3 ms·

Back in 1994 the United States filed a civil antitrust complaint against Microsoft for their practice of entering long term contracts with PC manufacturers in w

by quitit 2y ago

Back in 1994 the United States filed a civil antitrust complaint against Microsoft for their practice of entering long term contracts with PC manufacturers in which the PC manufacturer would pay Microsoft a fee to license their OS based on the number of systems they sold, regardless of whether or not that system actually came with Windows. This of course made it more expensive to engage Microsoft's competitors such as IBM's OS/2. PC manufacturers that didn't enter into these deals would have significantly higher licensing costs which put them at a disadvantage to other PC manufacturers, this of course rapidly distorted the market and stunted the spread of alternatives. Microsoft's cloud tactics of today are so similar that I'm actually surprised that they'd try something like this again.

immibis 2y ago
The business tactic may not be different, but the regulatory environment is - we haven't really forced corporations to follow competition law in two decades.
- quitit 2y ago
  While I consider Microsoft's punishment was rather soft - they did however make a huge effort the publicly act like they were changing, including embracing open source instead of trying to kill it. That's why I find it surprising, they'd made a significant effort to at least appear compliant to the antitrust rulings.
  - Gee101 2y ago
    I think they only started embracing open source when they could directly benefit from it with people running it on Azure.
hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
Do you think this was profitable for Microsoft, even after the antitrust fines?
- quitit 2y ago
  The punishments against Microsoft were at the time criticised as being too soft. They have received far stronger penalties from much smaller actions since then. However it was a watershed moment, I believe the verdict was a strong catalyst for education and industry to stop sleep walking with Microsoft, resulting in OSS alternatives taking hold. (Rather than just OSS having Microsoft's boot off its neck.)

by quitit 2y ago

immibis 2y ago

The business tactic may not be different, but the regulatory environment is - we haven't really forced corporations to follow competition law in two decades.

quitit 2y ago
While I consider Microsoft's punishment was rather soft - they did however make a huge effort the publicly act like they were changing, including embracing open source instead of trying to kill it. That's why I find it surprising, they'd made a significant effort to at least appear compliant to the antitrust rulings.
- Gee101 2y ago
  I think they only started embracing open source when they could directly benefit from it with people running it on Azure.

hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago

Do you think this was profitable for Microsoft, even after the antitrust fines?

quitit 2y ago
The punishments against Microsoft were at the time criticised as being too soft. They have received far stronger penalties from much smaller actions since then. However it was a watershed moment, I believe the verdict was a strong catalyst for education and industry to stop sleep walking with Microsoft, resulting in OSS alternatives taking hold. (Rather than just OSS having Microsoft's boot off its neck.)