Remedies may not help Microsoft's competitors
496319
PARIS - IT industry watchers and legal observers were skeptical Wednesday of the significance of a ruling by a European court that MicrosoftÂ must comply with antitrust remedies imposed by the European Commission. Analysts doubted the power of the remedies to achieve their stated goal of boosting competition in two key software markets: workgroup servers and media players.
561076
Microsoft must comply with behavioral remedies imposed by the European Commission, but observers are skeptical of the difference they will make.
47502
A top Microsoft executive defended desktop application software, the source of the company&#39;s revenue for three decades, arguing on Tuesday that even services-based companies such as Google still need it.The comments by Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft&#39;s business applications division, come as Microsoft is trying to position itself as a company capable of delivering applications over the Internet as well as on PCs, its traditional distribution model.&quot;It&#39;s interesting some our competitors who like to espouse the idea that software is dead,&quot; said Raikes said. &quot;I think they&#39;re worried that actually people like a lot of what they have at their fingertips and the real success is to use a combination.&quot;Microsoft has come under increasing pressure from companies such as Salesforce.com, which specializes in Web-based CRM (customer relationship management) applications and Google, whose&#160;Docs suite is an online alternative to Microsoft&#39;s Office suite. Web-based applications tend to be cheaper, easier to update and require little installation since applications are delivered through a Web browser.Raikes claimed during a keynote to about 3,300 customers and partners at its Convergence conference that only Microsoft can deliver &quot;the best of the traditional software model in combination with software as a service.&quot;Later, Raikes said Google realized its Web-based applications need further enhancement on the desktop by introducing Google Gears, a set of open-source tools to build applications that can run offline and then sync when a computer comes back online.&quot;It&#39;s fascinating to me to see that even some of those companies now are trying to backtrack on what we&#39;ve been saying and to offer things like Gears in order to be able to be offline and or take advantage of global computing power,&quot; Raikes said.Microsoft is using the desktop products such as Outlook e-mail and Internet Explorer as the user interface for hosted versions of its business applications. The big push at the Convergence conference is for the forthcomingrelease of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0, previously known by its code-name Titan. It will come in both on-premise and hosted versions.Microsoft, which started its business applications division in 2001, now has 475,000 users of its CRM products in 11,000 customer companies, Raikes said. In its fourth quarter, Microsoft added 85,000 new users, he said.&#160;
31092
Just because Microsoft has said it will comply immediately with a European Court judge&#39;s order to follow specified antitrust remedies doesn&#39;t mean life will be a bowl of cherries for Microsoft&#39;s partners, developers and even its competitors.
729119
LUXEMBOURG - The judge deciding whether Microsoft Corp. must comply with the European Commission's remedies for the company's antitrust violations questioned Friday whether the steps ordered by the Commission will effectively curb Microsoft's power.
174500
Despite Microsoft&#39;s many woes, the honchos got a bump this year. Considering the company&#39;s outlook, their next may be a ways off.
197113
MS will crush competitors when restrictions expire Microsoft will crush competitors when antitrust measures expire in the US in November in a marketplace that has not been made more competitive by the US Government's actions, according to a group of state attorneys general.â¦
126894
Microsoft is undercutting its competitors in order to make headway in security market, CEO says.
377131
Almost everything that can be said has been said about the latest moves by Microsoft to create Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) about Linux. Countless pundits and analysts have pointed out that Microsoft threats are toothless. Some have noted that Microsoft has singled out Linux and OpenOffice, the biggest threats to its monopoly on operating systems and office suites. Surely Microsoft could claim that the *BSDs infringe on similar patents if not the same ones. But the *BSDs do not pose as great a threat to the company. Others have pointed out that Microsoft would be insane to pull an SCO and sue its own customers. Still others have noted that IBM and/or OIN could respond to a patent war with a massive retaliation in patent infringement claims. I have no doubt that Microsoft has lifted a lot of GPL code (more likely algorithms) for Windows, which would prevent Microsoft from following through with its threats. To do so would require that Microsoft open its own code to scrutiny. The list goes on, and others have covered the angles very well. There is one perspective I haven't yet seen, at least not the way I propose to deal with it. This perspective follows below.
390096
There are more signs that, at least in theory, the dominance of Microsoft&#39;s (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows operating system may be slightly less potent than, say, a year ago this time.
438221
Many experts say Linux and open-source software is your biggest threat. But is your real competitor a desire for an alternative to Microsoft, rather than any particular product?
201928
Microsoft has been accused of stifling competition by tying its Internet Explorer browser to Windows.
663043
Microsoft is, for once, trying to play nicely.  This is why it's failing.
730739
Despite numerous out-of-court settlements with various state governments around the country, it appears Microsoft&#39;s legal woes aren&#39;t over yet.
561916
Opinion: In its initial rejection of Microsoft&#39;s claims regarding the FAT file system, the US Patent and Trademark Office seems to be rediscovering a law barring &quot;obvious&quot; patents.
342046
Microsoft has lost a patent battle in South Korea concerning input mode technology in its Office software. The decision could force the Redmond company to halt sales of the popular productivity suite in that country, but it is fighting back.
585671
Despite numerous out-of-court settlements with various state governments around the country, it appears Microsoft's legal woes aren't over yet.