would be facing both PR issues and legal issues.  I doubt that will ever happen because Apple has strong competitors in Microsoft and Google.

 

Apple technology is essentially derivative (Ipads, Ipods are nothing new!), but they have managed to market their products brilliantly.

 

Derivative products?  Really? 

[txlaw]

I'm the last person who's going to argue with you that lawyers and Senators wouldn't necessarily be able to understand the technical arguments.  By the same token, engineers don't necessarily understand what sort of actions are or are not illegal under the federal antitrust laws.

 

We sat through a lot of compliance training after the fact.

 

People had this impression that Microsoft did absolutely everything in it's power to push all rivals out of business.  The govt lawyers then presented only the emails they could find to defend that argument.

 

What they didn't present are examples of us working overtime to help third party software companies fix their bugs, for free!  

 

I once debugged a program called Cleansweep in the late 1990s... I didn't have the application source code or symbols, I had to do it in assembly code in the wdeb386.exe debugger (the Windows 95 kernel debugger).  When people installed IE5, they reported it crashed all the time.  Turns out, cleansweep installs windows hooks that get's their hook dlls into the IE process.  I discovered a compiled section of assembly code of theirs where they were taking an address to an allocated block of heap out of a global variable, saving that address on the stack, and then grabbing a synchronization mutex.  Then they'd pop the address off the stack and read/write the values from it.  So in the meantime, some other thread had freed that block of memory -- you see, by saving it locally on the stack before acquiring the mutex, this operation was completely unsynchronized across threads. So the writing was then often corrupting the values of that memory being used lawfully elsewhere on another thread, or perhaps corrupting heap structures within the allocator itself.  So, you'd have random crashes and every user would say that IE5 crashed a lot.

 

So they were very grateful and amazed that I was willing and that I was granted the time from my managers to describe to them exactly what the problem was.

 

We did this kind of thing all the time.  That was never presented by the goverment.  There was no balance.  Of course we looked bad when only the negatives were cherry picked!  Justice?

 

You know, I can't disagree that the case appears to have been presented in a way that made MSFT look more evil than it actually was.  In litigation, both sides usually paint pictures that are biased towards their prospective sides.  Microsoft wasn't exactly forthcoming with their own arguments about what they were doing. 

 

I am over-exaggerating when I call MSFT evil.  You have to understand that I grew up in the generation that would diss Microsoft all the time for being evil, and the antitrust cases didn't help MSFT from a PR perspective.

 

But just because MSFT did things well and added value to the world doesn't mean that they did not violate the law. 

[txlaw]

I'm the last person who's going to argue with you that lawyers and Senators wouldn't necessarily be able to understand the technical arguments.  By the same token, engineers don't necessarily understand what sort of actions are or are not illegal under the federal antitrust laws.

 

We sat through a lot of compliance training after the fact.

 

People had this impression that Microsoft did absolutely everything in it's power to push all rivals out of business.  The govt lawyers then presented only the emails they could find to defend that argument.

 

What they didn't present are examples of us working overtime to help third party software companies fix their bugs, for free!  

 

I once debugged a program called Cleansweep in the late 1990s... I didn't have the application source code or symbols, I had to do it in assembly code in the wdeb386.exe debugger (the Windows 95 kernel debugger).  When people installed IE5, they reported it crashed all the time.  Turns out, cleansweep installs windows hooks that get's their hook dlls into the IE process.  I discovered a compiled section of assembly code of theirs where they were taking an address to an allocated block of heap out of a global variable, saving that address on the stack, and then grabbing a synchronization mutex.  Then they'd pop the address off the stack and read/write the values from it.  So in the meantime, some other thread had freed that block of memory -- you see, by saving it locally on the stack before acquiring the mutex, this operation was completely unsynchronized across threads. So the writing was then often corrupting the values of that memory being used lawfully elsewhere on another thread, or perhaps corrupting heap structures within the allocator itself.  So, you'd have random crashes and every user would say that IE5 crashed a lot.

 

So they were very grateful and amazed that I was willing and that I was granted the time from my managers to describe to them exactly what the problem was.

 

We did this kind of thing all the time.  That was never presented by the goverment.  There was no balance.  Of course we looked bad when only the negatives were cherry picked!  Justice?

 

You know, I can't disagree that the case appears to have been presented in a way that made MSFT look more evil than it actually was.  In litigation, both sides usually paint pictures that are biased towards their prospective sides.  Microsoft wasn't exactly forthcoming with their own arguments about what they were doing. 

 

I am over-exaggerating when I call MSFT evil.  You have to understand that I grew up in the generation that would diss Microsoft all the time for being evil, and the antitrust cases didn't help MSFT from a PR perspective.

 

But just because MSFT did things well and added value to the world doesn't mean that they did not violate the law. 

 

An analog for today would be the SEC suit against Goldman. 

 

I like to take potshots at Goldman as much as any of us so, calling them the Vampire Squid and such, but I understand that the actual picture is more nuanced.  We don't want courts to go all Zerohedge against Goldman when they're actually deciding whether or not Goldman violated the law. 

 

But sometimes the disingenuous PR responses on both sides will cause an escalation in rhetoric that makes everyone look bad. 

[ERICOPOLY]

But just because MSFT did things well and added value to the world doesn't mean that they did not violate the law.  

 

This is where it gets risky to invest in very large companies.  The shareholders have no control over whether or not some junior level exec is using language like "Knife the baby!".

 

The execs should go to prison or be fined meaningfully for breaking the law.  The owners of the company usually are the ones punished in these cases -- these execs are merely employees, they can be the ones punished.

 

Who would advocate that Berkshire should be broken up because senior executives are trading on insider (to Berkshire) information?  Just punish the exec, set the example, and move on.  Execs will (may) behave better if there is personal liability.

[ERICOPOLY]

You know, I can't disagree that the case appears to have been presented in a way that made MSFT look more evil than it actually was. 

 

It was similar to a "short and distort" campaign.

 

Disgusting though, as this is the government abusing a private enterprise at the encouragement of competitors.