Remedies may not help Microsoft's competitors
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Microsoft must comply with behavioral remedies imposed by the European Commission, but observers are skeptical of the difference they will make.
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We'll fight them on the breaches... Interview If Microsoft is aiming for a courtroom collision with the world of free software, it may be disappointed.â¦
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Don't count your chickens... A landmark court ruling which last year backed the European Commission's last competition action against Microsoft may not be as helpful in its current action as has been widely thought, according to a competition lawyer.â¦
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Forget about finding the next Microsoft. You'll do better by looking at what others don't want.
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(InfoWorld) - Google's claims thatÂ Microsoft's built-in Vista desktop indexing and search tool violates its antitrust agreementÂ could be difficult to prove even if the software does slow down the performance of Google's competitive Google Desktop offering. As long as a user can run alternative software to Microsoft's Instant Search software, it's unlikely that U.S. federal antitrust officials would consider coming down on the software giant, analysts and users said. Google's claims are far different than the ones posed by Netscape during the browser wars that led to the Department of Justice's antitrust suit in the 1990s, said Rob Helm, research director at Directions on Microsoft. "Microsoft beat Netscape in part by leveraging its relationship with PC manufacturers," he said. "This is a lot subtler." Google seems to be alleging that "if two pieces of software don't play together, then it must be an anticompetitive tactic of Microsoft's," Helm said. "I don't recall any past antitrust cases asserting something so broad," he said. The presence of Microsoft's Vista desktop search could be slowing down Google's product merely as an accident of product design, not because of any malicious intent by Microsoft, Helm said. "Even if Microsoft's software was perfectly written, the way Google interacts with it might be bad, and either company might be at fault," he said. "They could have both done the right things in different ways that might conflict with each other." According to a report in The Wall Street Journal Monday, Google sent a white paper to U.S. federal and state antitrust officials in April to try to convince them that Vista makes it difficult for consumers to use rival desktop search software. In its white paper, Google claims that Vista's search boxes and bars -- available in several places in the OS, including the Start menu and in the Windows Explorer file manager -- work only with Microsoft's search and indexing tool. The company also said it is nearly impossible to turn off Vista's indexing, which means a competitor must add a second indexer that slows down a PC. Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes confirmed the company's charge against Microsoft Monday. Microsoft is disputing Google's charges and said that it has worked closely with federal officials to ensure its Vista OS, released to consumers in January, fosters rather than inhibits competition in the area of desktop search. Users can disable Vista's desktop search service, but the company has not made it simple for them to do so, acknowledged Jack Evans, a Microsoft spokesman. He said this is because the company designed Vista's desktop search specifically "to not affect performance and back off any other programs running" -- including any third-party desktop search software -- in a way that should resolve any claims of anticompetitive behavior, Evans said. Andrew Brust, chief, new technology of consulting firm Twentysix New York, said he used Google's desktop search when it first came out but switched to Microsoft's product when it became available for Windows XP because he preferred it. "Microsoft chose to integrate into Windows, whereas Google decided to be browser-based," he said. "Plus, at least back then, Google installed its own local Web server as part of the product and I really didn't like all that baggage. Microsoft's was just more useful." Brust, who has used Vista in beta form, said integrating desktop search into Vista is "common sense" and suggested that Google's complaints might be sour grapes over Microsoft's own antitrust charges against the search vendor when it unveiled plans toÂ purchase online advertising and marketing powerhouse DoubleClick. Samir Bhavnani, research director for analyst firm Current Analysis West, said that Microsoft's integration of desktop search into Vista was a response to Apple's inclusion of desktop search in their Mac OS, not a move against Google. He said it wouldn't be fair for Google to accuse Microsoft of being anticompetitive without leveling the same charge at Apple. However, Helm contradicted this reasoning and said that Apple was not found in a U.S. court to have a monopoly on PC OSes, while Microsoft was in the DoJ case. "I don't have the impression that Google is worried about Apple," he said.
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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.
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Europe's latest shot across Microsoft's bow shouldn't faze investors.
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Microsoft, which will on Monday learn whether a top European Union court has annulled the landmark 2004 antitrust ruling against the US software developer, is warning technology rivals they should be careful what they wish for.
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Microsoft is on the move again. As it has in the past, the software giant is trying to elbow aside rivals who have pioneered new markets.
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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.
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Setting ground rules for competition is one thing, but seeking to determine outcomes is another. In European antitrust, there is more a doctrine of âreining inâ powerful companies than in the United States.
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Allegations by Google that Microsoft's new operating system unfairly disadvantages competitors has revived antitrust accusations against Microsoft and opened a front in a bitter war between the two technology giants.
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But Danger doesn't help the biggest problems facing the software giant.
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Aircraft giant may argue against European antitrust regulators' order to make Microsoft give secrets to rivals.
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European regulators won a big court victory this week but CNET News.com's Charles Cooper says Microsoft must fend off a bigger challenge.
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This week, Martin Taylor, Microsoft&#39;s general manager for platform strategy, isn&#39;t touting any new Microsoft-funded studies aimed to demonstrate that Microsoft&#39;s total-cost-of-ownership numbers beat those of its Linux competitors.
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After years of expensive litigation aimed at weakening its hold on the software market, Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq - news - research) is on the verge of settling with nearly all of its opponents.