考研英語閱讀材料匯編之經(jīng)濟(jì)類(1)

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閱讀是考研英語的重要題型之一，也是保障英語成績(jī)的關(guān)鍵題目。因此，考研學(xué)子們要充分重視英語閱讀，除了平時(shí)多多閱讀英語雜志、報(bào)紙外，還需要針對(duì)閱讀進(jìn)行專項(xiàng)訓(xùn)練。小編整理了關(guān)于考研英語閱讀題源的系列文章——考研英語閱讀材料匯編之經(jīng)濟(jì)類(1)，請(qǐng)參考!

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.

詞匯注解

重點(diǎn)單詞

essence /'esns/

【文中釋義】n.本質(zhì)，精髓

【大綱全義】n.本質(zhì)，實(shí)質(zhì);精髓，精華

stinging /'sti?i?/

【文中釋義】adj.激烈的

【大綱全義】adj.有刺毛的;刺痛的;尖銳的;激烈的

intellectual /,inti'lektju?l/

【文中釋義】adj智力的，知性的，聰明的

【大綱全義】n.知識(shí)分子 adj.智力的，理智的

有理解力的

curb /'k?:b/

【文中釋義】v.抑制

【大綱全義】v.抑制, 約束

commissioner / k?'mi??n?/

【文中釋義】n.委員，理事，行政長官

【大綱全義】n.專員，委員;駐一國的高級(jí)代表;長官

overturn/,?uv?t?: n/

【文中釋義】v.推翻，顛倒

【大綱全義】n.傾覆，破滅，革命 v.打翻，推翻

顛倒

sovereignty /'s?vrinti/

【文中釋義】n.主權(quán)，獨(dú)立國

【大綱全義】n.主權(quán); 君權(quán)，統(tǒng)治權(quán); 主權(quán)國家

champion/'t?æmPj?n/

【文中釋義】v.保衛(wèi)，擁護(hù)

【大綱全義】n.冠軍，得勝者; 擁護(hù)者，斗士

consent /k?n'sent/

【文中釋義】n.同意，許可

【大綱全義】v./n.(to)同意，贊成，答應(yīng)

decree /di'kri:/

【文中釋義】n.法令，判決

【大綱全義】n.法令，命令, 政令; 教令 v. 頒布命令

dish /dish/

【文中釋義】v上萊

【大綱全義】n.碟子，盤子，菜肴 v.上萊

超綱詞匯

lobbyist n.活動(dòng)議案通過者，說客 interoperability n.互操作性，互用性

antitrust adj.反托拉斯的 litigation n.訴訟，起訴

embolden v.給……壯膽，鼓勵(lì) uphold v.支持

bundle v.捆 squad n.班，小隊(duì)，小集團(tuán)

interoperate v.互操作

重點(diǎn)段落譯文

“所求故同在。”基本上，這是微軟公司的游說人員在歐洲法院9月17日對(duì)其做出初審判決后對(duì)外宜傳的信息。這次的裁定，也是近十年來最重要的一樁反托拉斯勝訴案，對(duì)微軟公司這個(gè)世界上最大的軟件公司具有里程碑意義。游說人員警告說，這個(gè)案子的勝訴將鼓舞歐洲的反壟斷組織對(duì)其他具有較高市場(chǎng)份額的技術(shù)公司下手，迫使這些公司放棄其知識(shí)產(chǎn)權(quán)，因此而抑制他們鼓勵(lì)創(chuàng)新的激情。

但正如一位游說者所說，歐盟竟?fàn)幬瘑T會(huì)委員克羅斯( Neelie Kroes)還不可能容許世界上最成功的公司進(jìn)人布魯塞爾之門。但在另一方面，審判結(jié)果是具有深遠(yuǎn)影響的。如果這個(gè)議案不被推翻的話——正如之前《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家》所作的評(píng)論那樣，微軟并沒有宣布他們究竟是否會(huì)做最后的上訴——結(jié)果，那么微軟公司無疑會(huì)喪失大量由其Windows操作系統(tǒng)所支撐占有的市場(chǎng)份額。

最終，歐洲和美國都將微軟公司推上了被告席，這是因?yàn)樵摴酒髨D通過兩種方式來保護(hù)和擴(kuò)大其Windows系統(tǒng)的壟斷地位。一方面微軟公司將自身的其他軟件，也就是著名網(wǎng)絡(luò)瀏覽器(web Browser)和“視窗”操作系統(tǒng)的“捆綁”行為，在美國引發(fā)了一場(chǎng)反托拉斯行動(dòng)。另一方面，在歐洲，核心問題在于微軟公司拒絕向服務(wù)器行業(yè)的竟?fàn)帉?duì)手提供相關(guān)技術(shù)信息，導(dǎo)致后者開發(fā)的軟件無法與微軟“視窗”操作系統(tǒng)充分兼容。

如今在共和黨總統(tǒng)執(zhí)政的背景下，美國的反壟斷當(dāng)局2002年決定終止此案，而采取與微軟公司協(xié)商的方式來解決問題，且此案當(dāng)年得到了克林頓政府的支持。這個(gè)所謂的“令人滿意的解決方案”十月份將到期。它充其量只能算是一個(gè)輕微的處罰，并允許微軟公司向Windows系統(tǒng)中添加新的程序，前提是個(gè)人電腦制造商也可以添加競(jìng)爭(zhēng)性產(chǎn)品。此外，涉及兼容性問題的條款也是有限度的:提供必要的“信息交流草案”，也只不過是針對(duì)與個(gè)人電腦用戶版本的Windows系統(tǒng)，而公司網(wǎng)上用于處理保存資料的Windows版本將不提供這一服務(wù)。

希望各位考生能夠每天堅(jiān)持閱讀，提高詞匯量和語感能力，為以后的系統(tǒng)復(fù)習(xí)打下堅(jiān)實(shí)的基礎(chǔ)。最后提醒大家，夏季來臨，復(fù)習(xí)備考需注意防暑降溫。預(yù)?？佳谐晒?

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