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Windows Could Lose Media Player in Europe?
Chris Gondek writes "If Microsoft cannot settle an antitrust case brought by European Union regulators, the company may be ordered to remove Windows Media Player as an integrated feature of the dominant Windows operating system, at least for personal computers sold in Europe.
The European Commission also could order Microsoft to include rival media players with Windows to make those products as easy for users to access as Microsoft's own music and video player."
(AP) Microsoft Corp, responding to the unbundling of Media Player from Windows, announced today a broad partnership with RJ Reynolds where a carton of some of RJ Reynold's famed brands, such as Camels, will be offered with Windows Longhorn for Home edition.
"We're excited about adding the Camel camel as one our of automated helpers.", said Microsoft President Steve Balmer. "For example, during a longer search, our Camel character will light up and ask a user to join in."
The Microsoft Longhorn RJ Reynolds edition is expected to be released world wide.
This is my sig.
Browsers and media players *are* part of a modern operating system.
Rivals can simply include an operating system with their media players if they want to compete.
Which, I would think would include the original Windows Media Player crapware.
The problem is that they are installing their own and excluding the others, so they are trying to make them either offer everything, including the competitors, or offer nothing, including their own. At least I think that's what's happening.
'And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo Every day you meet quite a few...'
Also, who gets to decide what products should be included ? I don't use media player, I use zoom player, but I seriously doubt I'll have anything to say on what products should be included instead.
IMHO, instead of including other products etc, let the user choose whether or not he/she wants to install media player during the installation of Windows.
Could it be because competition is a good thing? Sure Real and their practices suck, but would you rather have no choice but WMP? And I'm only addressing you in the general sense, because like americans, there are undoubtably millions of europeans who don't know or give a rat's patoot, so long as they can watch or listen to their hearts content.
Encourage a level playing field and let each player, or those yet to be born, to have a fair shot at it and survive or die based upon their own merits.
"Psst! Push Ogg!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I don't see it that way. If Windows gives me the option to install or not install several different media softwares then that suits me. It also gives me the option to not install the bloat if I don't want it.
:-)
I notice from Windows XP that MS seem to be playing a bit more nicely with other mail clients, browsers, etc by enabling the MS products to be completely hidden. I'd like to see more of that.
When I install a Windows machine I go through the settings and pretty much invert all the defaults which are silly/ugly
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
Linux has no trouble with bundled software because there basically is none forced upon you. Linux itself is just the kernel, any distros that ship anything else will usually give you a few CDs with several hundred popular apps. I can't think of any distro that has just one media player or one browser that you can't install the distro without. Plus, any single distro doesn't have the market share that would constitute a monopoly even if they did force this on you.
What happened to the concept of a free market?
It died when Microsoft became a monopoly.
I'm a FreeBSD user so I say this without bias...
if you are a FreeBSD user how can you say ANYTHING without bias?
Fact: BSD users are losing IQ points...
You're right, it's not. Neither is a 3D engine (DirectX), a browser, an email client, a remote desktop protocol and program, a backup tool, a disk defragmenter, a paint program, a text editor, a solitaire game, a file zipper, and all those nice device and database (ODBC) drivers really aren't part of the OS either - after all, it's not like Microsoft makes most of the stuff that requires those drivers.
Actually, Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to provide any of that to the consumer. Everything they provide in the OS is a lost sales opportunity somewhere else. It's totally anti-competitive of them to provide any of it. You should have to pay for every feature you get. The OS should just make the computer run.
Let's see - besides the cost of the core Windows OS then (which I'm sure you'll argue should be free - so let's just leave that out), you would probably pay about $50 each for every new program you add to the system. If you add 10 new programs to the computer (which is conservative), you get to spend $500.
Now, what does Media Player have to do with the core OS? Nothing. It "merely" makes it useful.
Troll.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
RealPlayer is far worse
"Good day. I see I'm not registered to play MP3, MPG, or AVI. You must have mistakenly unchecked them during install. I've fixed this error automatically"
"Hi! Just thought I'd pop up a message telling you there are new ads to view! Click here to view"
"Trying to uninstall me!? Please write a paragraph on your reasons for uninstalling and submit it to RealMedia for approval. Have you considered upgrading instead?"
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
This is why I always advocated "No Internal Cross-Subsidisation" as a term of monopoly settlement for Microsoft. Then each unit would have to compete and be profitable in its own way, and they couldn't use massive profits in one area to kill off competitors in other areas.
That'd mean that a lot of geeks wouldn't have cheap XBox Linux servers now though. Dunno why they'd want them though, not when modern motherboards with a processor, memory, etc, cost about the same and run faster (e.g. Asrock mobo + 1.6GHz Duron + RAM + cheap HD + cheap case)
Later, a future Service Pack will 'break' the competitors products.
Rinse, wash, repeat.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
OK.... But there is Enterprise Edition that is lean, clean and free from the bloatware sydrome: http://forms.real.com/rnforms/products/tools/red/ Just enter nonsense in the form.