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States to Industry on Competitor-Approved Plan: "Tough Luck"
Microsoft continued presenting its case this week against the nine states that rejected the settlement reached last year by Microsoft, the Department of Justice and a bi-partisan group of states' attorneys general.
This week's witnesses delivered more evidence that the non-settling states' plan is not only competitor-driven but competitor-approved, and, not surprisingly, will help those competitors, not consumers or the software industry.
Tom Greene, California assistant AG, conceded in his deposition that it would be "tough luck" for software companies (ISVs) if the radical remedies proposed by the non-settling states were to result in the removal of pieces of Windows code. And, in perhaps the most eye-popping moment of the trial, Greene revealed that Microsoft's competitors, including AOL and Oracle, were directly involved in finalizing the states' plan.
http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s=701&a=26253,00.asp
MIT professor of information technology Stuart Madnick underscored the conflict of interest in the competitors' role, pointing out that the degradation of Windows' performance that would result from the states' plan would be of most help to "...the same companies that are its most vocal advocates, Microsoft's competitors." http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=search&StoryID=907438
Scrutiny of the close ties between Microsoft's competitors and the non-settling states reached beyond the courtroom as well, with the appearance of former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr (a lobbyist for Microsoft's competitors) in Utah to raise money for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. Utah is one of the nine holdout states still suing Microsoft.
http://www.ucjournal.com/ucjournal/pagespeed/url/News/story/507577
Late in the week, the states tried to compare Microsoft's media player to its IE browser, claiming that Microsoft illegally tied its media player to Windows to hurt competitor RealNetworks. However, they failed to disclose a statement from RealNetworks executive Steve Banfield, who refuted that notion last year: "There are no parallels with the browser," Banfield said when Microsoft announced that Windows Media Player would come with Windows XP. "Microsoft has been shipping various versions of their media player in various flavors of their operating systems for years." (ZDNetNews, "Computing," by Joe Wilcox, April 24, 2001).
Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) Will Help the Technology Industry
Antitrust is only one of several policy issues affecting the technology industry. Open trade around the world does, as well, along with other U.S. industries. Unfortunately, America is losing ground because President Bush is limited in how he negotiates trade agreements with other nations. Formerly called "Fast-Track," Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) was a mainstay of American international politics for more than 20 years.
The House approved TPA late last year, and now the Senate is debating this critical trade issue.
The FIN will update members on the status of TPA as the Senate nears a vote. For more information on how TPA affects the technology industry, see:
http://www.comptia.org/aboutus/pr/pr020425.htm
Stay informed about technology and public policy by visiting the FIN website. When you visit, you can learn more and contact your public officials to share your opinions.
www.microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate
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