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Even for MSFT, that would show up on the income statement.

It must be a real drag to see slow and steady decay. I wonder if they have that much honesty yet.

the will use this as backdoor to getting on or breaking Apple products. Sly

Haha, interoperability information makes software work well with Windows. Why would anybody pay for that, when the entire Windows experience is shit to begin with?

Oh, one more thing. How can they throw in the towel when they decided to pull them from the employee locker rooms? Idiots...3 Million Euros/day can pay for a lot of towels.

I don't want to even think what that dinner looked like. After 5 min of watching Steve eat I am sure she was willing to give up anything.

I thought they got rid of all of the towels.
I'll bet Ballmer kept a secret stash.

OMG what brutal punishment - the EU antitrust czar Neelie Kroes, had to sit through dinner with Steve Ballmer. She'll never get the rib sauce out of her suit.

What's the deal with MDN's website in that the majority of the time I cannot submit a post? Once in a while it will work though.

yea, government!

Apple's next...

Dear John:
Nobody likes you. Nothing personal.

"I'm gonna be blunt with you....."-
Towelie

How much was the bill (total of fines)?

"Under a deal reached after negotiations over a recent dinner..."

Ballmer: "OK Neelie, final offer: I'll give ya' 11 peas and an XP license for the rest of yer' mashed potatoes. Deal?"

DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS.

If only the U. S. Dept. of Justice had some balls! (See http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/10/22/dojms/index.php)

Oh, wait, MS bought emasculation rights from the Bush administration.

@Shadow: ROTFL. thanks for making my day.

@Grok
Apple isn't next. Though they are the only producer of the Macs they aren't monopolistic the way Micrsoft was that got them in this lawsuit.

MS bundles IE and Media Player with their OS, prevent them from being removed without killing the OS, and made it hard for alternatives to work as well with the OS.

Apple bundles Safari and iTunes with their OS, but you can remove them without a problem, and alternatives can do as much or more than Apple's options.

Apple is safe from the EU on this point.

What was Ballmer eating...crow?

ArchAngelNix...

The un-bundling of Explorer and Media Player from Windows was a lame attempt to punish MS for their predatory practices. MS made Explorer a PART of Windows OS, it was NOT just an additional application.


Not fully sharing code was only ONE way MS hurt competitors. For instance, only MS products were given full access to the Windows OS, so only MS products could link on low level with Windows.

Obviously, someone else could explain it all better than I.
There are numerous sources to explain the kind of tactics MS has used over the years to cripple or destroy competition of any kind.

Buster: "What was Ballmer eating...crow?"

Good one!

But I'm pretty sure it's anything within arm's reach.

That's why Ballmer's dining guests are given Teflon-coated safety mittens before any meal service.

The real question on everyone's mind is, "What did monkeyboy have for dinner?"

Despite that I'm a hardcore Mac cultist, I disagree with this. Its wrong for any government to dictate the way Microsoft or any other company sells its products.

Ford Pinto? Lead paint/pipes? Not sure its government but sometimes the powers that be have to step in to stop punters being killed by the products they buy or use.

"What did monkeyboy have for dinner?"

Neelie Kroes?

ArchAngelNix -
I wasn't suggesting a Media Player parallel, unless you count Quicktime, but what about the iPhone? The iPod? There are already lawsuits here in the US about Apple's so-called monopolistic behavior with both the iPhone and the iPod. And let's not forget that 'ultimatum' from Norway's Ombudsman..

Don't get me wrong - I don't agree. Apple has an imperative to try and control the user experience of their products to make them as attractive to buyers as possible in order to maximize profits - but lawsuits aren't undertaken by altruistic hippies high on love and righteous weed... they are undertaken by lawyers. If there's money in it, they'll go after Apple...

In an attempt to make PC's work better with other vendors programs, Steve Ballmer announced Bootcamp for PC's for Mac OS X.

In related news, Hell froze over.

These are the kinds of things governments are GOOD for. How can you have a fair and open marketplace when there are players making up their own rules and flouting the rules everyone else is playing by?

This won't cripple M$ overnight; it'll be more like termites in your home's foundation. If you listen quietly in the middle of the night, you can hear the munching (decay) going on. Eventually you wake up one day and your house has been condemned because it's about to fall in on you.

This may not get much play in the U.S. press but it's a VERY big deal.

M$ = "Innovation?! Why create it when we can steal it?"

Peace.
Olmecmystic

"This may not get much play in the U.S. press..."

That depends on what Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton are doing that day.

No real Mac user would say he or she was a "cultist."

I smell PAID ASTROTURF SHILL...

I used the term "cultist" as a sarcastic way of implying how much admiration Apple as earned from me. I thought everyone would have figured that out. To improve your relationships with the people of planet Earth I recommend that you read into sarcasm and humor.*




*More sarcasm incase you didn't notice

Spock, just for the record if a company including Apple engages in anti-competitive practices who is going get them to adhere to the law? So there shouldn't be any law. If you want that regime then just take a look at the state of nineteenth century capitalism…the era of the robber barons when companies could do anything they bloody-well wanted including murder.

What we have nowadays in vary degrees is private enterprise where you can run a business subject to laws that encourage competition.

We do NOT have free enterprise where you can run a business without any government involvement and free from legal regulation. What you're advocating doesn't exist in any western country or region, whether it's in the United States, Europe or Australia. In fact the only free enterprise models that exist in the 21st century are run by criminals. Is that what you are advocating?

@Walter Chillum
I forgot to mention that I don't mind governments from doing things like banning lead paint etc...What I'm am advocating is for governments to stay out from changing companies practices if they don't steal from, force to use or hurt the consumer. What europe is doing is punishing MS for including some of their own software is their own OS. Yes I know its hard to remove MS software but it does not block you from downloading and utilizing alternatives such as firefox or vlc. And so what if it did. Developers would either pressure MS and/or move to the Mac or Linux. Let MS learn from its mistakes. Microsoft would probably open it up again due to massive consumer protests. MS doesn't force you to buy and use their products.

And so what if it [Microsoft] did [block you from downloading and utilizing alternatives such as firefox]. Developers would either pressure MS and/or move to the Mac or Linux.

Now I know you are not serious. ...and I thought Vulcans were supposed to be intelligent.


Live long and prosper.

Somewhere else.

Spock,

You miss my point entirely. It was not developers that got Microsoft to play ball, it was the regulators. In fact just look at the Netscape fiasco which triggered off the the regulators getting stuck into Microsoft. They took control of the browsers and it then got to the stage where web sites were Internet Explorer specific, thus locking out non I.E. users. And when we moved onto the next stage of software…music players the Europeans had little choice but to act.

What the regulators are encouraging is competition and Microsoft wanted to control everything. And as I said before if Apple tried to do the same thing to the same extent as Microsoft I'd be calling for that company brought to task.

What I'm advocating is a private enterprise model whereas you are advocating a free enterprise model which, frankly, doesn't exist in any OECD country.