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EU Says Microsoft's Abuses Are Ongoing
levell writes "Although the legal difficulties Microsoft was having in the US seem to be drawing to a close, it's not yet over in the EU. In this story, the BBC reports that the EU says it is still abusing its monopoly with Windows Media Player, and perhaps more interestingly from a Linux point of view, also in the low-end server market. The story is also being covered on CNN, Ananova, Reuters, etc." The EU's press release is informative.
Actually, both the OS and the Office sales are the true cash cows for Microsoft. The bundling of software for free to eliminate competition on the other hand is not legal.
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
EU is the largest free trade area in the world. Both in terms of population and overall GDP.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Just let the market work itself out, the end product will be better, and you won't be giving the already oversized government a chance to increase its power.
/. should know this better than most. Again, this is bad. If I give you software for free knowing that it will help my bottom line in the end simply due to market share and sales of other softwares, this is bad. And if let be, MS will use all of it's might to see that it doesn't "lose". You see, the bigger guy has many more resources to trounce the other guy. Not helping the little guy simply because he is little actually hurts you and the market. Believe me, "leveling" the playing field actually "helps" you, the consumer. In practice this will actually allow the better product to rise to the top. This is good. Many are saying the field isn't level, and that it isn't level due to direct practices by M$. This is against the law, as it should be. This isn't the "land of the large corporation", they're only goal is to make more money. Leaving them unchecked is about as dangerous as it gets. Please understand this.
The government is simply an extension of the people. Giving more power to the people seems like the way it should be.
You seem to either forego much of the true history of things concerning the Standard Oil case, or simpy do not understand why it was done, and why MS is similarly being looked at. The Gulf inroads were minor on comparison, and Standard was well on it's way to "overcoming" those pesky guys anyway. Standard became more powerful than the government and the people were completely dependent upon them. This was bad
Monopolies have an ever increasing amount of leverage to maintain those monopolies, which is bad. You see, Linux may very well have been much much further into the market if it wasn't for these practices, which has nothing to do with the "best tool for the job" rising to the top. We at
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin