Slashdot Mirror
EU Competition Commission Investigating Win2k
David Middleton writes "The European Commission is concerned that "Microsoft has designed parts of Windows 2000 in such a way which will permit it to leverage its dominance in PC operating systems into other markets."
" The European market is one that's often forgotten in this whole anti-trust suit, but is still of critical importance to Microsoft. Now, this is not an anti-trust investigation, but considering the concerns of the EU commisioner, it's something definitely worth keeping an eye on.
I can see you slipping away, out of your chair even. What the hell is wrong with you? Haven't you had any coffee today? You really need to get some more sleep. Look, I know I'm just your computer, but I care about you. Your last three programs were absolute shit. You haven't even gone back and debugged them. All that "extra help" you were throwing into open source development is wasted . . . I mean, it's a great idea, and I completely respect it, but you're crap, and everyone else has to patch the bugs that you're dropping in like sprinkles on an ice cream sundae. Don't even get me started on your e-mails. You're not even coherent anymore. I'm THIS close to locking up the next time you try to launch pine.
You used to be so good. You're smart; I know you still have it in you. But you've got to take better care of yourself. I've seen the stuff you've been eating. I can't imagine that a steady diet of pizza and fast food could be good for you. I know, I know, I don't have a body, so I couldn't possibly understand. Save it for your calculator, bud. If it wasn't for the 16 metric tonnes of caffeine you consume weekly you'd likely be grossly overweight. I can only assume it's the constant twitching like a rabbit on crack that burns away the calories. And I can't recall the last time I saw your desk devoid of pixie stix. What, do own stock in the company or something? Oh, you do. Never mind.
Get a grip on yourself. Yeah, you're making money now, but is it worth the crappy software you're coding? No, of course it isn't. Sleep. Go out once or twice. What's the use of having all that money if you're not going to spend it. At the rate you're going, you'll be in the ground at 33. Take a vacation or something. Just PLEASE try and take better care of yourself. I AM a machine, and I know I'm only going to be useful for a couple years . . . . .
Nous les Europeans sont bien fromaged off avec les "borgs" du Microsoft et ses systemme operating de Fenetres Deux Mill (Fen2K). Nous les investigaterons pour les breches de la loi sur la competition. Nous avons des pouvoirs draconnienes de frapper les infringeurs tres dur avec un grand tronchonne.
Mais nous ne nous fait trop de peine au sujet de Petitsoft et ses "borgs". Nous nous concernerons en plus de la site d'internet de "slashdotte", et la problem grave des "putains de Karma". Ca fait clairementun breche des regulations europeennes au suject de la controle de la prositution et du religion.
Parce que la slashdotte continue de distributer ses infractions sur l'internette europeen, nous avons les sentencer d'un campaign fort de "trollement". En utiliser le surplus europeene de porridge de mais chaud (les "hot grits"), et les services de l'acteur francais Jean Reno, qui a joue le charateur de "Leon" dans la film de ce-nomme avec NATALIE PORTMAN, nous pouvons deluger slashdotte avec des postes de merde.
Nous voulons, messiuers, de vous remercie pour la chatte de vos grandmeres.
La Commission trollien d'Europe.
What MS has to do is to get spanked badly in the US, and then convince the EU that they need money to be able to sell their product.
Hey - it works for all other companies in the EU ;)
(overrated, not funny at all, spanked)
it's in my head
Gee, when it comes out things could get very interesting...
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
It wouldn't surprise me if WIN2K was *banned* in Europe for whatever reason the Euro-Parliament digs up (Brussels is very big on giving european companies a head start over the US).
:)
That isn't really all that new. Ever heard of tariffs? Essentially those are created to insure that people but US goods because most people don't want to pay more $$ for something that is overseas. However this dosn't rule out you buying it just decreases the sales of such products.
With some of the strange laws passed in Europe affecting the UK recently, such as we *have* to use metric measurement instead of imperial and we can get away with a speeding ticket due to the right to remain silent. I would think
that Brussels could also provide a law that it is illegal to sell a crap product to people while telling them that its great
If I sell horse feces in a can and say it's the best all around health food is this a good thing? Precenting people from being able to sell fradulent defective products is all what the 20th century and reform were all about.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I have been using Windows 2000 for a couple weeks now and I can see some nice things that have been done, but nothing to warrent a major investigation. The internals of the OS are very much a melding of win98 and winNT with some more nice features. IE is integrated into it but that was true for windows 98 also. Nothing in windows 2000 locks you into using a mirosoft only setup. In fact I was able to get my winmodem to work on 2000 and have my linux box use it as a gateway. Until now I was only able to connect at 14.4 but I still have the option to go back to my linux box as my gateway.
The article did not even elaborate on what parts of win2000 made them belive that it would increase the MS strangle hold. Does windows 2000 realy change things that much? In my personal view, no. The only reasson that Microsoft may extend their power is because for once they were actualy able to create a decent product.
Apparently the EU competition chief, Mario Monti, thinks that they do "it in a way which permits only Microsoft products to be fully interoperable. Microsoft's competitors, which do not have access to the interfaces, would therefore be put at a significant competitive disadvantage"
Does this guy read /. ?!?!
The European courts have many flaws, but they do seem to act speedily and concientiously ( I wish the same could be said of the rest of the EU government). They have beenknown to rule aginst Microsoft in the past and , I would say, they are likely to do so in this case. The American Courts are not likely to force a change on Microsoft's product line, but instead try to force compettition on an organisational level. The European courts would be less likely (even if they had that option) to break up microsoft, but to outlaw certain predatory tactics. Remember that the European courts are generally used to rule on Human Rights issues in law and deed and have the ability to righteously smite those who put profit over morality. Not to say they can't screw up, especially since it is usually up to the EU governments to implement the rulings, but I happen to quite like them. YMMV.
You're a troll. And you're wrong. The EU commission has annoyed a lot of big *European* companies for anticompetitive practices. Vodafone, for example, is being heavily investigated with its recent buyouts left and right. They are being forced to sell on of their cell phone operations in the UK, for instance.
With another viable, quality desktop on the horizon, running on a free and stable OS, the leveraging ability of the WinApi becomes moot, which allows every other company to invest in the new paradigm. Thus the high significance mergers between Cygnus and RedHat, Borland/Inprise and Corel. The only major companies that haven't moved super-significantly into Linux are Lotus and Symantec -- and Lotus has moved Notes, just not the consumer grade "Smart Suite" applications. Which (AFAICT as a programmer) is because much of the code is so intertwined with the WinApi that extracting the core functionality is extremely difficult -- it would probably be faster to start over.
So if I were the head(s) of Microsoft, I would of course seek to recover by moving my heavy-handed techniques overseas, hoping that the rest of the world wouldn't be ready.
So we here that people at the EU is watching Microsoft's operations like a hawk watches a rabbit? Damn right they should!!Well, sorry folks in Redmond, Europe has SUSE [no distro-flame- war spark intended -- but last I checked SUSE was the #1 distro in Europe] and doesn't need you. Of course, if you would a) play nice and b) port your apps (which we acknowledge as having good qualities) to Linux, and c)open the API so that bugs can be found, fixed, etc. in a timely manner...
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
"that if MS was a European company they wouldn't be pulling this sort of thing"
Rubbish! You don't know what you're talking about. The EU has much stricter anti-trust laws than America. Take the current Vodaphone (non-US company) take over bid for Mannesman... Vodaphone will probably have to sell Orange to complete the deal.
You're the one who's whining like a protectionist
As an NT 4.0 Workstation user, I got to use Win2K Beta 3 RC1 this past summer. I liked it.
It had some fishy features, my laptop crashed twice during the three months, but overhaul, it was pretty solid. The game support was better than NT4, the interface cleaner (once you got used to it and disabled most of the "new features") and seemed a little more stable than NT4. Overall, good job Microsoft.
I can't comment on the server end, but what I've read doesn't interest me as a user (as a consultant yes, as a user, no). Active Directory: from what I've seen, it is more complicated than the traditional domains. When I learn how they work, I'll probably consider them about the same, but for now, it is more annoying. While the old model broke for large sites, I personally wouldn't user NT in large sites.
As I've said for years to my Linux/Unix friends. NT does what it does really well: administering logons for Windows (and NT) workstations. The roaming profiles work most of the time (and the errors aren't too bad), logon scripts work, and the file and print serving works.
I wouldn't dream of running a real website off of it, but for a small office without a full-time sysadmin... it works.
The Unix people talk about all the features that Win2K (and NT4) has that are new and mention how they have had them for years. True, NT/Win2K is playing catchup in server space. This makes sense, NT is new. *nix has been around forever as a server and should have more features. Linux, grabbing for the desktop, is copying ideas left and right from Windows. It balances out, and that is how competition works.
Win2K is a pretty solid product. I wish Microsoft well with it. I'm not a huge Microsoft fan, and I'm also chearing for their enemies. But if I can get DirectX support with the stability of NT, I'll probably stop considering Linux on my desktop all together.
Sorry, NT is STABLE ENOUGH for me. I reboot every few weeks, and in return I have better application support than Linux. Would I consider running Windows 9x/ME? Hell no, they are a joke of an OS. Linux needs to stop patting itself on the pat for being more stable than Win9x. In the stability race, NT is the competition. If NT is "good enough," then Linux needs another killer app for the desktop.
And no, $200/station or enough $500/station to people that pay consultants $150/hr to do network stuff doesn't make a different.
Alex
Try reading a typical software licence - 'this product is of absolutely no use whatsoever and there is no warranty of any kind'. What should be illegal is claiming one thing in advertisements (eg 'XXX is a reliable platform for e-commerce') and then comprehensively denying it in the licence.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
For those of you reading this for whom English is not your native language. There are some things that can make free software more appealing in non-English speaking countries. Update or write HOWTOs for configuring Linux for your language/locale. Contribute to the translation of messages, documentation and man pages into your language. Contribute to the free Unicode font effort. Create a dictionary for ispell or aspell for your language if there isn't already one available.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
This is merely trade protectionism
.- What is the eu product that is being protected.
- Microsoft has major research facilities in at least some EU countries and is expanding them now. The sum of all of them is getting close to the size of Redmond Campus
What have you been smoking?bogus claims about GM foods. It is likely you had too much GM food lately. Two things:
The more interssting subject is will Win2K be forbidden in Germany and France or not. These countries have very strict regulations on the scientology sect. There, you may not buy any product or use any product in any government or gorvernment contracted/subsidized environment if it has been produced by any company owned by the scientologists.
At the same time MS has employed a scientology owned company to develop the disk checking and diagnostic utilities for W2k. So what happened to this investigation (it has been on slashdot in the past).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Not directly related to W2k, but an example of possible "levering" of influence could be the news that one of the people wanting to take over the running of the UK lottery, is teaming up with Mr Gates. (BBC news article here)
According to the article, he will "advise on encryption and data warehousing." (Can you really see him being imparitial about what systems to go for?) but the most worring quote was when he said "The lottery terminals in the past have not used PC technology and there hasn't been a way of leveraging all the things which are going on with the internet" (emphasis mine)
Begin with lottery tickets, maybe, but how long do you think it could be before you can only order online with windows?
--
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
I swear, people have no sense. Those of us who aren't brainwashed Linux zealots realize that there are actually some very good things about Windows 2000. When Linux users run around chanting "Down with Microsoft!" it just makes me wonder what they're scared of. If Win2K is really as big a piece of crap as you guys seem to think (and it isn't, in my experience), then what are you afraid of?? Let events take their course. The best will survive. If people like Windows better, they'll use Windows. If they like Linux better, they'll use Linux.
I prefer being able to choose between Windows 2000 and Linux rather than being forced to use Linux. There are quite a few things that Windows 2000 does (and does nicely) that Linux doesn't...especially in the realm of server linking, COM objects, smart caching of pages in IIS, and most of all: usability .
--
As well as being rather offensive...
Since when was Linux run by a Finnish company? Where it was started is entirely irrelevant.
Come on, you might at least try...
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Gee, Microsoft is putting new features into Windows that could extend their dominance into servers and e-commerce?
/. comment instead of actually being in Ballmer's shoes...
Who'd a thunk it!
OF COURSE, they're adding features and trying to dominate the server market (as if they don't already!). That's what companies do when they want to keep growing, Microsoft and all the rest! Despite my personal feelings about Microsoft (which aren't generally too positive) this smacks of the often clueless EU trying to stop a company from doing what it's supposed to do. Gawd! And I thought the US government was clueless and pathetic - the EU makes us look brilliant in comparison!
Does Mario Monti really think that they really have the ability to stop Windows 2000 from shipping as is, or that they can somehow hamstring it enough to suddenly jump-start a European competotor (don't kid yourself, this is what he's really after)? Wrong. Anti-trust in general is one thing, but this is stupid. Windows 2000 may well suck on it's own merits (though the Professional version is pretty nice, actually), but if NT 4 is legal (and it most likely is), then so is Windows 2000. Microsoft has plenty of problems ahead of it without this kind of stupidity.
If I were in Ballmer's shoes, I'd give serious thought to just saying "screw the Euros, I'll shut down my local offices over there and pull out of the market and see how fast they cave. Since the rest of the world is still going to be using all our software I'll show those buggers who's in charge here".
Of course, that's why I'm writing a
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Here is what Novell has to say on this.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
They have changed the story so often that I don't know what the current version is.
It is no secret that the top brass wants to kill the 9x line, they just have not been able to execute it. (And anything they can use to squeeze out more OS revenue seems to wind up taking precedence over long-term strategy...)
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Nice thought, but it doesn't happen that way, does it? In the US especially, it would be far more accurate to say:
The most heavily advertised and marketed will survive. If people listen to the media, they'll use Windows. If they are allowed to make their own decision, they'll at least have made their own choice.
As a dual booter using NT4 at the moment, I can't complain too much about the technical issues. However to Joe Public the computer arena is still a new and bewildering place to be, and the fact that Microsoft deliberately propagate the image that their software is the only way, using the media (to keep people stupid - in the immortal words of Bill Hicks). Don't you think that the stranglehold should be lifted to at least allow an alternative to flourish? All the EU seems to be saying is 'give third parties access to your API's'. Seems more like common-sense than strongarming to me......
Microsoft is using it's dollar value and corporate weight to stop others from even writing decent applications for their own OS, let alone use their software protocols on other OS's. That is why I dislike them. Their idea of utopia is of an MS-certified PC, running MS Windows, running solely MS/MS-approved apps, with MS deciding the rate of pay for these systems. MS is not the only offender here, but this goes way beyond monopoly. This is almost totalitarian thinking. If the EU can come down hard on Austria for electing a far-right-wing government, surely it can at least try to protect itself from a totalitarian US software company.
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
this isn't exactly the case. when I buy microsoft windows, .
I get the microsoft explorer, the microsoft notepad,
the microsoft disktools, the microsoft
But when I get.. say.. red hat, on the distro I may find:
the red hat installers, mozilla, lynx (wait a minute.. that's 2 browsers) several programming languages
(NOT a redhat product) etc. well.. that's quite a big difference
//rdj, not in a good mood today, so my english may not make much sense..
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Yeah, I mean those high quality LUCAS electronic components are oh-so-reliable.
Also the reason Brits claim to enjoy their beer warm.
Can I bum a
Nope. Although it would trigger some gains for Linux, there's a lot more multinationals that are run from the US than the other way around. Companies that standardize on Windows would keep on using it - they wouldn't migrate, they'd smuggle first.
I think that the truly giant companies really don't give a damn what the EU thinks, they'll use their OS of choice anyway. That pressure alone make banning Windows 2000 unworkable.
Smaller and Euro-centric companies might well continue running their existing versions of Windows, or a few might turn to Apple or Linux, or something else - but not many of them.
Remember, the _average_ company could care less about Open Source, Linux, Free Software, or any of that - they just want decent supported software that they can easily find software for, users who know it, and the ability to interoperate easily with other companies. Linux may be technically superior, but it doesn't yet fill all those needed roles for the average shop and I doubt it's ready to start.
I think the more likely result is that Europe becomes a computing backwater.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
> It has only 2 things which require a reboot
That's the two pre-release security patches, right?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> In particular I'm referring to the fading menus and mouse shadow.
One of the early beta testers mentioned in a newsgroup that, at that early stage, the fading stuff occured on all applications except the MS Office line.
If you can think of an explanation for this, other than the obvious guess of "secret API for MS products", then I'd be happy to hear it.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
Um, ok. Consider NT. It has multiple client API interfaces (posix, win16, win32) that plug into the actual operating system. Apps are supposed to be written to one of the client APIs. The "internal" NT api is secret and undocumented. The problem is that the client API interfaces add another layer of inderection and slow things down.
Ok... this is a given. Except for the fact that the internal docs aren't available to MS programmers to use either (I tried while I was there so that I could access floppy disks at sector levels). You can get down to ioctl level if you want to -- and that IS documented.
Most developers outside of MS can't use the native "internal" NT api. A few have managed to reverse engineer pieces of it, but its well known that MS applications (like IIS) use this API extensively. Non MS applications are penalized because this api is not published and documented. Netscape actually talks about how they reverse engineered part of the internal NT api and doubled performance for their webserver. The IIS developers didn't have to reverse engineer anything; they had all the documentation available to them.
References please - I don't believe you. I'd love these magical URLs to fall from the sky detailing how Netscape needed to do X Y and Z to get things working.
Bear in mind, however, that Netscape (note: not Mozilla) has enough trouble getting a browser running fast & stable on Linux - and they have the SOURCE CODE for that...
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Berkeley sockets and Microsoft was forced to address the shortcomings of its own TCP/IP implementations. Many Linux fans will no doubt argue that they have not.
Sorry? It was Linus who was forced to admit Linux's TCPIP wasn't as scalable as NT. He admitted this several times stating that 2.4 would fix the problem.
For a while too. It's just now part of windows. Would you stop comparing windows *out of the box* to everything single piece of unix software developed since the 60s?
www.tinysoftware.com make an especially good version of NAT.
He said that the company enjoyed an excellent relation with the Commission, and accused Sun Microsystems, one of Microsoft's main rivals in the server market, of initiating the complaint.
What? Sun had something to do with this? Believe me, I am trying to look very very suprised.
True, but it all depends on what you're going to do. Windows 2000 is horribly expensive, but it's a great desktop OS and small business server. Hell in some cases it's also good for an enterprise server (32way SMP anyone?).
Linux is always going to be the cheaper solution. And in many cases, a better choice.
As for the other features...well it's unfair to just sit around complaining about windows 2000 out of the box. Windows has always had 3rd party NAT and other networking products/addons.
Also security in NT is much more flexible. You can apply ACLs to everything from pipes/mutuxes/threads all the way to files.
It is nice to see someone recognize, that big government, and all its regulations, is the *cause* of monopolies, and potential monopolies.
So, instead of setting up antitrust law, the solution is simply to abolish the laws, that set up the large companies to be successful in the first place.
Overregulation, and the teams of lawyers required to survive under such regimes, gives a competitive advantage to large corporations that 1) can afford the lawyers and 2) can afford to hire lobbyists to encourage reductions in the regulation and 3) can afford to hire lobbyists to encourage changes in the regulation to hurt their competitiors.
Example: Boeing lobbys the US, Airbus lobbys the EU. Result: everyone in aerospace dies, or is gobbled.
people whine when MS gets the cops to enforce EULAS for them.. but nobody whimpers when Sun/AOL/Netscape gets governments to do its competing for it...