Jeremy's Blog

142. GNU/Linux is an “open source” operating system that runs on Intel-compatible PCs. Microsoft has targeted the competing operating system by pressuring Intel, as well as various major OEMs such as Dell and Compaq, to boycott Linux. In late 2000, for instance, Microsoft executive Joachim Kempin described his plan of retaliation and coercion to shut down competition from Linux: “I am thinking of hitting the OEM harder than in the past with anti-Linux actions” and will “further try to restrict source code deliveries where possible and be less
gracious when interpreting agreements – again without being obvious about it,” continuing “this will be a delicate dance.”

143. LindowsOS (now known as Linspire), which is developed and marketed by Lindows.eom, Inc., is an Intel-compatible PC operating system based on Linux and which competes directly with Microsoft on the. PC desktop. On information and belief, Microsoft interfered with Lindows.com, Inc.’s ability to distribute its product through the OEM channel. Microsoft also initiated a lawsuit against Lindows.com, Inc. that adversely affected
Lindows.com, Inc.’s ability to exist, obtain; funding and conduct business.

Microsoft’s Anticompetltive Agreements With OEMs To Foreclose Competition

144. Microsoft Chairman and former CEO, Bill Gates, reportedly summarized the effects of the DOJ’s 1995 consent decree–which banned “per processor” licenses, among other exclusionary licensing terms as “nothing.” Microsoft was able to devise other restrictive OEM agreements to foreclose competition in the OEM channel, notwithstanding the consent decree

145. A “per system” license was the practical equivalent of the “per processor” license. Under the “per system” license, the OEM had to pay royalties to Microsoft for every computer of a particular “model” or “system” that it shipped–again, as with the “per processor” contracts, regardless of whether the PC contained Microsoft’s operating system. Microsoft defined “system” and “model” so broadly in its contracts that virtually all of an OEM’s production was subject to Microsoft’s “double tax” if the OEM wanted to give the consumer a choice of operating systems. Microsoft did not agree to give up its “per system” licenses in the 1995 consent decree, even though the Department of Justice warned the federal district court that “per system licenses, if not properly fenced in, could be used by Microsoft to accomplish anticompetitive ends similar to ’per processor’ licenses”–and in fact were.

146. Another way that Microsoft found to circumvent the federal court’s 1995 injunction forbidding its use of “minimum commitment/per processor” licenses was what Microsoft calls its “Market Development Agreements” (“MDAs”). Microsoft contrived the MDA as a device to evade the Court’s decree prohibiting Microsoft from requiring OEMs to adhere to “minimum commitments.” As Steve Ballmer (Microsoft’s current CEO) acknowledged: “We have always given better prices to customers who work with us to make the market. Those used to take the form of commits [i.e., minimum commitments] which we do not do anymore as a result of the [federal court’s] decree but we still believe in rewarding people who help us create demand. Hence the iMDA.” Under the MDAs, Microsoft granted large discriminatory price concessions to those OEMs that would agree to market and promote Microsofl’s Windows to the exclusion of any rival operating system. These discounts were calibrated so as to force the OEM to sell most of its computers with a Microsoft operating system in order to obtain the lowest price.

147. Because the OEM market is so competitive and profit margins are so thin, every OEM had to get the lowest price it could :from Microsoft in order to survive. In March 2002, a Gateway marketing executive (Anthony Fama) testified before Judge Kollar-Kotelly in State of New York et al. v. Microsoft, Case No. 98-1233 (CKK), about how Microsoft used its MDA program in order to force OEMs to market Microsot~’s operating system exclusively: “Given the substantial nature of these discounts, participation in the MDA, as a practical matter, is not optional. In other words, not receiving :these discounts would put Gateway at a substantial competitive disadvantage, and Gateway has communicated that self-evident proposition to Microsoft.” Microsoft also used its MDAs to lock OEMs in and competitors out by offering a discriminatory price to the OEM in a later year provided (a) the OEM reached Microsoft’s imposed goal of Windows sales over competitive sales in the prior year and (b) renewed its exclusionary contract with Microsoft for ,the later year. This placed the OEM on a perpetual treadmill, eliminating competition indefinitely. Microsoft continued these exclusionary terms at least past April 2002.