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Decision today on Microsoft appeal

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Published Date: 17 September 2007
A EUROPEAN Union court will decide today whether Microsoft abused its near-monopoly position on the world's one billion computers and servers to push smaller competitors out of the marketplace.
The European Commission ruled in 2004 that Microsoft used its Windows operating system, running on 95 per cent of the world's computers and servers, to choke off competition from rival makers of server software and streaming media software.

Microsoft challenged that decision, asking a special 13-judge Grand Chamber of the Court of First Instance to throw out the commission's finding. It said the commission was interfering its right to design software as it saw fit. The court will focus on five aspects of the commission's 2004 decision.



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  • Last Updated: 16 September 2007 8:21 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Microsoft
 
1

Ivo Cerckel,

Siquijor, Philippines 17/09/2007 03:13:57

A Lex-column “Centre Court”, published on Thursday in Financial Times said that if the EU Commission wins, it will pursue cases with renewed vigour.
However, if the Commission loses, it will be a body blow. Microsoft is the biggest case the regulator has taken on in terms of time and resources. Failure would surely dent its appetite to be so aggressive in the future.

Here’s why the Commission’s Competition Law policy should be abandoned according to Alan Greenspan in his essay "Antitrust":
“ [it] is reminiscent of Alice's Wonderland: everything seemingly is, yet apparently isn't, simultaneously. It is a world in which competition is lauded as the basic axiom and guiding principle, yet 'too much' competition is condemned as 'cutthroat.' It is a world in which actions designed to limit competition are branded as criminal when taken by businessmen, YET PRAISED AS 'ENLIGHTENED' WHEN INITIATED BY THE GOVERNMENT. It is a world in which the law is so vague that businessmen have no way of knowing whether specific actions will be declared illegal until they hear the judge's verdict -- after the fact.”
(Based on a paper given at the Antitrust Seminar of the National Association of Business Economists, Cleveland, September 25, 1961. Published by Nathaniel Branden Institute, New York, 1962., reprinted in: Ayn Rand, (ed.) , “Capitalism – the Unknown Ideal”, Signet Books, 1967)

Today’s Financial Times writes that Microsoft is warning technology rivals they should be careful what they wish for. Microsoft suggests that other software and technology companies such as IBM, Google and Apple could be next in line should the European Commission decision be upheld. It argues that the legal reasoning applied by the Brussels watchdog may well be turned against some of the very companies that have supported the Commission's case and trigger a broader crackdown on the industry.
(Microsoft says rivals may rue siding with EU)

For more, see t


 

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