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February 16, 2007

legal

Microsoft’s settlement in Iowa is vaguely…unsettling

Posted Feb. 16, ’07, 9:56 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Legal

iowa.jpgIowa: site of the first presidential caucus, a truly prodigious amount of corn, and one of the last remaining antitrust class action lawsuits in the US against Microsoft. Or at least it was until the other day when said case was settled out of court. Microsoft had been sued in Iowa by consumers alleging that prices for Microsoft products were unreasonably inflated. Though the terms of the settlement won’t be disclosed until April or so, the suit had originally demanded $329 million in damages.

The terms of the settlement also stipulate that half of any unclaimed proceeds would go to Iowa’s Department of Education to be used for buying computer hardware and software for schools. Okay, look: I’m not a lawyer—I’m sorry if you were laboring under the misapprehension—but how come the result of a lawsuit that alleges monopolistic practices says that money gets to go back to that monopoly? I mean, what are the real odds that the hardware and software they buy for those schools will not somehow use Microsoft products? I’ll tell you: eleventy billion to one.*

We here at MacUser are sad to see the court case come to an end, but mostly because with it goes pretty much any hope of ever seeing any more great Jim Allchin emails brought to light. There is, however, one last remaining antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in the US, in Mississippi, so our fingers remain crossed.

*Also not a mathematician.


1 Comments

Nick said:

Yep, exactly what many people think. Making the big bad MS pay so that the state goes out and gets more software from the monopoly who was sued for being a monopoly whose software have a stranglehold on the industry that will eventually need to be upgraded so that, said monopoly makes more money in the end.

Whose looking out for who here??? Ultimately, it has to make you laugh.

February 16, 2007 2:11 PM

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