Who's worse, the DOJ or the EC?
As I may have mentioned, I brought up David Lawrence's (host of Online Tonight http://www.online-tonight.com) contention that as a response, Microsoft should seriously consider pulling out of the EU. Obviously that was a pretty radical position and Lawrence didn't 'really' think it was a viable proposition, but it would send a message.
Anyway, a discussion started and Frans Bouma laid out some very well reasoned arguments about why the EC is essentially correct in this issue http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2004/03/25/95846.aspx . He's an articulate guy and quite sharp but being that I don't share his views on markets or government's role in them, we're going to be at a natural disagreement. And to that end, who's 'really' right? It really comes down to a matter of perspective. After all, should you judge such decisions based on the principles they purport to uphold, or on outcomes? Moreover, if you are of the opinion that “- Every company who wants to make money will initially try to go as far as a law enforcing institution will tell them to go. If no law enforcing institution tells them to stop they most of the time won't stop. This is an important difference with the naive thought: "Every company who wants to make money will go as far as a law tells them to go".” then you are naturally going to feel much differently about govt intervention than someone who believes government bureaucrats do more damage to the markets than any collusion of business interests ever could. I mean, politicians will keep taking whatever they aren't physically prevented from taking.
The whole Anti-Trust thing would be a joke if it weren't for real. Take the American Govt for example. There is no bigger violator of Anti-Trust laws than the U.S. Govt, except they don't really violate the laws b/c they exempted themselves. But the EC? Aren't they using the coercive monopoly in that particular market to stick it to Microsoft? If not, then please, someone please show me 5-6 hundred million worth of wrongdoing on Microsoft's part. And who is going to be helped exactly?
Well, the one point I guess no one has brought up yet is this: How is the US Government going to respond now that the EC has infringed on some of its Business Raping Monopoly? I guess when you have the cash MS does, no one cares that you are getting shaken down by everyone and their brother. But people SHOULD Care b/c if they can shake down people with resources like MS and get away with it, they could shake down the company you work for or might start just as easily.
Maybe it's time for Atlas to Shrug?