Microsoft: No Evidence in States' Claim
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SEATTLE -- States pressing for continued scrutiny of Microsoft Corp.'s business practices failed to support their argument with evidence, the software maker said in a court filing Friday.
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European Court rejects Microsoft's appeal in historic case. Court sides with European Commission on three significant areas.
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Microsoft has settled with the state of Iowa over charges that it had overcharged consumers for its products. Details of the settlement were not disclosed, although a court date has been set for April 20 where more information could be released.
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BRUSSELS Microsoft said Wednesday that it would not demand the withdrawal of evidence that was submitted to the European Court of First Instance last month by two former opponents that have since withdrawn from the antitrust case against the software giant
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Company says software maker has infringed seven patents, does not say which products use the technology.
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IBM attorneys argued that Utah-based SCO Group has failed to provide any evidence that IBM allowed proprietary Unix code to enter the freely distributed Linux operating system and its $5 billion suit making that claim should be dismissed.
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(InfoWorld) - No one used the 'L' word, but both sides in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust battle in Europe accused each other of lying about basic facts surrounding the latest twist in the long-running saga that emerged Thursday. The European Commission sent Microsoft a so-called statement of objections Thursday accusing the software vendor of failing to provide interoperability information on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." This was a requirement laid out in the landmark 2004 antitrust ruling against the company. In its statement the Commission said the software giant proposes overcharging for vital interoperability information needed by software makers to allow their products to work properly with the Windows operating system. It dismissed almost all of the information Microsoft proposed revealing as not innovative and therefore not worth the price the company wants to charge to license it. Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said Microsoft had agreed that the innovativeness of the information should be the main criterion when setting the price, but in a conference call with journalists later Thursday, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith denied his company had agreed innovativeness should be the main criterion. "We told the Commission we believe innovation is one of three main elements. We don't have the same interpretation of what had been established [between Microsoft and the Commission]," he said. Then ECIS, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, accused Microsoft of misleading journalists by citing a study by accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), which, according to the software company, shows that the prices Microsoft wants to charge for licenses to the interoperability information are 30 percent below normal market rates. "It is an outrageous comparison," said Thomas Vinje, ECIS's legal advisor and a partner in the Brussels office of law firm Clifford Chance. "The PWC study compares the prices Microsoft wants to charge with the market price for much more valuable information such as software code, documentation, and full redistribution rights," he said. "What people will get with Microsoft's interoperability information is a lot less valuable. To compare it with the sort of information in the PWC study is like comparing apples with... some withered fruit," he added. The actual prices Microsoft wants to charge for licensing out the interoperability information are too complicated to share with journalists, Microsoft spokesman Tom Brookes said. He warned inquisitive journalists that there is no simple price list. The Commission believes that if all software vendors bought licenses it would amount to around 35 percent of the net profit of the industry. Microsoft's Smith dismissed this, saying: "I don't think you can conclude that." He said that if all vendors bought the licenses the total revenue Microsoft would earn would total around US$30 million -- a tiny fraction of annual software industry profits. "That $30 million figure bears no resemblance to reality, and if Microsoft can't explain how they reached this figure it has absolutely no value," Vinje said. Microsoft has four weeks to respond toÂ the latest statement of objections, after which it faces daily fines of up to â¬3 million (US$3.9 million). In the meantime, the Commission is expected to conclude its assessment of the substance of the interoperability information Microsoft submitted. It doesn't have to be innovative. In fact Microsoft's rivals, including ECIS, argue that much of the information competitors need in order to build their software so that it interoperates with the ubiquitous Windows OS on PCs is quite straightforward. Nevertheless, if it isn't revealed then rivals are stuck, Vinje said. Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told journalists Thursday that Microsoft's continued failure to comply with the antitrust ruling is unprecedented. "In the 50 years of European antitrust policy, it's the first time we've been confronted with a company that has failed to comply with an antitrust decision," he said. "You have to look at their attitude faced with other antitrust authorities in other jurisdictions. This is a company that apparently does not like to have to conform with antitrust decisions," Todd added.
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Microsoft Corp., responding to a plea from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, said Tuesday it had no role in Russia's investigation of a school principal on charges of buying pirated Windows software.
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Comments made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last Thursday to an analyst conference for the most part went unnoticed until stories this morning cited excerpts from a freshly published transcript of that conference. In one such story, an excerpted partial sentence was interpreted as part of a statement that Microsoft may yet exercise its option to sue manufacturers of Linux operating systems other than Novell for infringement of patent.
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They need help Comment Ashlee, I read you piece (NY Times bans Microsoft analysts from Microsoft stories) over the weekend and man did you hit a chord with me. I sweat this stuff, Iâm accused quite often of being a Microsoft shill and, as you point out, there is actually a cottage industry that has cropped up making that accusation to keep me from saying anything negative about OSS (open source software) or Apple. Since Iâve been doing the analyst thing for well over a decade, I think most journalists know I answer questions as honestly as I can and, while I do make mistakes, they are honest ones.â¦
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Microsoft Corp. has filed 20 lawsuits in nine states against resellers accused of distributing unauthorized copies of its software.
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Microsoft is downplaying claims that several new vulnerabilities in Windows XP SP2 were discovered by Finjan Software, but it is looking into the claims anyway.
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Blog: A report reviewing a handful of state bills endorsing open document formats finds that none has survived.
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A group of state attorneys general said on Thursday that the consent decree that settled the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. has failed to reduce the company's monopoly, disagreeing with the assessment of U.S. antitrust officials.
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Pot calls kettle... The US Justice Department has urged state authorities to reject Google's anti-trust claim against Microsoft.â¦
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After months of hearings, Microsoft loses EU court battle and must strip Media Player, share code. Also: Federal judge refuses spammer's guilty plea.... Mobile companies dispute evidence that phone radiation damages DNA.... and more.
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WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court Monday rejected an appeal by Microsoft Corp. and a unit of Best Buy Co. Inc. to dismiss a lawsuit alleging violation of racketeering laws through fraudulently signing up customers for Microsoft's online service.