Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MS Putting the Squeeze on Alternative Audio

Posted by timothy on from the presumption-gumption dept.

renard writes: "Some interesting developments during the last two days of the Microsoft antitrust trial, as reported by AP: MS Executive Linda Averett has admitted that Internet Explorer trumps user preferences for audio playback, and explains away a failure of IE6 searches to find RealAudio sites as a "mistake by the search team." My personal favorite: an MS-internal email exchange where one employee suggests that everyone "Remember the 'embrace and extend' campaigns we've used in the past," and an MS executive admonishes that "We need to keep all of this off the airwaves." See also related stories at Yahoo, CNN, and the NYT."

16 of 441 comments (clear)

  1. Just gets worse for MS by R2.0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Judge Jackson may have been so personally pissed at MS he did something legally questionable, but now MS is showing their stripes to an "impartial" judge. I don't think Judge CKK is going to be the pushover they hoped.

    --
    "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    1. Re:Just gets worse for MS by dattaway · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, MS will find some way to anger the judge and cause him to do something that will get the case dismissed. Its worked every time.

    2. Re:Just gets worse for MS by Chris+Johnson · · Score: 3, Interesting
      "Her".

      The judge is a woman- and she seems to be well aware of this strategy of theirs.

      I would be very surprised if she isn't sitting back, watching carefully, and getting mad at the States every time they stumble or screw up. If they make an error, she pounces on it and refuses to let them put any weight on the error.

      I think she sees quite plainly that Microsoft is an illegal monopolist running amok- and she's damned if she's going to screw up like Jackson did, by betraying any sort of bias that could be used to vacate her judgement. She's gonna put forth a very _controlled_ judgement that happens to make MS very, very unhappy.

  2. Ok, maybe I am naive.. by xtermz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...but does anybody else get the impression that this whole 'anti-trust' trial is just a big giant dog and pony show to keep everybody happy and make the government look like they arent all up on big biz's jock ?

    Sorry, but if I tried to pass off some of the crap that MS has in these trials, i'ld be in jail on contempt charges.

    Maybe i'm naive, but i think the gov doesnt really give a fxck about MS or their 'anti-competitive' practices, they just brought out the smoke and mirrors...

    --


    I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
    1. Re:Ok, maybe I am naive.. by 4of12 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Your premise might have a great deal of substance.

      But remember that MS has not just been using its monopoly to tax a broad base of small individuals.

      It has been extending its means of taxation by leveraging its monopoly to trounce other large businesses.

      While those businesses have no where near the financial resources of Microsoft, they are businesses nonetheless(Netscape, Sun, Oracle, AOL/TW), and therefore entitled to at least some of the same bent political process favoring businesses.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    2. Re:Ok, maybe I am naive.. by Zeinfeld · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Well, the govt. used to care, and used to want to bring anti-trust charges against Microsoft, but then, Microsoft used to not donate money to any political party.

      I don't work for Microsoft, but I had a member of Newt Gingrich's staff tell me that the 'problem with Microsoft is that they make all this money but they do not play a social role'.

      For anyone who knows beltway speak that is code for 'give campaign donnations' in the same way that supporting the 'right of southern states to cellebrate their heritage' is code for 'we are racists and would like to see the return of the KKK and segregation but we will settle for flying the stars and bars from the capitol' etc. etc.

      At the time Gates had recently donated the first $100 mil. to his foundation and announced his intention to donate substantially more so the 'social role' considered was not charitable in nature.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
  3. Sneaky by delta407 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How can you "accidentally" not show Real Audio search results? Huh, whoops, guess all y'all have to use Windows Media Audio now...

  4. Is this legal?? by dolphinuser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "... She said the problem was fixed two weeks ago -- over a month after the states' top lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, showed the search problem during opening arguments as evidence of Microsoft's wrongdoing,

    So the "problem" was presented as evidence of wrong doing, so they went ahead and fixed it. Is this similar to tampering with evidence?

    John

    --
    The drops of water don't know themselves to be a river; and yet the river flows.
  5. Re:Not like Realplayer is saint-like by reaper20 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yep, Realplayer is jumping on the "Please feel sorry for us, we're getting h0sed by MS too!" bandwagon.

    MS is probably at fault for some of this - but if Real would just realize that their software sucks, and that might be a big reason for people not using it in the first place.

    Open message to real: I'm a Linux fanatic. At work, when my Windows users ask "which do I choose at radiowhatever.com, real or ms?" I tell them to use the MS format.

    That's how much Real's software sucks. At least we have ogg.

  6. Re:Not like Realplayer is saint-like by Flower · · Score: 4, Interesting
    True. But there is a big difference between being nagged about "are you sure you don't want to use our product" and "I don't care if you want to use PlayerX you're going to be using our Player."

    In one instance, I can always find a different product that doesn't irritate me and at least tries to dwim. In the other, I'm not given any choice at all. Tack on the fact that choice is being eliminated by a convicted monopolist and actually it is much worse.

    --
    I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
  7. How can 'open' win against this? by km790816 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When Microsoft has billions going into research and a dominant desktop position, how can one expect an open AV standard to become prevelent, especailly when one considers the effort that goes into creating good codecs.

    Don't get me wrong. If I had to pick between Real, QT, and Windows Media, I'd take Windows Media. QT asks me every damn time I look at something if I want to buy it. Real runs hidden applications when Windows loads and only recently stopped its practice of asking me if I want to upgrade.

    Is the problem with universities? Are any researcher doing work on codecs that could end up in the open forum? Does Ogg Vorbis do everything that we need?

    --
    A speech...
  8. Let's not forget ... by TheViffer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Real Audio + Quicktime + Windows Media Player + Win amp all installed on the same machine is complete cluster f*** and a battle ground. I am sure there are a few more that I am forgetting, but this is a good start.

    If a computer had emotions and I installed all these applications at the same time, it would be begging me to format its hard drive to stop the suffering.

    --
    -- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
  9. RealOne Player is actually worse, IMO. by Jayde+Stargunner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Really, the first time IE 6.0 pops up its media window, it gives you a "Do you want to use the Media Bar to play all audio files?" prompt. I chose "No", and IE never bothered me with file associations again.

    On the other hand, I installed RealOne a few weeks back and desipte unckeck a huge list of files it wanted to take over, I still grabbed quite a few. I attempted to reassociate them with Media Player and other programs, and guess what happened...

    Next time I opened RealOne player, it popped up some "File Associations Agent" which said: "Another program or programs have attempted to associate RealOne Player-assoicated files with themselves. RealOne Player has re-associated all files."

    WTF???

    Nowhere did I choose to have these files associated with RealOne Player, nor did I choose any "maintain file associations" button. Not to mention, you can't even get rid of the resident aspects of RealOne Player. Just about every time I boot my computer (which, admittedly, is very rarely) I get some "RealOne Player Critical Notification" box that pops up. As far as I can tell, the best you can do is make it only show up "A few times a month"--there is no "GO AWAY YOU FSCKING ANNOYING POP-UP WINDOW!!!" option that I could find.

    So, yeah. As evil as MS may possibly be, I don't feel bad for RealPlayer on this one. =P

    -Jayde

    --
    What's a sig?
  10. Re:I can see how it could happen... by SeaCrazy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know, my cat walked over the keyboard and typed in the EXACT same thing!

    It happens all the time.

    --
    .sig? Get your own damn .sig!
  11. Further bad testimony from Microsoft by burgburgburg · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Attempted to submit earlier today:

    Microsofties testifying poorly for the company. Yesterday, Microsoft's Will Poole, vice president in charge of the company's Windows New Media Platform division, conceded that he couldn't think of anything Microsoft had done with its audio and video capabilities to address a trial court's April 2000 findings against the company.

    The states also brought out an email from a different Microsoft employee, Kurt Buecheler, who wrote that when Microsoft went to distribute market development money to computer manufacturers, "a key criteria will be shipping Windows Media Player."

    Today, when the states lawyer enquired as to why IE6 played music files with WMP technology even if the user had selected RealPlayer as their default, Microsoft executive Linda Averett said Microsoft could use RealNetworks software to play music in Internet Explorer, but chooses not to.

    "The reason it is not replaceable is that Microsoft does not allow it to be replaceable, correct?" Schmidtlein (dissenting states attorney) asked.

    "Correct, it is an integrated feature," Averett testified.

    She also testified about the complaint by RealNetworks that the XP search program couldn't find RealNetworks files. She claimed it was a mistake that had been fixed two weeks ago. This would make it a month after states' top lawyer, Brendan Sullivan, showed the search problem during opening arguments as evidence of Microsoft's wrongdoing.

    Yesterday's testimony: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-900213.html
    Today's testimony: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Micr osoft-Antitrust.html

  12. Re:Put up or shut up. by Chris+Johnson · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Read this: Compulsory Windows

    If you cannot comprehend a world where something like Microsoft can hunt down and make use of ways to use some people's need or desire to run Windows, to strike bargains where EVERYONE is required to pay for and get Windows like it or not... even to the extent where, as in the Reg's report, Macintosh seats in the edu market are required to pay for Windows Upgrades they cannot even run, then how about you shut up?

    I mean, it's like you're talking about a free market or something.

    When a Microsoft can say, "Oh, you have to buy copies of our stuff for EVERYTHING, in fact every person who sets foot on campus, including dogs and pigeons" and get away with it because the 70%-90% of Windows seats MUST be served...

    When those seats MUST get current Windows OSes because Microsoft bundles stuff with the OS and makes it compulsory to make use of other aspects of the Windows environment, whether that be IMing or a new media codec or web pages in the wild that require the version of IE only bundled with the system...

    Then you don't have a free market anyway, so enough with your 'just choooooose something else'. It won't work. Without a free market choice is vanity. Trust me on this, I've exercised the vanity of choosing Macs for _years_ and look where MS is now! Like I hurt them. Sheesh.