__/ [ Ian Hilliard ] on Friday 14 July 2006 21:19 \__
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>> __/ [ nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ] on Friday 14 July 2006 17:14 \__
>>
>>> Quote:
>>> --------------
>>> There's chutzpah, there's jaw-dropping rank disrespect, and then
>>> there's Microsoft. Now that Europe is out of patience and extracting
>>> real money, we're just getting more excuses. Microsoft says the EU
>>> wasn't clear about what it wanted at first, but that now the company
>>> knows it has 300 people working around the clock to deliver it, so we
>>> should just leave 'em alone, right?
>>>
>>> None of this rings true. The basis for the antitrust case is that
>>> Microsoft is withholding necessary information from people who want to
>>> write software that interoperates with its servers. There's nothing
>>> obscure there. No room for ambiguity.
>>> ------------
>>> End quote
>>>
>>> http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,39278588,00.htm
>>
>> I quite liked the following quote:
>>
>> "So what is Microsoft hiding? Trade secrets be damned: the only thing it
>> needs to hide from the world is why it makes such a mess of things such as
>> WinFS. And is a sense of shame enough to explain why the company would
>> rather pay huge fines than just publish the interface and move on?"
>
> The answer is simple. It is worth more to keep the monopoly than the cost
> of the fines. As such, it is important that the EU regularly increases the
> fines until it gets to the point where the fines are greater than the
> advantage in making interoperability difficult.
True. That's why I recently suggested increasing the fine exponentially until
submission, until bankruptcy, or until Microsoft retracts all business from
the EU. The fines are still gentle play if one considers the revenue made
from Microsoft's servers niche, which has developed into a large sector
(more latterly HPC).
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: ~70% of organisms are bacteria
http://Schestowitz.com | Open Prospects ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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