Pericles,

I'm pleased to see that my encouragement moved you from a position of ignorant bluster to trying to actually research the question.

Well done!

Your comprehension skills could do with improvement though.

I didn't say that Microsoft admitted that its practices were unethical. It certainly admitted to practices that courts considered unethical.

In two minutes, with a slightly more sophisticate Google search than you used (microsoft ethics "path dependency" antitrust), I came up in the first page with a paper, "The FTC and the Law of Monopolization" from the prestigious Antitrust Law Journal. It seriously questions the US Federal Trade Commission's interpretation of the law:

QUOTE
Although Microsoft has attracted much more attention, recent developments at the FTC may have a greater impact on the law of monopolization. From recent pronouncements, the agency appears to believe that in monopolization cases government proof of anticompetitive effect is unnecessary. In one case, the Commission staff argued that defendants should not even be permitted to argue that its conduct lacks an anticompetitive impact. This article argues that the FTC's position is wrong on the law, on policy, and on the facts.
END QUOTE from http://law.gmu.edu/faculty/papers/docs/00-34.pdf

Also on the first Google page was an indirect link to a paper that appeared in the George Mason Law Review journal, "Don't Disintegrate Microsoft (Yet)".

There isn't space to quote from it at length, but the final sentence of the abstract says, "Absent further findings that validate the government's story, Microsoft should remain intact", http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=288115

As indeed it has.

There was extensive debate on Microsoft's case among both lawyers and economists. The fact, Pericles, that you couldn't find links to pages supporting Microsoft proves nothing about Microsoft.

It simply shows that you still have plenty to learn about using Google and that you don't understand much economics.

Ridiculing my Google technique, MikeM, smacks a little of argumentative desperation, and your latest offering reeks of it.

>>I didn't say that Microsoft admitted that its practices were unethical.<<

Nobody accused you of this. Why do you bring it up?

>>It certainly admitted to practices that courts considered unethical.<<

Microsoft does not “admit to practices”. It gets found out, and when cross-examined in court, cannot deny them.

>>This article argues that the FTC's position is wrong on the law, on policy, and on the facts.<<

And what, pray, was your point in introducing this red herring? I have not used the FTC as a witness or an example, so a rebuttal of their position is utterly irrelevant.

Do you know what a Wookiee is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_Defense

>>"Absent further findings that validate the government's story, Microsoft should remain intact"<<

Oh look, another Wookiee. Nowhere have I made the suggestion that Microsoft should be broken up, merely that they built their market share on a fundamental lack of ethics. Breaking them up would, in fact, simply spread the contagion.

>>The fact, Pericles, that you couldn't find links to pages supporting Microsoft proves nothing about Microsoft.<<

I was doing a crude – but quite effective – search on items that contained both the word “Microsoft” and the word “ethics”. While this is an admittedly inexact process, it was interesting that none of those pieces put the two search arguments together in a positive light.

Of course you can find items that say it is a wonderful, highly ethical company, if you search deeply enough. I can find plenty of sites where they still think that Stalin was deeply misunderstood, too.

And to get right back on topic, there isn't a policy you could write, or course you could take them through, that would make a blind bit of difference. It's bred in the bone.

And just out of interest, why does my criticism of Microsoft make you so cross? It's only capitalism in action, that's all. And I am completely sneer-resistant, by the way.

Thank you "sneer-resistant" Pericles. You have confirmed my intuition. I sensed that you would not take offence where it wasn't intended, and would take what I wrote in the spirit that I wrote it.

Hence, although I hold no particular brief for Microsoft, I have been happy to spend the time helpfully explaining to you where you have gone wrong.

I am sorry to say though that you are accepting my advice as fast as you should. You unfairly criticise me for, quote, "Ridiculing my Google technique".

In fact, I was encouraging you when I wrote, "you have plenty to learn about using Google". Where there is room for improvement, there is room for hope.

To conduct a feeble search that gets "about 18,800,000 hits" and conclude that because the first (how many? 10? 30? 100?) don't demolish your case that you have a convincing argument leaves, well, room for improvement.

Honestly, wouldn't you agree?

I mean, I conducted a Google search on Pericles and Microsoft and, out of the first 50 in a mere 114,000 I found no pages that indicated that you know anything about the ethics of Microsoft.

But, to me, that is unconvincing evidence. Nor should it convince you.

Yes, I know you avoided mentioning FTC. The reason is obvious. FTC, which is normally responsible for prosecuting antitrust law, set the parameters of the case. When they found that it was ineffective, strangely, it was picked up in a vendetta by the US Justice Department, similar to the vendetta that Control Data Corp encouraged the Justice Department to kick off 40 years ago against IBM.

If we start to question FTC interpretation of monopoly law, we question the whole foundation of Penfield Jackson's findings. That is what many have done. I provided links to two such papers.

In a contradictory observation, Pericles, you state that the Microsoft case is "only capitalism in action".

Excuse me?

Where in capitalist economics does it say that government instrumentalities should hound publicly owned corporations that have never stolen a cent from anyone, simply because they are successful?

MikeM, You continue to flounder around, clutching at straws, in an area of which you clearly have not the slightest understanding.

>>Where in capitalist economics does it say that government instrumentalities should hound publicly owned corporations that have never stolen a cent from anyone, simply because they are successful?<<

If this is your assessment of the anti-trust actions against Microsoft, then there is no point in continuing the discussion, as you have obviously supped deeply of the Redmond KoolAid, and there is no hope of anything remotely coherent from you.

However, I rather suspect that this is simply the result of a few minutes trawling around the web in search of contradictory views - of which, thanks to the power of the Microsoft dollar in the media and in government circles, you will find many.

Your "views" on the mechanics of search engines should have alerted me to the fact that you are in alien territory here. Glib statements about "hounding... simply because they are successful" only confirm this.

I have no idea of what your "specialist subject" might be, but it most certainly is not the software industry. If it were, you would know of the dozens of individual cases that have been brought by small companies who have been laid waste, not by fair competition from Microsoft, but by unethical dealing.

Here is just one, which I use because it is one of which I have direct personal knowledge.

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-523518.html?legacy=zdnn

Note some of the phrases:

"A federal judge found that Microsoft Corp. engaged in wanton, reckless and deceptive business practices"

"Microsoft's deceptive practices were deliberate and had been approved at the highest levels of the company in order to protect its market power, the judge found."

"Judge Hall also found that senior Microsoft executives hadn't testified truthfully."

And there are many, many others.

Getting back to the article....

I believe that ethics are as basic and essential as the 3 R's.

From the day we toddle into pre-school we are interacting with others. Negotiating, compromising or bullying depending on our nature and the standard of nuture we receive.

Ethics is more about how we would like to be treated and how we should treat others in return. There are many stories (fables) that can provide a framework for children to understand how our actions affect others.

After all, religion likes to get started on the young early, so it makes sense that philosophy, ethics and reasoning should start early also.

It won't eliminate psychopathic behaviour of individuals and organisations completely. But, somehow, I believe that if you don't give a flying *@#k about others' welfare by the time you reach UNI then its a bit like closing the door after the horse has bolted.

Ah, Pericles, so...

You are a propellor-head who was singed by the Great Satan. That explains equally your vehemence and your cursory understanding of commercial law.

I note that in the Bristol case Judge Hall overturned a previous judgement that found Microsoft had committed a minor offence - worth a fine of $1. Judge Hall's finding was potentially subject to further appeal. Instead the two parties reached an undisclosed commercial settlement in February 2001.

Bristol Technology is no longer in its original business. Presumably the settlement failed to achieve Bristol's objective - to obtain access to source code for later versions of Windows than Microsoft had contracted to provide.

BusinessWeek, reporting on the case in November 1999, observed:

QUOTE
Undermining Bristol's legal argument is the fact that its main competitor, Mainsoft Corp. in San Jose, Calif., was able to successfully renegotiate its earlier code-licensing agreement with Microsoft in 1998. Mainsoft officials say they achieved better ends because they kept talking to Microsoft instead of suing.
END QUOTE at http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/date/9911/f991111.htm

Small, trigger-happy companies that think the way to wealth is to litigate can create enormous trouble. They often get no more than they deserve. The highest profile recent case is SCO, which claims that the Unix world owes it a living, http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html

Pericles, my helpful advice to you is that you should stick to your day job.