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A Look at Microsoft's Regulatory Problems
jrexilius writes: "The Economist has a great article on the state of the EUs anti-trust case against microsoft, background, and future troubles with google. One interesting comment was 'Microsoft is preparing to use its dominance in web-browser and operating-system software to promote itself in yet another separate market--search engines this time'."
For users, changing operating systems, and even browsers, can be quite painful. In the case of an OS, old apps might nor work, and you might have to learn a new interface, and there may even be a cost of purchasing the OS. For browsers, it's hard to become aware of alternatives (for regular folk) and a download (on dialup) may take a while. For search engines, though, it's simply a matter of loading a new page, and maybe changing a setting somewhere. Not to mention the fact that even common folk know about Google, and it's become a part of the language. MS can't just "win" the search engine war by pointing users there by default.
Which, of course, is an exaggeration. Any such requirements come from the deal your shop has signed with Microsoft. If the contract stipulates that in order to get OEM discounts you must sell MS Windows with every piece of complete hardware you sell, that's a perfectly reasonable clause.
The owls are not what they seem
As far as I know, Microsoft has only made money in areas where the company has a temporary monopoly, or where being aggressive temporarily makes a profit.
Microsoft has a history of bad management, especially in thinking that the company can be aggressive toward customers, without paying any penalty.
If someone had a monopoly on water, he would make so much money that he would make Bill Gates look poor in just a few days. To unskilled observers, temporary monopolies make those associated with them look like skilled businesspeople.
When you are a billionaire, what is your biggest need? Is is to make more money? No, your biggest need is for connectedness with other people. By his aggressive behavior, Bill Gates has enforced disconnectedness, and he is in that sense a poor man.
You are confused about what they have a monopoly IN. Multiple courts ruled that they were in fact a monopoly. You seem to be under the false impression it is for being a PC monopoly - far from it.
They have become a defacto OS monopoly - while there are other choices, they leverage their market share to ensure you can't, shouldn't, or won't want to use a competitors product.
Good companies encourage you to choose their product OVER the competitors, monopolies discourage competitors products through control, price gouging, and more.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
I disagree...
Google has the data.
Netscape had a physical piece of software.
Google has one (the?) largest collection of web data indexed. One way they use and abuse this is the way they can give such targetted ads on web sites.
Their little text-based ads rock the socks off other ads... Is it because people just are drawn to the little google boxes full of text? No... it's because the ads so closely related to what's on the page.
Data is going to rule. Even microsoft realizes that google has beaten them to the punch.
Could google screw up (like netscape)? Sure! Right now however... they are sitting pretty.
Davak
You know the whole issue of tying WMP to Windows being an issue is silly. Hello!, Windows Media Player has been included with Windows for free since Windows 3.1 days (yeah go ahead and check it if you don't believe it). So for many many years MS was including WMP with Windows and Real did not have a problem with it? Suddenly one fine day Real has issues with it? What has happened is that MS came up with a superior product ever since Windows Media 8 and started kicking Real's *ss. Who would want to use Real's intrusive annoying player when a better alternative was available?
With Windows Media 9 Microsoft really started shining in the Media Player arena and Real instead of competing wants to run crying to momma. Get a clue Real! If you hadn't abused your users with the intrusive crap of player you had then no one would have looked for alternatives. As long as WMP was inferior, Real was in fact the one abusing its dominant position by shoving a pathetically intrusive player on its users. Guess what they did when they had an alternative? Real squandered away its lead when real (pun intended) competition was coming its way. I guess it was sheer haughtiness on its part that it thought no one could beat it. When it has finally woken up and realised that no one is going to give it a second chance, then guess what happens. WMP9 is what decimated Real since its a much superior product overall compared to Real. Now the irony is that WMP9 is not bundled with any OS but is a separate download. Yet inspite of that its usage is skyrocketing.
The other story in all this is how Apple has been able to keep QuickTime alive and not face Real's fate. Well the QuickTime player also does some bad things (like adding itself to runonce reg key) but overall it respects its users a lot more. QuickTime and Windows Media are now the most dominant Media technologies on the net. So how come Apple is not complaining about Windows Media? How are they able to hold on to the market? Clue to Real: They actually compete. They care about their users and make a better player or better codecs (Apple has very good support for MPEG4). This whole media player tying issue looks like some kind of EU vendetta against a large US company. In fact the original case wasn't even about this till Real went crying to the EU comission. Makes me sick. What next? Tying of WordPad to Windows will become illegal since that hurts AbiWord? How silly can people get really.
Except for those pesky antitrust laws, sure.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and DOJ (Department of Justice) got Microsoft into trouble for exclusive OEM deals back in 1994.
The OEM exclusive licensing was part of the FTC investigation. From that link
The FTC and DOJ didn't consider per-processor licensing to be "perfectly reasonable". Microsoft settled out of court rather than go to trial; they knew they would lose.
That settlement led to the Microsoft Consent Decree. Basically Microsoft promised never to do it again. This attracted criticism from Judge Sporkin who said:
Of course, Microsoft violated the Consent Decree in 1997 in order to destroy a new company called Netscape. The Consent Decree was worthless (as many people said it was).