[Proudest Monkey]

Courtesy of startribune.com

The Microsoft antitrust suit in Minnesota was settled out-of-court Monday seven weeks after it began, but before the plaintiffs even finished putting on their case before the jury.

Terms of the settlement won't be disclosed until they are finalized and presented to a Hennepin County judge for preliminary approval "in early summer," Microsoft said in a statement.

Since the trial began March 1, plaintiffs' attorneys have been presenting their case to the jury and Microsoft has been cross-examining their witnesses. Microsoft had been expected to begin its presentation to the jury soon.

The antitrust suit in Hennepin Country District Court sought as much as half a billion dollars from Microsoft for alleged overcharges of more than 1 million Minnesota consumers and businesses who bought Microsoft Windows, Word or Excel software between 1994 and 2001. Microsoft previously paid $1.55 billion to settle similar suits in nine other states and the District of Columbia.

The plaintiffs based their case on the idea that Microsoft's business practices had hurt consumers and businesses by forcing Microsoft competitors out of business. Plaintiffs argued this had reduced the number of choices for software purchases, and enabled Microsoft to overcharge for PC operating systems, word processing software and spreadsheet programs. Attorneys for the plaintiffs used e-mails and internal memos from Microsoft and some of its corporate customers to show that Microsoft allegedly had undercut some software competitors.

Microsoft attorneys said the company had done nothing wrong, and added that some competitors who went out of business wanted to blame Microsoft for their troubles.

eh ...

[Xeo]

The problem with Microsoft is that they can settle anything they want and get away with it.

[olePigeon]

Microsoft is "pleased" with the settlement. That means Minnesota (and inevitably the people that live there) just got seriously f*cked over.

[Proudest Monkey]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Microsoft is "pleased" with the settlement. That means Minnesota (and inevitably the people that live there) just got seriously f*cked over.

yeah but to what degree, how does this effect the average wolves fan that uses office or windows, or will in the future?

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Proudest Monkey:
yeah but to what degree, how does this effect the average wolves fan that uses office or windows, or will in the future?

Easy, Microsoft will continue to overcharge for their products and ignore whatever court ruling there way. They'll get slapped with a fine, pay it, then continue to overcharge.

[Proudest Monkey]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Easy, Microsoft will continue to overcharge for their products and ignore whatever court ruling there way. They'll get slapped with a fine, pay it, then continue to overcharge.

isn't this happening in every state? i know there have been 9 other states and the District of Columbia that have filed suit against microsoft, are the other 41 going to?

i guess the part i don't see is that prices are consistant from state to state ... a national retailer (best buy) sells office xp for 479.99 in each store it has. if these cases were not settled outside of court, would the price differ from state to state?

(pardon my ignorance on the subject, i've never followed it and just becamse curious after finding this as the top story in my local news today)

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Proudest Monkey:
isn't this happening in every state? i know there have been 9 other states and the District of Columbia that have filed suit against microsoft, are the other 41 going to?

i guess the part i don't see is that prices are consistant from state to state ... a national retailer (best buy) sells office xp for 479.99 in each store it has. if these cases were not settled outside of court, would the price differ from state to state?

(pardon my ignorance on the subject, i've never followed it and just becamse curious after finding this as the top story in my local news today)

Bunch of states filed, and won. Judge ordered Microsoft to be broken up. Bush comes into office. Judge overturned, thrown out, new judge in place. Microsoft gets off scott free. All states gave up except one. Now they gave up.