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EU Rejects Microsoft Settlement Proposal
Karl Cocknozzle writes "European Union antitrust officials have dismissed as insufficient Microsoft's offer to settle their most recent antitrust problem in Europe. Spokespeople for the European Commission and Microsoft declined to comment on a report in today's Financial Times that Microsoft had offered to include rival media player software from Apple and Real Networks on a CD-ROM packaged with personal computers to help resolve the case. Previously, the EU had demanded that Microsoft either unbundle Windows Media Player, or also bundle rival media players with Windows. It appears that Microsoft might get more than a slap on the wrist this time around."
Apple has never strong-armed its vendors into bundling quicktime and forced them to drop competing products... Because Apple doesn't have any vendors selling OS X systems.
Apple is very friendly towards Real, and Real Player. A little less so since RealPlayer started playing quicktime on the PC (that pisses Apple off... a LOT), but they're still civil about it, and Apple knows that people want RealPlayer for OS X.
There was never any attempt to block the product from working with the OS (quite the contrary, we got lots of help making it work w/ the OS, and even got some time @ Macworld to show it off. I worked @ Real on the product) I don't think Apple has any kind of obligation to include the player, given their position in the market, vs. MS's
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Well, it's a good thing you agree with the EU. The bundling was Microsofts offer in hope they could get out easy, but the EU thougth this was a lousy deal
Or, for a one word response, RTFA.
Yes.
MB makers were stronghanded out of making Socket A motherboards.
While said in jest, it is true.
Common people. Inform yourselves, read, google a bit more.
MS makes deals in which they forbid PC manufacturers to bundle any other software but MS's own.
THus if DEll, HP or another company want to distribute MS Windows *and* a non MS media player, MS will not sign a contract that would allow a manufacturer to do just that.
You may undertand Bill Gates, I also understand Jack the Ripper, and frankly I don't like my understanding of him.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You clearly do not understand what a monopoly is and isn't. Don't feel bad, as neither does a substantial portion of the /. crowd.
:
This is absolutely nothing like your example with BMW. To correct your analogy, the Microsoft BMW would
1) Enforce strict legalities on BMW dealers that they are not allowed to switch out the radios. Doing so can lose them their rights to deal in BMW products.
2) Design their engine so that if you removed the radio & replaced it with another, the engine would no longer start.
3) If a 3rd-party radio manufacturer finds a way around point 2, include legalities with your car's "license" (owner's manual/lease papers) that replacing the radio, even if it works, nulls and voids any manufacturer's warranty on the car.
4) Since no radio manufacturer is going to produce radios for that line of BMW because of 1-3, perhaps an end-user will attempt that. Assuming they are intelligent enough to bypass point 2, and careless enough to ignore point 3, BMW would not release technical specifications for how the radio actually plugs into the car's wiring system. In fact, they would intentionally make the wiring as confusing as possible, so that you have little chance of creating a radio that works as well as the factory radio.
I don't mean to start a flame war either. I'm just tired of hearing poor analogies like these that only indicate a lack of understanding of what a monopoly actually is.
Finally, let me point out that most countries agree that monopolies are perfectly ok, as long as you don't illegally use your fortunate market standing to maintain your monopoly.
That is one of the arguments of Real's ongoing suit against Microsoft (they sued 18 Dec 2003): "Other charges allege that Microsoft used contractual restrictions and financial incentives to "force PC makers to accept Windows PC operating systems with the bundled Windows Media Player and to restrict the ability of PC makers to preinstall or promote competing digital media players." - CNet News
On the other hand, nothing prevents you from removing iTunes or iPhoto, or even QuickTime from MacOS, on top of the obvious fact that Apple is not a monopoly and therefore inherently abides by different rules.
Good riddance! Unfortunately, I don't think microsoft would actually abandon the largest market in the world.
I am totally against ethically dubious practices to achieve a monopoly. But I don't consider "bundling" anti competitive behavior. This is just another example of the EU over regulating.
That's funny, cause that was exactly the reason for US DoJ anti-trust case against microsoft: ms leveraged monopoly in one market (desktop OS) to gain monopoly in another (web browsers). It was web browsers then, it's media players now. Microsoft was found guilty, and, as a punishment, was required to primise not to do it again.
Why aren't they suing BMW for including radios in their automobiles?? After all, it is a "value added" additional component. It's not a car.
Is BMW a monopoly? Are they trying to "cut off the air supply" to a competing radio manufacturer?
I don't mean to start a flame war, but isn't this Microsoft Monopoly crap getting a little old?
Yeah, cause we all know that if we just stop saying that then microsoft will not be a monopoly any more! I mean DoJ seems to think so...
There are countless examples (especially in the computer industry) of companies that seemed like monopolies (IBM for example) that were devastated overnight when a superior idea entered the market place.
You mean like the way mozilla took over IE's market share as soon as it was released? Oh wait... Let me spell this out for you: you cannot compete with a monopolist on the basis of better products that compete in the same market. That is why we have the rules to restrict abuse of monopoly.
BTW, the only reason IBM lost the market power it had is that the market became (mostly) irrelevant. IBM still has monopoly in mainframes (which is what they were sued for), but mainframes are disappearing. It has absolutely nothing to do with building a better product.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Mac OS X 10.3 allows you to opt to not install iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iCal,... if you don't want to. This can be selected in the install screen of Mac OS X (use custom install). My mac at work has no i-stuff installed except iCal and iSync. And a mac is delivered without any OS installed (there is just one large empty partition). The box contains two CD sets: one disk image containing everything and regular install CD's.
What do you mean?
" I want Windows to be an OS that is flexible enough to allow me to choose whatever browser, email client, media player I want"
Browser: Opera, Mozilla, etc. etc.
Email Client: Eudora, etc.
Media Player: QuickTime, DivX etc.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Media players are only part of this equation.
Keep in mind this case is about AT activity where MS has been accused of leveraging their technologies into new markets.
Assuming MS continues it's current bundling practice. What products are content providers likely to select, especially when you factor DRM, into the picture once mediaplayer is installed on 95% of the desktop market?
The simple answer is that they will select win media server and the wmv format. While media player does, and has supported other formats it's within MS's track record to 'degrade' the experience in anything other than what they're pushing.
I'm kinda stuck for time today so I'll stop being long winded and suggest that people give some thought into whether mediaplayer domination becomes a lever for server market penetration and content control/taxation.
...But to require them to bundle Quicktime/Realplayer/whatever with Windows? That seems wrong on so many levels ...
You're so right.
They should bundle WinAMP instead.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Hold on pardner... There's no need to have IE built into Windows, as anyone with any programming knowledge knows. ("Anyone" evidently does not include Bill Gates nor most US judges.)
Apple has a framework for rendering HTML, for example, that anyone can use. But Safari, Apple's browser, can be removed from the system, replaced with Mozilla, Omniweb, or any other choice.
That is the difference between MS and Apple. Apple includes their own app, but you don't have to use it or even have it installed. MS insists that their app must be installed or everything breaks.
It's well known that Windows has undocumented APIs which are used by Microsoft applications. This was borne out in the U.S. anti-trust trial and again in the recent code leak. And if they were documented such that I could reference them, then I wouldn't be here complaining that Microsoft applications have access to a different platform than what competing applications have access to.
Or are you just making things up and assuming that since it sounds anti-msft, people will assume it's true? Because I can play that game too: linux can't compete with windows on the desktop, because windows has access to super-secret extra registers on intel chips that are hidden from linux. Wow, that was easy.
Wow, you really are dense. How about Intel's mobile graphics chipsets which use a chunk of main memory (yes I know they are supported now, but with each new chipset, there is a lag)? How about winmodems? How about Broadcom WiFi chipsets? How about I stop feeding the troll?
Stacker had a patent which covered realtime disk compression AS A WHOLE, not just their implementation. MS did their best to avoid infringing, but it seems that it was one of those "wheel" patents which cover everything under the Sun. I'm not saying what happened to Stacker was right, but there was NO outright code theft as many seem to think.
http://crn.channelsupersearch.com/news/crn/47630.a sp
Can't quote for copyright reason.
T
The gist of it it that Microsoft will probably be fined roughly 100-125 Million USD in the EU according to an unnamed source within the administration.
You are forgetting your operating system history.
/WINNT or another folder, doesn't matter, it's just one API, and whether it's over here or over there makes no
Things like Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player have become part of the operating system? Why? It's good for developers. Need to view a HTML or XML based helpfile? Just use the built in Windows functions.
Hogwash. The browser and the player were previously separate apps which MS decided to wire into the O/S as an end-run around the consent decree and the subsequent actions in which Netscape was involved. Microsoft decided that the decree was a little too confining, and got clever with its coders. No other reasons make sense.
Where the browser is located, under
difference. That it is more consistently available to be called upon is, perhaps, a relief now to developers, that they won't have to stick the latest copy of IE on the CD or link to it on their website. THAT much I'll concede.
Linux hasn't got that level of consistency going for it yet, and no pretty outer wrapper the way MacOS does (and i'm NOT talking about desktops, people!) I'll concede also that Windows makes life simpler by providing fewer options.
What gets Microsoft in trouble isn't bundling this software with the operating system.
That is exactly what got them in trouble!
This software IS the operating system now.
Only by choice did MS do that, not out of necessity (except for legal necessity.) The availability of a consistent IE version on a given target installation platform is still random, so many developers choose to require IE 6.
What gets them in trouble is that Microsoft can and does use their dominance to push competition out of the market, killing off Netscape
And how exactly did they do that? By bundling the browser with the operating system. That's what got them in trouble. It was the result of clever legal scheming, not any particular coding need.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
Microsoft's strategy with IE was very cunning:
- Firstly, they made it part of Windows which meant it was "in your face" to every Windows user even though it was the inferior browser. With a whole lot of home users still on modems, why should they continue to bother with downloading large Netscape installation files with a browser already there?
- Secondly, they added their own proprietary extensions to HTML and handed out FrontPage like it was water. Netscape could not cope with MS's extensions or the mangled code that FrontPage deliberately churned out (around about FrontPage 98).
- Thirdly, they did their own thing with JavaVM, eventually bundling that in with IE also.
The result? Netscape couldn't render HTML (with MS extensions) properly, developing sites in Frontpage for Netscape was a nightmare (I know, I was there developing corporate websites using the "company standard" of Frontpage) and a whole heap of Java apps built on the MS JavaVM no longer worked.
To give Microsoft their credit, it was one helluva an attack on Netscape on virtually all fronts at once and I doubt anything Netscape could've done at the time would have made any difference.
That's why I'm a little puzzled with Microsoft's current lack of interest with developing IE any further. I guess there's no more money to be made from IE so the focus is now getting DRM through the back door in Windows Media Player.
I'm just hoping that, through Mozilla, Opera, etc. we get a return to the HTML open standard and can stop worrying about browser specifics when developing web stuff.
Will the same happen with Windows Media Player? I don't know but I think there's a lot more risk in it this time for Microsoft because many more people now have the faster connectivity and interest in downloading stuff from the Internet. They're already not too happy about buying DRM CDs that don't play in cars and CD-Rom drives and Microsoft knows that if they have to remove WMP from Windows, that will be it for their DRM plans because users will have to go find free media players to download - that's why their trying desperately to get away with bundling in competitor software in Windows instead.
If nothing else, it's going to get very interesting watching the MS vs EU battle...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
An OCX is a programming component, like an EJB or a DLL. It is not an application, but applications can be built using it.
Similarly, if MS needs the O/S to be able to play WM video and audio, include some OCX or DLL including only that functionality (say, MSWMAVW.DLL), document the interface, and include an application (removable) that uses it.
Now, I build VanPlayer, a new player that plays all known audio and video formats, including the brand new OVA (Ogg/Van Audio, a new, more efficient Open Algorithm codec). I have the option of playing WMA files using MSWMAVW.dll, or I could use my own custom dll that plays WMA more efficiently. My choice. You, as the customer, have the choice of installing VanPlayer and removing Media Player, Leaving Media Player installed, or having both installed (with different default formats split between the players, e.g. MP10.5 plays WMA, and VanPlayer 1.0 played OVA.)
BTW, MCI32.OCX is not what you think it is.
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
IE is a used to display that data. It does not abide by very many standards and is not required to be able to surf the web.
You could use Mozilla, Opera, Links, Lynx, Mosaic (if you really want to). You can use IE if you would like. You don't have to. If you choose not to use TCP/IP, you probably won't do very much communicating on the internet.
Oh yeah. TCP/IP can be removed on 9x, 2k, Me, XP (I think). I don't believe the same can be said for IE.
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