Microsoft vs. the E.U.

Europe’s Court of First Instance ruled against Microsoft in an anti-trust case today, and the result is not only a terrible decision, but an ominous precedent for the development of new technologies and business practices.  The court upheld a $689 million antitrust fine against the software maker.  According to the Washington Post:

The European Court of First Instance said that the European Commission was correct in 2004 when it concluded that Microsoft had “abused” its market dominance by refusing some technical information from competitors and by bundling the Windows Media Player with its Internet Explorer. In both cases, the court found, Microsoft used its position as the largest supplier of computer operating systems to hinder competition for competing media players and other applications.

Microsoft’s omnipresence makes it an easy target. Most every office worker with a computer in the country–and indeed, huge numbers of office workers world wide–uses its products on a daily basis, and everyone loves to complain about work.

But that’s no reason to send regulators out to punish Microsoft.  Basically, the company was fined for refusing to share its proprietary software information with its competitors.   Microsoft was too successful, so its competitors complaining to the authorities, asking them to force the company to open its software secrets. Needless to say, Microsoft refused.

European regulators, in a bit of devilish doublespeak, persist in calling this "anti-competitive behavior," but it’s nothing of the sort.  If a company can’t protect its property, its ideas, its innovation, there won’t be much incentive to develop them in the first place.  Why spend all that time and money on developing successful practices and products if E.U.’s regulatory shock troops are just going to walk in a demand that you give them up?

This bit from the New York Times story is particularly irksome:

Carlo Piana, a lawyer representing the Free Software Foundation Europe, hailed the court’s decision as a victory for small software developers around the world who may have lived in fear of Microsoft or other large platform operators. “This is an incredibly huge victory. The doors are kept open now for competition,” Mr. Piana said.

Well of course Piana thinks so: He and his allies haven’t been able to come up with a way to beat Microsoft, to create better, more desirable, more efficient products–you know, all that stuff that normally counts as "competition"–so he’s probably thrilled that MS is being hogtied by government regulators. Now these get to coast on another company’s innovation while the industry’s growth is stunted.  Who loses? Consumers. Businesses. Everyone.  Nice going, E.U.