2017考研英语阅读题源文章解析：A Matter of Sovereignty
考研英语阅读题源来源广泛，取自《经济学人》、《纽约时报》、《新闻周刊》、《卫报》、《Nature》、《华盛顿邮报》、《The Scientist》等等【了解更多题源】，因此考生可以多关注一下此类文章。下面新东方在线分享一些考过的题源文章，并附上详细解析，本阶段复习，大家可以看看。From The Economist
Sept.6,2007
A Matter of Sovereignty
"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 world'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 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.
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.
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.
The European Commission's initial ruling against Microsoft in 2004 can be
seen as an attempt to address 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.
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.
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.
For the time being, the commission can apply the precedents set by the
Microsoft ruling in only one case: Google, the world's leading web-search and
online-advertising firm. Just as America's Federal Trade Commission is now
doing, the EU's competition authorities will look closely at Google's planned
takeover of Double Click, another leader in online advertising. And if Google
becomes a central storage vault for data such as users' location and identity,
as some fear, European regulators may one day try to compel the firm to give
rivals open access to this information-rather as they have now forced Microsoft
to release its communication protocols.
Microsoft itself is not out of legal trouble, even if it chooses not to
appeal. The commission has yet to determine whether the information the firm has
supplied will really ensure interoperability. Still open, too, is the issue of
how much Microsoft can charge firms that want to license its protocols. Then
there is the question of whether Microsoft should be forced to license, the
information to makers of open-source software. The firm argues that this would
be tantamount to giving away the shop, but the commission thinks it would
promote competition by advancing open-source rivals to Microsoft's products. And
further investigations may yet follow into Office, Microsoft's dominant suite of
business software, and Vista, the latest version of Windows.
No wonder Microsoft is stoking fears that the commission plans to go on an
antitrust rampage. It has prompted a political backlash that may discourage the
EU from staying on the case. In America the talk is of a "new form of
protectionism". After the European court's decision Thomas Barnett, the head of
the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, warned that it "may have
the unfortunate consequence of harming consumers by chilling innovation and
discouraging competition".
With this judgment Europe and America have clearly moved further apart in
antitrust matters. But whether, as some fear, these differences turn into a
full-blown transatlantic conflict remains to be seen. After all, the
administration in Washington will probably have changed several more times
before the Microsoft case finally draws to a close.
词汇注解
重点单词
essence /'esns/
【文中释义】n.本质，精髓
【大纲全义】n.本质，实质;精髓，精华
stinging /'stiŋiŋ/
【文中释义】adj.激烈的
【大纲全义】adj.有刺毛的;刺痛的;尖锐的;激烈的
intellectual /,inti'lektjuəl/
【文中释义】adj智力的，知性的，聪明的
【大纲全义】n.知识分子 adj.智力的，理智的
有理解力的
curb /'kə:b/
【文中释义】v.抑制
【大纲全义】v.抑制, 约束
commissioner / kə'miʃənə/
【文中释义】n.委员，理事，行政长官
【大纲全义】n.专员，委员;驻一国的高级代表;长官
overturn/,əuvətə: n/
【文中释义】v.推翻，颠倒
【大纲全义】n.倾覆，破灭，革命 v.打翻，推翻
颠倒
sovereignty /'sɔvrinti/
【文中释义】n.主权，独立国
【大纲全义】n.主权; 君权，统治权; 主权国家
champion/'tʃæmPjən/
【文中释义】v.保卫，拥护
【大纲全义】n.冠军，得胜者; 拥护者，斗士
consent /kən'sent/
【文中释义】n.同意，许可
【大纲全义】v./n.(to)同意，赞成，答应
decree /di'kri:/
【文中释义】n.法令，判决
【大纲全义】n.法令，命令, 政令; 教令 v. 颁布命令
dish /dish/
【文中释义】v上莱
【大纲全义】n.碟子，盘子，菜肴 v.上莱
超纲词汇
lobbyist n.活动议案通过者，说客 interoperability n.互操作性，互用性
antitrust adj.反托拉斯的 litigation n.诉讼，起诉
embolden v.给……壮胆，鼓励 uphold v.支持
bundle v.捆 squad n.班，小队，小集团
interoperate v.互操作
重点段落译文
“所求故同在。”基本上，这是微软公司的游说人员在欧洲法院9月17日对其做出初审判决后对外宜传的信息。这次的裁定，也是近十年来最重要的一桩反托拉斯胜诉案，对微软公司这个世界上最大的软件公司具有里程碑意义。游说人员警告说，这个案子的胜诉将鼓舞欧洲的反垄断组织对其他具有较高市场份额的技术公司下手，迫使这些公司放弃其知识产权，因此而抑制他们鼓励创新的激情。
但正如一位游说者所说，欧盟竟争委员会委员克罗斯( Neelie
Kroes)还不可能容许世界上最成功的公司进人布鲁塞尔之门。但在另一方面，审判结果是具有深远影响的。如果这个议案不被推翻的话——正如之前《经济学家》所作的评论那样，微软并没有宣布他们究竟是否会做最后的上诉——结果，那么微软公司无疑会丧失大量由其Windows操作系统所支撑占有的市场份额。
最终，欧洲和美国都将微软公司推上了被告席，这是因为该公司企图通过两种方式来保护和扩大其Windows系统的垄断地位。一方面微软公司将自身的其他软件，也就是著名网络浏览器(web
Browser)和“视窗”操作系统的“捆绑”行为，在美国引发了一场反托拉斯行动。另一方面，在欧洲，核心问题在于微软公司拒绝向服务器行业的竟争对手提供相关技术信息，导致后者开发的软件无法与微软“视窗”操作系统充分兼容。
如今在共和党总统执政的背景下，美国的反垄断当局2002年决定终止此案，而采取与微软公司协商的方式来解决问题，且此案当年得到了克林顿政府的支持。这个所谓的“令人满意的解决方案”十月份将到期。它充其量只能算是一个轻微的处罚，并允许微软公司向Windows系统中添加新的程序，前提是个人电脑制造商也可以添加竞争性产品。此外，涉及兼容性问题的条款也是有限度的:提供必要的“信息交流草案”，也只不过是针对与个人电脑用户版本的Windows系统，而公司网上用于处理保存资料的Windows版本将不提供这一服务。
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