Talk:European Union Microsoft competition case

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    [edit] Antitrust?

    ... A case that occurred in the EU, but it is still being referred to as an antitrust case? We call it competition law, not antitrust law, so lets work a bit on this. This article is also lacking in references to judgments. Edit: I may accept the antitrust, but come on, the only link to a judgment makes it clear that was in fact the Commissions decision. I hope someone who actually followed this debacle has a clue as to what went on, because it'll take me a while to research this one. Sephui 14:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

    I think the use of the term "antitrust" is used so that it would be easily understandable to an American audience. On the EU site itself, "competition" is described as "antitrust" http://www.eurunion.org/policyareas/antitrust.htm, albeit on the delegation to the U.S.'s site. Utxhalfer 19:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)utxhalfer

    Only as a pointer to Americans - the term 'antitrust' itself is an anacronism 138.37.250.195 (talk) 10:01, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

    The article's name should be changed. The term "antitrust" has no meaning with respect to competition law outside of the United States. Indeed, the Wikipedia article antitrust redirects to competition law. I will move the page to "European Union Microsoft competition case" with a redirect. - Jord (talk) 14:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Ruling

    "for alleged antitrust abuse." -- as there is a ruling by the Commission it is not "alleged" abuse anymore.

    [edit] To be done

    An authority and a plaintiff are not on the same level. An antitrust authority is a kind of court or "market police". Some players complain, so an investigation is started and a ruling made. The party can appeal at a court. Microsoft and the EU are not on the same level.Arebenti 01:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC) e.g. "EU announced that it believed Microsoft did not comply fully with the ruling," - no! The EU competition authority rules: x does not comply yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arebenti (talk • contribs) 01:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] No mention of FSFE?

    Free Software Foundation Europe have been working on this since the beginning (2001?) and are admitted as third-parties (supporting the Samba project). There's currently no mention of them or free software or Samba in the article. I'll try to add something when I get time but some help'd be great. --Gronky 11:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

    I did some clean-up, more is required. IMO there should be a section about what penalties have been applied, split into three subsections on fines, interop specs, and de-bundling. --Gronky 14:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
    European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) website is worth reading, and will make a good ext link -so I will add it in a minute.--Aspro 18:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] No mention of realnetworks and others competitors?

    according to groklaw RealNetworks was one of the first complainers... that lead to the production of the N version of windows

    [edit] Software patents

    It was claimed that EPO granting software patents was "illegitimate" followed by examples of why it may or may not be legitimate. Without sources this was an opinion - not a fact and I removed it. 63.241.31.130 (talk) 21:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

    there is also that:

    (11) Throughout the procedure, a significant number of companies, comprising major
Microsoft competitors, as well as industrial associations, have been admitted as
interested third parties. These are inter alia the Association for Competitive
Technology (“ACT”), Time Warner Inc. (“Time Warner”, previously AOL Time
Warner), the Computer & Communications Industry Association (“the CCIA”), the
Computing Technology Industry Association (“CompTIA”), the Free Software
Foundation Europe (“FSF Europe”), Lotus Corporation (“Lotus”), Novell Inc.
(“Novell”), RealNetworks, Inc. (“RealNetworks”), and the Software & Information
Industry Association (“the SIIA”). Microsoft has been asked to comment on certain
submissions by these interested third parties and by the complainant Sun, and in
particular on the comments that these third parties and the complainant made on
Microsoft’s reply to the second Statement of Objections and on certain submissions
that they made following the supplementary Statement of Objections.

    from http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/antitrust/cases/decisions/37792/en.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by GNUtoo (talk • contribs)

    This is Wikipedia, go ahead and expand the article :-) Han-Kwang (t) 12:36, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Timeline

    Maybe a timeline of the whole process should be added? Like here: http://www.eubusiness.com/news_live/1189648026.39/ Azrael Nightwalker (talk) 11:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] A confusing, unclear, disorganized jumble of an article

    This article is one of the most confusing, unclear, and disorganized jumbles of information on a topic I have seen on Wikipedia. First of all, I linked to it from the main page news item. I have casually followed Microsoft's aggressively monopolistic way of doing business and often mediocre and unoriginal products since Windows 95 debuted. But I am not in the computer, IT, software, or internet industries, and know only a very little more than the average person about either relevant technical subjects or the applicable law. So I was interested in the announcement that something important had just happened regarding MS's notorious bundling and licensing practices. This article jumps around in time, back and forth through several years of issues and events, and it is very hard to follow what has happened, in what sequence, and what relation these events have to one another. It is particularly difficult to follow what the various fines are each for, and earlier or secondary illegal or non-compliant behavior by MS are glossed over, making the article further a hodgepodge of fuzzy references. The author(s) use many abbreviations [who's reference and meaning are unclear] to refer to organizations, software, events, and concepts. They should initially be spelled out, or at least asterisked. They aren't. There are probably at least another 6 or 8 other similar failures to define and explain things here reported to have happened, results of such, and events or actions likely to occur in the near future. The article is overwrought as well with jargon and specialized or technical diction/usage that I didn't have time to look up (and I shouldn't have to, I think).

    Lastly and most importantly, the tone, point of view, and target audience are thoroughly inappropriate for Wikipedia. It's written by someone in the IT, software, or allied industries for others like him/her, and supposes all sorts of special prior knowledge most Wikipedia users don't have. I strongly urge someone who does know the issues and events involved in this case to rewrite this from the bottom up in a style and language that will be clear and accesible to the sophisticated general reader without particular prior familiarity with the case history. There are a lot of very real economic issues, issues of privacy, corporate citizenship and obligation, freedom of expression and inquiry, and others at stake here, but you'd never know it from reading this article. Alas, Wikipedia is loaded down with many thousands of articles on all sorts of subjects that fail in just the way that this one fails. I can't do the job in this case; it requires someone who already knows and understands the material to make it available and accesible to the rest of us who actually in this case NEED the information.Googlyelmo (talk) 12:18, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


    [edit] Microsoft revenues versus Microsoft fines

    If would be interesting to know the revenues that Microsoft got from the European market in the time period of the lawsuit European Commission v. Microsoft Corp. Did they outweigh the fines? I guess this was the case. This would be an interesting information. --Furfur March-7-2008 9:45 CEST —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.123.91.248 (talk) 08:49, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] This article is very confusing.

    It's bordering on a circular definition. To those with limited technological and technology laws it is practially meaningless. It also lacks links to articles that might help better explain it. I would help, but I don't know the first thing about this, hence my problem. Oh, and whilst I'm here, how does releasing a version of windows with no WMP solve anything? Who did WMP hurt? 82.69.80.47 (talk) 23:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

    Anyone else who makes media playing software, and, by extension, potentially consumers.. The EU said that when you were supplying an operating system, you couldn't bundle your own media player with it. That's not part of the operating system. You're establishing dominance in one field by your dominance in another. The EU considers that unfair competition and an abuse of a monopoly position in the market. The EU said they'd have to either supply their operating system without their media player, or provide a range of media players with it. 86.44.6.14 (talk) 13:05, 5 March 2008 (UTC)