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Subject: Microsoft offers $1bn peace deal to consumers Author: FAT POCKETS OF GOLD DUST [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 22:18:21 07/21/03 Mon Microsoft offers $1bn peace deal to consumers David Teather in New York Tuesday July 22, 2003 The Guardian Microsoft will hand out money-off vouchers to consumers and business customers in California as part of a $1.1bn (£730m) settlement of anti-trust ADVERTISEMENT allegations approved yesterday by a San Francisco judge. The settlement draws a line under the largest outstanding class action suit against Microsoft, alleging that it abused its dominant market position. According to the settlement approved by Judge Paul Alvarado, about 13m customers in the state will be notified that they may qualify for vouchers ranging between $5 and $29 per licence to buy computer hardware or software from any manufacturer. Consumers eligible for vouchers must have purchased Microsoft desktop software between February 1995 and December 2001. At the same time, the company announced deals with Time Warner Cable and Comcast to run trial programmes in the US of its software for digital cable set top boxes. Microsoft has eyed the set top box market enviously for years and at least one half of the deal appeared to have come from the detente recently reached with old enemy AOL Time Warner. Lawyers in California will advertise the settlement, and send out emails and set up a website where software buyers can file claims. If everyone eligible takes up the offer on the vouchers, the total cost to Microsoft will be $1.1bn. Two-thirds of any unclaimed settlement vouchers will be donated to state schools. Microsoft did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement. The class action suit, which combined 27 individual writs in California, was filed in 1999 as the justice department pursued its own broader anti-trust case against the company. The class action suit alleged that Microsoft had breached competition rules and overcharged by as much as $40 for every copy of its desktop operating software. Legal experts said the company had got off lightly. Glenn Manishin, an anti-trust attorney with the firm Kelley, Drye & Warren in New York, told Reuters: "Whatever Microsoft ends up paying, it's a small penalty compared with the fruits of its anti-trust violations. The company has $49bn of cash. Even if the maximum amount is paid out, it's small enough that it's lost in a rounding error. It's not enough to change Microsoft's behaviour in any way." [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]