欧盟与微软：一场苦乐参半的胜利

The EU vs Microsoft欧盟vs微软

A bittersweet win over Microsoft一场苦乐参半的胜利

Sep 17th 2007
From Economist.com

But Microsoft’s dominance remains微软的优势仍存

THE verdicts of Europe’s second-highest court in antitrust cases are not generally reckoned to make for gripping live television. But when the European Union (EU) lined up against Microsoft, the decision of 13 begowned judges of the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg was of interest. The judges’ ruling on Monday September 17th, which amounted to a trouncing for the software giant, even provided some drama. Microsoft’s appeal against an antitrust punishment imposed by the European Commission in 2004 was rejected almost entirely.

欧盟第二最高法庭针对反托拉斯案件作出的裁决通常轮不到引起电视转播的注意力。但是当欧洲联盟站在同一行列共同对抗微软时，13位begowned卢森堡初审法院法官所作出的裁定就变得有趣了。卢森堡法庭九月十七日周一的裁决，实际意味着对这个软件业巨头的一记痛击，甚至还有点戏剧性的味道。欧盟委员会曾于2004年对微软强行征收反托拉斯处罚，微软针对此项处罚进行上诉，但是几乎被完全驳回。

Neelie Kroes, the EU’s competition commissioner, did not betray the delight of Europe’s regulators. She called it a “bittersweet” victory and added that “Microsoft must now comply fully with its legal obligations”. Those obligations refer to demands made by the commission in 2004 after it decided against Microsoft in a case begun nine years ago. Then Sun Microsystems charged that Microsoft was refusing to share information that would allow “interoperability” between its servers and equipment produced by the software giant.

欧盟竞争力委员Neelie Kroes并没有流漏出欧洲管理员的喜悦之情。她称之为“苦乐参半的”胜利，并补充说“微软现在必须充分遵守其法律义务。” 2004年欧盟委员会在一宗九年前开始调查的案例中曾裁定微软败诉，随后微软被要求承担那些义务。Sun微系统公司接着控告微软拒绝共享某些信息，以使它的服务器和这个软件巨头生产的设备之间保持“协通性”。

Along the way another complaint over “bundling” was added to Microsoft’s charge sheet. As with a similar antitrust action brought in America, Microsoft was accused of abusing its market dominance, and thus damaging excluded rivals, by tying its own media software to its Windows operating system. An American judge ordered Microsoft to be broken up, a punishment overturned on appeal in 2001 when a toothless remedy was imposed instead. Microsoft’s model of expanding into new markets by adding products to its dominant operating system endured.

与 此同时，另一项针对“捆绑方式”的起诉也加入到了微软被起诉的案件记录上。同样，一项类似的反托拉斯诉讼也在美国卷入其中，微软被指控滥用其市场支配地 位，通过把自身的媒体软件捆绑到操作系统上的方式，从而损害并排挤竞争对手。美国一个法官曾命令微软公司分拆，但是随后此项处罚被上诉所推翻，最后被以一 项软性征税方案取代。把产品添加到拥有支配地位的操作系统上，再拓展新市场的微软模式被容忍了下来。

In Europe Microsoft fought a hard legal battle while simultaneously mounting a charm offensive (a tricky proposition for Steve Ballmer, the firm’s pugnacious boss). The firm hoped that the EU would also settle rather than pursue its decisions to force Microsoft to disclose or license its server protocols, supply Windows without a media player and impose a fine of €497m ($612m).在欧洲，微软在打一场艰苦的法律战的同时还展开了魅力攻势(对公司好斗的老板Steve Ballmer来讲是个棘手的命题。)。该公司希望欧盟能同样解决其裁决，而不是继续执行裁决，强迫微软披漏或者许可其服务协议、提供未捆绑媒体播放器的视窗以及处以4.97亿欧元的罚款。

Although keen to reach a settlement, Microsoft also argued that it had done nothing wrong. It used Apple’s iTunes software as an example of competition in the media-software market. Microsoft also argued that consumers were indifferent, noting that only a handful of copies of Windows had been sold without a media-player compared with millions including it. And the firm insisted that it should not be forced to give up server data which amounts to valuable intellectual property. The EU, for its part, was keen to pursue the legal case against Microsoft. Mario Monti, a previous competition commissioner, made it clear that he wanted a court to set a precedent and act as a caution to other tech firms in dominant positions.

虽然渴望达成和解，但是微软也辩称，他并没有作错事。它采用苹果公司的iTunes软 件作为媒体市场上竞争的一则实例。微软还争辩说，消费者对此无动于衷，并指出相对于售出的数百万份包含媒体播放器的视窗系统来讲，只有极少数不包含媒体播 放器。另外微软还坚持认为，它不应该被迫放弃实际等同于有价知识产权的服务器数据。从欧盟的方面来看，热衷于推动法律案去对抗微软。前竞争力委员Mario Monti清楚地表明说，他希望法院树立一个先例，以此作为对那些拥有优势地位的高科技公司的一个警告。

At the weekend Microsoft gave warning to rivals which had lined up to support the European case that a newly emboldened Commission could have them in its sights too. The decision will certainly provide fresh impetus for outstanding cases against Intel, Rambus and others. And other big tech firms like Apple and Google may yet feel the Commission’s breath on their necks. There could also be more action against Microsoft.

上周末，微软警告那些列队支持欧盟案例的竞争对手说，一个新的有持无恐的委员会可以随时骑到他们头上。这个裁决将必然为INTEL，rambus和其他一些公司的悬案提供新的推动力。还有其他一些大型高科技公司比如苹果和谷歌估计已经感到委员会的鼻孔已经嗅到了他们的脖子上。和对抗微软相比较，也许那会有更多的行动。

But Microsoft’s greater concern may well be the advance of open-source software and open standards. Linux, an open-source operating system, is widely used in servers and among the technically minded but—for now—constitutes no threat to Windows. Firefox, an open-source browser, is used by at least one in ten instead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Windows and Office, the firm’s word-processing and other applications, are the backbone of Microsoft. But increasingly the rise of online applications will lessen the importance of operating systems and may eventually chip away at Microsoft’s dominance.

不过微软更关注的也许恰恰是开放源代码软件和公开标准的进程。开放源代码操作系统Linux被广泛地应用在服务器和技术服务上，但是现在，对微软构不成威胁。公开源代码浏览器Firefox至少已被微软网络浏览器用户数的十分之一所应用。视窗和该公司的字处理软件office以及其他应用程序是微软的支撑。但是，不断崛起的在线应用程序的增长将减轻操作系统的重要性，并可能最终削弱微软的统治地位。

The Commission’s tough line may at least offer some succour to Microsoft’s rivals. But Ms Kroes’s desire to see Microsoft suffer a “significant drop in [market] share” that Windows enjoys (95% of the world’s one billion or so computers use the system) looks fanciful in the short term. Microsoft’s pride may have been hurt by the court, but its dominance is hardly under immediate threat.
最终，委员会的强硬立场可能会给微软的竞争对手提供一些补偿。但是，由于视窗深受喜爱 (世界上十亿台左右的电脑中有95%使用了此系统)，Kroes’s所希望看到的微软遭受“严重市场份额下滑”的梦想在短期内看起来仍然是幻想。法院可能伤害了微软的自尊，但是，很难对其支配地位立即产生威胁。