考研英语阅读材料汇编之经济类(1)-毙考题
合集下载
相关主题
- 1、下载文档前请自行甄别文档内容的完整性，平台不提供额外的编辑、内容补充、找答案等附加服务。
- 2、"仅部分预览"的文档,不可在线预览部分如存在完整性等问题,可反馈申请退款(可完整预览的文档不适用该条件!)。
- 3、如文档侵犯您的权益，请联系客服反馈,我们会尽快为您处理(人工客服工作时间：9:00-18:30)。
Microsoft ended up in the dock in both Europe and America because it tried to protect and extend its Windows monopoly in two ways. One was by bundling other types of software along with Windows, notably its web browser, a move that triggered the antitrust action in America. Its other approach, which lay at the heart of the European case, was to withhold information from rivals that would have allowed their software to interoperate well with Windows over a network.
Yet it is unlikely that that Neelie Kroes, the European Union (EU) competition commissioner, will now be leading a prison march of the word s most successful firms through her Brussels doors , as one lobbyist put it. The judgment s consequences are far- reaching, but in a different way. If it is not overturned--as ,Tbe Economist went to press, Microsoft had not said whether it would make a final appeal--the firm will, in effect, lose much of its sovereignty over the virtual territory staked out by its Windows operating system.
You asked for it,now live with it. That was, in essence, the message spread by Microsoft s lobbyists after the European Court of First Instance upheld a landmark antitrust ruling against the woຫໍສະໝຸດ Baiduld s largest software firm on September 17th, dealing it the most stinging defeat in nearly a decade of antitrust litigation. Emboldened by this decision, Europe s anti-monopoly squad will now go after other technology firms with high market shares, the lobbyists warn, forcing them to give up valuable intellectual propetty and curbing the incentive to innovate.
Yet, whatever the lobbyists say, European regulators are unlikely to go after every technology firm with a big market share. There are not many similarly dominant computer platforms. what is more, most of the potential investigations that may follow are different in kind from the action against Microsoft. In the case of Qualcomm, for instance, competitors have complained that it is charging excessive royalties fox its patents on mobile-phone technologies. In the case of Apple, commission officials have already said that they are wary of proposals to force the firm to open iTunes, its online music store, to music-players other than its iPod; a separate investigation into iTunes concerns variations in pricing between European countries, rather than technological lock-in. Even the continuing investigation of Intel is not directly comparable to the Microsoft case. The world s biggest chipmaker, the commission charges, has used abusive tactics such as offering rebates to prevent computer- makers from using chips made by its rival, AMD.
The European court has now upheld these remedies. Even more importantly, it largely endorsed the commission s legal reasoning. It argued, for instance, that withholding information that is needed for PCs and servers to work together constitutes an abuse of a dominant position if it keeps others from developing rival software for which there is potential consumer demand. In such cases, the information cannot be refused even if it is protected by intellectual-property-rights, as Microsoft had argued.
With its ruling, the court has set a precedent that means Windows is no longer simply private property with which Microsoft can do as it pleases. And this will certainly apply to any other firm that manages to build a similarly crucial and long-lasting digital monopoly. Even today, with software increasingly delivered as a service over the internet, Windows is protected by something known as the application barrier to entry , meaning that so many programs run on it that rivals have a hard time getting users and software developers to switch.
With a new Republican president in power, America s competition authorities decided in 2002 not to pursue the case championed by the Clinton White House and instead negotiated a settlement with Microsoft. This consent decree , large parts of which will expire in November, amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist. It failed to administer any penalty and let Microsoft add new software elements to Windows so long as PC-makers were allowed to add rival products too. The provision regarding interoperability was also limited: the requirement to provide the necessary communication protocols applied only to the version of Windows that runs on individual PCs, and not the one running on the servers that dish up data on corporate networks.
考研英语阅读材料汇编之经济类(1)
阅读是考研英语的重要题型之一，也是保障英语成绩的关键题目。因此，考研学子们要充分重视英语阅读，除了平时多多阅读英语杂志、报纸外，还需要针对阅读进行专项训练。小编整理了关于考研英语阅读题源的系列文章考研英语阅读材料汇编之经济类(1)，请参考!
A Matter of Sovereignty
The European Commission s initial ruling against Microsoft in 2004 can be seen as an attempt toaddress these shortcomings. The commission ordered Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without its media-player software, the bone of contention in Europe when it comes to bundling. It ruled that the firm had to provide information on how to interoperate with Windows servers. The commission also imposed a fine of $497m ($6l3m)，which has since grown to $777m ($990m) because it determined that Microsoft was not fully complying with its decision.
Yet it is unlikely that that Neelie Kroes, the European Union (EU) competition commissioner, will now be leading a prison march of the word s most successful firms through her Brussels doors , as one lobbyist put it. The judgment s consequences are far- reaching, but in a different way. If it is not overturned--as ,Tbe Economist went to press, Microsoft had not said whether it would make a final appeal--the firm will, in effect, lose much of its sovereignty over the virtual territory staked out by its Windows operating system.
You asked for it,now live with it. That was, in essence, the message spread by Microsoft s lobbyists after the European Court of First Instance upheld a landmark antitrust ruling against the woຫໍສະໝຸດ Baiduld s largest software firm on September 17th, dealing it the most stinging defeat in nearly a decade of antitrust litigation. Emboldened by this decision, Europe s anti-monopoly squad will now go after other technology firms with high market shares, the lobbyists warn, forcing them to give up valuable intellectual propetty and curbing the incentive to innovate.
Yet, whatever the lobbyists say, European regulators are unlikely to go after every technology firm with a big market share. There are not many similarly dominant computer platforms. what is more, most of the potential investigations that may follow are different in kind from the action against Microsoft. In the case of Qualcomm, for instance, competitors have complained that it is charging excessive royalties fox its patents on mobile-phone technologies. In the case of Apple, commission officials have already said that they are wary of proposals to force the firm to open iTunes, its online music store, to music-players other than its iPod; a separate investigation into iTunes concerns variations in pricing between European countries, rather than technological lock-in. Even the continuing investigation of Intel is not directly comparable to the Microsoft case. The world s biggest chipmaker, the commission charges, has used abusive tactics such as offering rebates to prevent computer- makers from using chips made by its rival, AMD.
The European court has now upheld these remedies. Even more importantly, it largely endorsed the commission s legal reasoning. It argued, for instance, that withholding information that is needed for PCs and servers to work together constitutes an abuse of a dominant position if it keeps others from developing rival software for which there is potential consumer demand. In such cases, the information cannot be refused even if it is protected by intellectual-property-rights, as Microsoft had argued.
With its ruling, the court has set a precedent that means Windows is no longer simply private property with which Microsoft can do as it pleases. And this will certainly apply to any other firm that manages to build a similarly crucial and long-lasting digital monopoly. Even today, with software increasingly delivered as a service over the internet, Windows is protected by something known as the application barrier to entry , meaning that so many programs run on it that rivals have a hard time getting users and software developers to switch.
With a new Republican president in power, America s competition authorities decided in 2002 not to pursue the case championed by the Clinton White House and instead negotiated a settlement with Microsoft. This consent decree , large parts of which will expire in November, amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist. It failed to administer any penalty and let Microsoft add new software elements to Windows so long as PC-makers were allowed to add rival products too. The provision regarding interoperability was also limited: the requirement to provide the necessary communication protocols applied only to the version of Windows that runs on individual PCs, and not the one running on the servers that dish up data on corporate networks.
考研英语阅读材料汇编之经济类(1)
阅读是考研英语的重要题型之一，也是保障英语成绩的关键题目。因此，考研学子们要充分重视英语阅读，除了平时多多阅读英语杂志、报纸外，还需要针对阅读进行专项训练。小编整理了关于考研英语阅读题源的系列文章考研英语阅读材料汇编之经济类(1)，请参考!
A Matter of Sovereignty
The European Commission s initial ruling against Microsoft in 2004 can be seen as an attempt toaddress these shortcomings. The commission ordered Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without its media-player software, the bone of contention in Europe when it comes to bundling. It ruled that the firm had to provide information on how to interoperate with Windows servers. The commission also imposed a fine of $497m ($6l3m)，which has since grown to $777m ($990m) because it determined that Microsoft was not fully complying with its decision.