MS May Be Forced To Sell Stripped-Down OS In EU

An anonymous reader submits "According to this article at Infoworld, Microsoft may be forced to sell a stripped-down version of Windows in the EU as a result of antitrust rulings, unless a settlement is reached during the next month to six weeks." (See this post from last week for more background on the EU's antitrust proceedings.)

Comments

Re:All windows are the same

[danny256]

If you want to change your XP cd key you can easily do it without a program.
Follow the instuctions here.

Re:On the same note....

[Frymaster]

I'm sure in 5 years we can expect Apple will be forced to sell a stripped down iPod

why? because of monopolism or market dominance? not likely. as of november 2003 the ipod was the leader in portable digital music player with... 31%.

less than a third.

oh yeah, i have a source for that number.

Re:On the same note....

[cujo_1111]

More to the point, you can get Quicktime for Windows but you can't get WMP for Mac.

Yes, you can...

Re:Have you naked by the end of this song...

[Lord Kano]

Because if you can't handle a one second shot of a bare nipple during the Super Bowl halftime show then I don't think you're ready for a stripped down anything.

The nipple wasn't bare. She had a little sun around it.

Re:On the same note....

[ZeeTeeKiwi]

MSIE, a free web browser, vs Netscape/Mozilla, a free web browser.

But MSIE is not free, in either the libre or gratis sense. MS is on record the IE costs them over USD100M per year and the cost of that is built into the cost of the OS. Win XP should be $40 per pc cheaper, and then the user can be be free (libre) to choose whether they want MS media player or not.

What MS should be made to do:

[jonwil]

1.Remove any references to MSN (so they cant push their MSN internet service or e.g. MSN search
2.Make MSN messenger something that you can choose to install or choose not to install (i.e. if you dont want it, you can choose not to install it and install another messenger or no messenger at all)
3.Completly open up the Windows Media Player codec layer such that anyone can write WMP codecs and anyone can use those codecs in their app (making it so that e.g. games can use the codecs for displaying full-screen video clips or playing game audio would be a nice thing also, I dont know if its already possible or not)
4.Detatch the Windows Media Player UI from windows and from the codecs and make it an optional install.
5.Force microsoft to have one OEM price and one OEM contract. Anyone that wants windows OEM can buy at the same price (as long as they are bundling with a PC, they qualify for OEM price).
6.MS not able to dictate what OEMs can/cant do.
For example, let OEMs install whatever they want alongside windows (i.e. Linux, Mozilla or whatever else)
7.Publish all the communications protocols used by anything that comes on the windows CD under a clear "anyone can use this with no restrictions" licence. Also, publish all of their various data storage formats under the same sort of licence (e.g. NTFS filesystem specs, MS office document formats, MS media files, regular and HTML help document files, .NET binaries etc etc). Ditto for all their "secret" APIs (such as apis in MSHTML.DLL, SHELL32.DLL, SHLWAPI.DLL, SHDOCVW.DLL, SHFOLDER.DLL, WININET.DLL, COMCTL32.DLL, ADVAPI32.DLL, JSCRIPT.DLL, VBSCRIPT.DLL, .NET runtime, .NET libraries, DirectX, Media Player libs and whatever else)
That way, anyone can talk to/use their HTML renderer, internet DLLs and whatever else.
Also, it would (presumably) allow one to write a new HTML renderer (e.g. based on gecko) that could replace the MS one.
8.Force MS to unbundle Outlook Express, publish all the data formats that OE uses to store stuff, etc etc etc. (so that other mail programs can be used instead if you want to)
8.Force MS to completly implement the current W3C standards for HTML, XML and such. This includes complete support for ALL parts of formats like PNG
9.MS not allowed to use patents to protect their monopoly in the OS space (for example, cant use patents on .NET to attack mono)
and 10.MS not allowed to use influence to try and spread products inside EU (e.g. applying pressure to governments/corps who are trying to decide between windows and linux)

These are all important but the most important IMO is point 7 (i.e. the "open all their secrets" thing) since that will level the playingfield as far as competitors go.
For example, Mozilla will be able to talk MS server authentication on all platforms, with no licence conditions or strings attatched.
And things like Linux and ReactOS will have full information to be able to read NTFS file systems.
And so on.

Re:On the same note....

[zero_offset]

the difference is that apple dosn't *abuse* their monopoly with quicktime, while Microsoft does.

Apple doesn't *have* a monopoly.

As far as I can tell, you have Sculley to thank for that. According to this anecdote from a key Mac developer, Jobs wanted to sell the original Mac for about $1500 (up from his original target of $500, incidentally). It was Sculley who decided to charge the outrageous price of $2500, thus establishing the Mac tradition of paying WAY too much for relatively run-of-the-mill hardware.

And if they're willing to price-rape you while they're still just a single-digit market-share player, I imagine they wouldn't hesitate to stick it to you if they actually had influence to bring to bear.