Lenovo Ordered To Refund 'Microsoft Tax' 475
angry tapir writes with an excerpt from an article over at TechWorld: "A French laptop buyer has won a refund from Lenovo after a four-year legal battle over the cost of a Windows license he didn't want. The judgment could open the way for PC buyers elsewhere in Europe to obtain refunds for bundled software they don't want, according to French campaign group No More Racketware."
I wonder .. (Score:4, Insightful)
How would that judge feel about exclusive contracts for mobile phone hardware.
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:2, Insightful)
and I don't see why Lenovo could refund him 1€ or something like that, with a cheap bulk price from MS and kick backs from crapware that could be the actual price add-on from the Windows install
Re:I wonder .. (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no Microsoft Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anyone honestly think that retailers would charge you $50 less (or whatever the cost of the Windows License is, probably closer to $15) if Windows wasn't installed? Just look at Dell when they offered Linux boxes. The cost of the machine was often times more than the equivalent Windows machine.
Lesson learned here is offer an option for an unsubsidized blank hard drive that costs more than the Windows version. Problem solved, no "Microsoft Tax"
Re:There is no Microsoft Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
*Again, I don't know what the actual cost of a license is for Dell, Lenovo, etc. but it has to be peanuts for them to sell $200 machines on razor margins.
Re:I wonder .. (Score:5, Insightful)
or smart phones with [choose any operating system] on them
But this is exactly like that. The PC can run any number of operating systems. The customer is being forced to purchase software with the hardware when he already has other options for an operating system. The EU has fairly strict rules about what you can and can't do in trade and a good part of them are actually about protecting the consumer.
If your any-operating-system-phone was real, then in the EU you couldn't force a customer to buy the phone with an operating system on it and charge them the extra for it. It is these strict consumer laws in the EU that made Microsoft offer Windows 7 N in the EU as well as the whole "Browser Picker" thingy.
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:5, Insightful)
If a company wishes to not sell specific configurations of their products no one should force them.
Sorry, some corporations if left to their own devices are incapable of doing what is right, ethical and lawful.
Re:I wonder .. (Score:4, Insightful)
But this is exactly like that. The PC can run any number of operating systems.
Don't worry: 'Secure Boot' solves that problem.
Re:USA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I never buy desktop's pre-made speicifically because I don't want to be forced to pay for a windows license I don't want, and am not going to use. Sadly, however, I don't get that luxury when it comes to a laptop. When I buy a laptop I am forced to pay for a windows license, even though the very first thing I do with the laptop is install linux on it. It makes me sad to know that no matter how much I dislike Windows (and Microsoft), my hard earned money still ends up in their pockets everytime I by a laptop. Add to that what they've done to makers of android phones, it becomes very difficult to use technology without forking over money to Microsoft.
Really the only way to get on the internet or carry a smart phone without giving money to Microsoft is to use all Apple products, and frankly that is not high on my list of things to do either.
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That doesn't work (Score:2, Insightful)
The way you worded that last sentence is itself an indication that there is still a major problem. Freudian slip much?
Re:I wonder .. (Score:3, Insightful)
A variation of your car analogy: I buy a car, but I decide that I don't like the tires that come with the car. Can I get a refund of the cost of those tires if I choose to use different ones?
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has to do with their stated primary purpose: Increase shareholders' equity. Anything else is secondary. Hence you can't really expect a corporation to be "ethical". If for a corporation being "right, ethical and lawful" are the best options to increase shareholders' equity, then it will be forced to behave.
However if it can get away with, say, throwing toxic waste directly in a river regardless of the danger to population and irreversible destruction to the environment, it will readily do it, because it serves the primary purpose. Where there are strong public institutions to force them to behave, their best bet is to subvert these public institutions.
Examples are countless, but one I found particularly telling, in CBC's documentary "Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands," [www.cbc.ca] in which at one point a representative of a native nations who are suffering the oil sands exploitation addresses directly Statoil shareholders in Norway. They could not have been less bothered.
Re:I wonder .. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, however you would at least be allowed to sell the tires on the used market.
Re:Dell Next? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gimme your address and I'll send you the nothing you pay for a FreeDOS license.
Re:There is no Microsoft Tax (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you buy a Mac without OSX?
Well, you'd have to be really stupid. Why pay more for a Mac and not use the very thing that makes a Mac worth buying?
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is illegal to conspire with someone else to assist him in a crime. And amuse of monopoly is a crime.
This means, yes, Lenovo can be forced to sell computers without Windows if Windows bundling is a part of monopoly abuse.
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. You don't expect to buy a car and return the steering wheel do you?
No, I expect to buy a car and not find that every model from every brand comes with a dead body painstakingly sewn to the back seat as a mandatory option.
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:4, Insightful)
People can find more vulnerabilities when they have access to the source. News at 11.
And treating the fact that the CAs were running Linux as evidence that Linux was the problem is ridiculous. Most vulnerabilities are on flaws of the userspace code. In fact, your second link shows it very well - Javascript injections are hardly an OS exploit. Good FUD there.
I do wonder why you host your email on a Linux based provider, though.
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:2, Insightful)
Be thankful that Microsoft existed.
I am more thankful for Black Plague and Inquisition than I am thankful for Microsoft.
The created the entire PC industry.
Actually Apple did that. Then IBM. Microsoft merely acted as a parasite on IBM.
Without them you would be out of a job.
Without them shitting up every computer-related industry, I would have a much better job.
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is that like a lot of things in life you save money for the bundle and if you don't like it don't fucking buy it!
Impossible. There is no consumer choice. Windows is still on >85% of all PCs sold (the rest of which are Macs with their obnoxious requisite markup) and I'll be damned if less than 95% of those came without a single piece of crapware.
Consumers shouldn't have to be forced to support Microsoft if they want a computer - and in fact, most people need a computer. And many of them have specific hardware requirements which those smaller Linux vendors can't always provide. So what are they supposed to do?? Why should they be forced to support those monopolist shitbags just to make a living?
The French court did the right thing here and I wish the EU would drop the sanity hammer and force OEMs to offer all computers with an option for no operating system at a full OEM license discount for said OS. What reason is there not to? Can MS not compete on the technical merit of the software they write? Otherwise MS can just gouge away and continue to rely on sucking more money from OEMs/bundlers, basically getting by with nothing but all those shady backroom deals that they make...
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:5, Insightful)
as to do with their stated primary purpose: Increase shareholders' equity. Anything else is secondary.
Corporations are required to follow their charter [wikipedia.org]. Where do you kids get this stuff?
Re:This is a bit bollocks... (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't buy a TV from Samsung and return the remote control for a partial refund. Its also ridiculous and Samsung should not be forced to accept it.
The answer is simple. The remote control doesnt come with a separate user license agreement... does it?
Its not like Samsung is saying: it is illegal to take this remote control and use it to operate on a different Samsung TV. And its not like Samsung is saying: it is illegal for u to sell the Samsung remote control on ebay separate from the TV. But this is wat windows EULA makes you do. The windows license is highly restrictive and no consumer would ever except the terms of the software agreement to apply to the hardware portion of the purchase. In fact, I think it would be illegal to sell hardware in a similarly restrictive way that they sell the software. The solution to bundling windows with a PC is to rewrite the EULA to be more agreeable such that you actually "own" the operating system.... as u own the PC. Or another option is to sell the computer as a leased product that u never really own. But to bring the two licenses into agreement would probably never happen. So as it is and will be: these are two separate products and they are not at all like a TV purchased with an included remote control.
The computer is owned. The windows OS is leased. This is not a single bundled product. Furthermore, the computer is a generic product, so it should be a consumer option to purchase it "stand alone"... ie: no software installed.
Microsoft is in the clear here. Because they do offer the option of purchasing the operating system alone. It is the vendor who is bundling the two separate products and conditioning the sale of one on the purchase of the other. They state they will allow u to just purchase the PC alone if you want by offering a refund. They state this because it is required to do this to avoid antitrust violations. The problem is that they are not following through when the consumer requests the refund that they offered.
Maybe Samsung doesnt offer a refund for the remote control. But dont u think it would be a crime if they stated in the documentation that they would offer you a refund for the remote control if you asked for it? And then when u go to get the refund, because u have a universal remote already... they decline to follow what they wrote. And wouldnt it be even more infuriating if they wrote this into a legal contract that they expect u to sign and to be bound to and yet they dont even feel bound to the portions of the contract that they state they will follow?
Remember, this is a legal contract they are offering. If they dont want to do something in the contract then they should never write within it that they will do that very thing. No matter whether u love microsoft or not... it should bother u that these vendors are clearly abusing the consumer... even if the abused is a small set of the total consumer market.