Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft and EU Talks End
Paul Longford writes "Microsoft talks with the EC have collapsed. The competition commisioner Mario Monti just made this statement in which he said: 'I'd just like to inform you that a settlement on the Microsoft case has not been possible. I therefore intend to propose to my colleagues in the Commission next Wednesday to adopt a decision, which has already received the unanimous backing of Member States.' This is bad news for Microsoft - it looking at a considerable fine and possibly being forced to open up Windows. It looks like it will be a harsh decision too. Monti says: 'In the end, I had to decide what was best for competition and consumers in Europe. I believe they will be better served with a decision that creates a strong precedent.'"
I'm glad to see that at least Europe still has some functioning antitrust laws, unlike the US where antitrust laws were effectively gutted by the judiciary.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Steve Balmer rushed over in a last-ditch attempt to try and come to a deal, but the commissioner apparently demanded even-tougher remedies if a negative precedent was not to be set...
The fine is expected to be between 67 million UK pounds, and 670 million UK pounds . Ouch. That's a fair old amount of latitude in the range, but even MS would presumably rather not pay a billion-dollar fine. I know their cash reserves are up in the 40 billion dollar range, but even so it has to hurt. I'd expect the commission to fine them again if they don't do as they're told, as well....
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
OK so they get fined and told how to distribute windows.
Who thinks this will REALLY change anything? That MS will go a little bit more restricted in how media stuff is installed from a start, but they'll keep on doing the same old crap in every other part of their dealings with the EU
Sounds like the EU is going to show some spine and actually ENFORCE their antitrust laws. What a concept.
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
You realize, of course, that this is more about punishing an American company than it is about punishing Microsoft.
Look like Microsoft will get the predicted 10% fine (of annual global sales) and removal of WMP from Windows. Bring on the competition...
How harsh? A fine and opening MS Windows to Real, Quicktime and the like?
This is next to nothing. Nothing short of breaking up MS and demanding published, open APIs, protocols and file formats will do.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I'm not what sort of settlement terms they were discussing, but for Microsoft to allow it to end with no real conclusion sounds like a bad move for them... however, they must have some kind of backup plan. I have no idea what it might be, because this isn't like the situation here in the US where they can keep things tied up in court forever.
Maybe fines and new versions of OS's is OK with them. Hm.
The EU did what the US courts did not have the balls to do. Hmmm, maybe China, India, Russia, Brasil and Indonesia may follow suit, hmmm.
MS contributes a lot of money to both US political parties.. Europe may need "liberating" soon..
I'm sure they have some website about how this is "preventing us from competing" and "stifling our innovation".
Even if they do get fined they will keep appealing, they've got the money to keep trying. They've got the money to "sweeten" a few EU MEPs. I'm fairly surprised the EU has done this given how they suck up to big business.
This could be more fun than the SCO fiasco....Bill, open the file marked JudgementDay.pif :-)
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
MS, enjoy paying the money
Yeah, I'm sure money is sooo scarce for Microsoft."A fine?!? This could ruin us!"
I wish it could make a bigger impact on their finances.
And now begins the lengthy foot-dragging and political manipulations to elect someone(s) who will direct the competition commission to decide MS has suffered enough and we should all go back to our Windows desktops.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
MS need to be given a disincentive to abuse their monopoly power again (IE, WMP, what's next?). A fine that exceeds the profit from such an abuse would be one way. Breaking MS up would be the only real way to prevent it happenning, though. (MS-Windows, MS-Apps separate).
Posters recognized by their sig,
Hopefully this will allow for a more competitive marketplace, where standards are adopted across the board. Open source could really do well because of this. Only a small portion of the world lives in the US, and with the EU nations taking a firm hand in putting down Microsoft.
For those not sure if this will help the US adoption of alternate products, it will. Businesses aren't just local, they import products, export products, and deal in Europe all the time. When Europeans move to other products, the US will make the move, or force Microsoft to adopt the standards the EU companies do.
This doesn't spell the end for Microsoft, but rather, it helps to open up a standards based computing environment. One where if your product is closed and completely proprietary, and threatens vendor lock-in, it won't be well appreciated, nor will it really be possible.
Jason Lotito
...how they will enforce this. What reason has Microsoft got to give in and pay up? It's not like the EU can ban sales of Windows, too many computer purchasers would be terrified of the alternatives. Even if Windows was banned in Europe, the people wouldn't buy computers with Linux on, they would buy Macs.
Sad but true.
A latent existence
Great. They are going to fine and impose these restrictions on Microsoft. How long before it actually happens? Will Microsoft just be able to tie this up with endless appeals and draw it out for another five years?
The way I see it is if this "fine" is more than the hassle of doing business with Europe, I'd pull out.
I'd also rip support of all European languages unless you paid mucho..
I'd also invalidate ALL licenes in Europe..
I'd also go cry to Bush to have them treat ol' MS like a picked on kid....
Course, if they do pull out of Europe, it means Linux would be on the rise, and fast.
tell me, what6's the solution if a monopoly takes on a government, by closing up shop? closes all offices in EU member countries, and no longer licenses it's products for use in those countries..
Hmm, people will import it, and microsoft won't have to support it... hmmm...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I doubt this will take place w/out a long drawn out fight. Microsoft will drag this out as long as possible.
This guy is way out there
that's why they want the strong precident so they go after MS again and again until they play fair (or they go bankrupt wwhich lets face it is more likley than them playing fair)
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
So does this mean that Windows will eventually become a pure OS, with no usable applications? I mean, there are commercial "competitors" in every arena.
No Web Browser (Netscape)
No Media Player (Real)
No Word/Wordpad (Wordperfect)
No Imaging (ACDSee)
No Defrag (Notron Works)
No Zip support (WinZip)
No Solitaire (...)
Seems pretty useless to Joe Average, who just wants to turn on his new PC and play his MP3s and check his email.
"Lookie! We're nice and open now! Easy to develop for! This means more apps and games for you!"
It's not going to really be any different, but I'm sure their marketing deptartment will somehow find a way to use this to their advantage.
Here are the coices I have if I go to buy a computer today: 1) Buy it piece by piece, and put it together myself, to my liking. Install any flavor of Open Source OSes or Windows I desire 2) Buy it from one of the thousands of computer stores without an OS and install the OS of my choice: Any flavor of Open Source OSes or Windows 3) Buy it preinstalled with Windows and in a smaller number preinstalled with Linux 4) (if worst came to worst) -- I can buy a Mac As for the applications -- Well I will not even go there. Each platform has plenty
The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid. Fcuknig amzanig eh!
In the end, I had do decide what was best for competition and consumers in Europe. I believe they will be better served with a decision that creates a strong precedent. It is essential to have a precedent which will establish clear principles for the future conduct of a company with such a strong dominant position in the market. In short: You will be made an example. OUCH.
Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
I have to say that much as I am anti-Microsoft and think they've got a monopoly that needs dealing with, I am rather worried about what this will mean.
Well, slightly worried, anyway.
If Windows is deemed anticompetitive in the media-stakes, well all that can really be done is to force MS to allow WIndows to come with alternatives installed. That's not really gonna affect them. It sure ain't gonna affect me, as should I ever buy another Windows PC then the first thing I'll do (like with my current one) is to repartition and reinstall to my tastes. So if Real & Quicktime are included, they won't be for long.
And there's no easy way they can force MS to include them on an installation disc, at least not wtihout clearing the licensing with Apple and Real.
And in all honesty, I can't see MS being forced to break up and open up any time soon. It just isn't going to happen.
TiggsTiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/18/news/international /microsoft_eu.reut/index.htm
"The company is certain to appeal against a Commission decision in the European courts. Litigation could take several years."
At which time any verdict will be pretty much irrelevant.
Wonder how this affects Longhorn planning. Anyone with insight on this?
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
Modern Linux distributions are NOT hard. Mandrake, SuSE, Fedora, Xandros, Lindash, etc. All easy. Please mod the parent down. He has obviously not tried a distro with KDE 3.2 on it.
So, I advise ALL people who think linux is hard to try the latest versions. People can't afford macs anyway. They cost around the equivilent of $10,000 usd for a g5 in the UK (no i'm not kidding), when I can get generic x86 pcs for around the equivilent of $300. Mod this lying idiot down.
I suspect you're right. And I don't think anyone would be complaining if they were satisfied with MS products. What it really boils down to is being confined to third-rate software as Steve Jobs put it. A fine is a fine, and even $1 billion will not make a dent in the MS universe. So there has to be a way to force them to uphold product standards too.
Watching what Phatbot is currently doing, it's pretty obvious to me that they'll never make it.
Tearing down Microsoft won't strengthen the open source movement. Those of you who are rejoicing are in the wrong mindset. You people are slowly becoming the bane of that which you love.
Nobody wins this way. True change and excellence come from within.
"Never tell me the odds"
1. A appeal request does not have to be granted.
2. A appeal does not guarantee that the restrictions being placed on them will not be imposed while the appeal is running.
Got Code?
Not really chilling at all. Microsoft has the best hand no matter what any company, law firm, or government agency says. It can simply say it will stop supporting and releasing patches for its products and that it will close it's doors and go out of business before it releases it source. This would leave a huge number of users and admins scrambling to find another platform. This would effectively grind the IT sector to a halt.
For all you zealots who says we can use Linux instead, that is great in theory but imagine the economic impact of replacing 80% of the computer desktops and a smaller but significant number of the servers.
What would happen if M$ revoked their Eurpean licenses and stopped supporting all European software? What if they took it a step further and required the uninstallation of all M$ software? Effectively, M$ would be saying, "Do it our way or our way. You have no other option." The open source migrations to date have not been tremendously successful. So would the Eurpean govermnents and industry be forced to use M$ products because there really isn't an alternative? They have such a tremendous investment in Windoze and PC hardware that they may be stuck...
Up to 1bn in fines? Exactly how much money did they make by being corrupt?
This makes breaking the law sound like a good return on investment. I'm sure that any other company would gladly pay 1bn to have control of 95% of all computers.
It is better than the US DOJ letting Microsoft pick their punishment, but come on.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
Is it just me or does this seem alot less of the "EU using anti-trust laws", and more of "EU removing USA trust from domiance in EU market." Why do have the feeling if MS was based in UK that suit wouldn't have been filed. (Of course if MS was based outside the US, the US would actually fine them in money and not software.) I feel the real reason Linux has been getting used in goverments has more to do with hiring of local contractors to keep it running than saving any money.
Remember it is about power, politics, and money. Not right or wrong.
Independent software packages would be once again able to compete in the marketplace again, like in the olden days. It would be good for the software industry as a whole is MS is forced to sell a plain OS and be prohibited from giving the apps away for free since they are a convicted monopolist and giving away free apps would make them predatory in the marketplace.
..will it change anything? after all, if MS are forced to sell 2 versions of the OS, then is there anything to stop them selling XP Pro full (with WMP etc) for 150 and the 'XP cripple' for 155?
MS surely cannot afford to pull out entirely of the EU. i admit that they have alot of cash, but ALL the member states - now that's alot of people, and alot of money....
... There seems to be a good amount of "they-are-all-out-to-get-us" sentiment in the parent's remark. Let's put some things in perspective here:
You see, courts in Europe have this strange idea that they are there to enforce the law and protect consumers. To make matters more absurd, they choose to stick to their principles even if large companies are involved. Strange, huh? ;)
And now the facts: the EU will, and has done so numerous times in the past, also punish European companies if they break antitrust laws. A complete list of antitrust cases from 1964 is here. And to give a nice example: in the cases so far in 2004, all of the listed companies are European.
That goes to show you.
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
If the Bush administration had been tougher on Microsoft, maybe they would have solved these problems before Europe stomped on them.
When Microsoft is forced to behave everywhere _except_ the United States, then they will end up having to behave in the USA as well.
Getting an easy sentence from the US Anti-Trust conviction may not have been as favorable as it looked originally.
The EU commision is composed by people suggested by the national governments, and approved as a whole by the EU parliament. Most of the national governments are elected by the national parliaments, which is mostly composed by people elected on party lists in a propertional system, rather than directly by the voters.
It is an extremely indirect form for democracy, at best, and it is easy to influence by lobbyism and somewhat prone to corruptions. And it is damn slow. However, it is much harder to influence by manipulating the elections. There is no "single point of failure" like with the US president.
The linked Techworld article says something insightfull, but yet overlooked by posters:
To waive the ruling, Monti asked Microsoft to commit not to distort competition by bundling peripheral software programs to Windows in the future. Microsoft, it would appear, declined.
It seems that real problem was not about including WMP in Windows, but Microsoft refusing to stop doing similar things in the future.
When in doubt, go to the library. - Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
If the EU decision forces the commercial MediaPlayers to be included with Windows. I'd like to see she open source players too. And some commercial and open source IM clients (Miranda with Jabber is my fav).
That would demonstrate the danger of depending on a single vendor in a way everybody inside and outside EU could understand. Microsoft would have much more to lose on such an action than the EU, who could simply declare that MS by its illegal actions has lost its copyright, or maybe temporarily suspend it while transition to other systems.
I am pondering here...does anyone else think the failure to settle with the EU might jeopardize Ballmer's executive position at Microsoft? Considering how active the large pension funds have been lately with corporate boards (CalPERS - against Michael Eisner at Disney, and certain board members of HP), I think this might lead to an institutional shareholder revolt. Granted, Ballmer owns a lot of stock in Microsoft to counter such an action, but still, the humiliation. We're talking more humiliation than that monkey dance video from years back!
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
"Who thinks this will REALLY change anything?"
It will change the consumers' perception of what Microsoft actually is: An anti-competitive monopolist with questionable business practices.
If anything it will be one more anti trust case out of the way. They'll pay their fine and be on their way. "We paid our fine, what else do you want from us". Don't think they will take this sitting down either... they will screw the EU somehow. Raise prices in Europe, buy the continent and turn them into slaves to build a giant monument to Bender, you know the drill. The ONLY thing they could do to really affect Microsoft is a) break them up like ma bell was and b) rip out parts of the OS and make it so a default windows install has almost nothing. Neither of these will happen of course. There are no talks of the EU splitting them up and the most gutting of windows they are talking about is media player. They could take away media player completely and it's doubtful it would have even a minimal of impact upon them.
It is nice to see laws being applied as if they were real laws. Here in the US being found guilty of being a monopoly seems to be an academic exercise. That still scared Microsoft enough to put their own man on the Bar Association's Antitrust group that decides how Antitrust lawsuits should be handled.
I wonder if it's just easier for the EU to do this type of thing to an outsider to Europe as opposed to an already entrenched monopoly that started in Europe. Is this just protectionism, or will the EU actually stand up to all Monopolies, foreign and domestic?
Let's face it, microsoft would do fine without the european market. If microsoft decided to stop selling products to Europe, it would hurt european buisnesses more than MS. Alot more.
European customers would preasure the EU get off MS by the end of the year.
MS has a monopoly, regulating them is way to late, specialy if they decide to fight back.
and thus create true competition.
I'd expect most consumer PC's to be sold with Minimal Windows plus a number of other application bundled, just like many of them are sold with XP Home plus MS Works or another "productivity package" bundled.
Many would bundle MS products, but many would not, thus creating a situation where MS packages would actually have to compete on merit and mindshare, not just by being the default.
Trouble is, people here at Slashdot think it's possible to have
Not trying to diss you, I think you've a point, but the Commission stance is a lot stronger than the US antitrust case from a few years ago. The Commission is considerably stronger than a lot of people give it credit for, give it some time. This decision will carry a great deal of weight.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Nothing short of breaking up MS and demanding published, open APIs, protocols and file formats will do.
Will do what? Destroy the company?
My user number is prime. Is yours?
I love you!
Where were rational people like you on slashdot back when the US was fighting MS?
Clearly if a major customer like the EU wants a custom version of all Windows from now on then each release will have to be regression tested differently. That translates to all EU specific releases will take somewhat longer to get out the door. I think 6 months is fair.
What are you talking about? The EU can mandate what goes on in their territory. IF YOU WANT TO DO BUSINESS IN THE EU, you can't bundle this. IF YOU WANT TO DO BUSINESS IN THE EU, don't merge with another large competitor. What's so confusing about that?
Windows has included at least some form of media player since 3.11 at least, and I suspect long before that. So do all Linux distributions, and so did BeOS. A media player of some sort is a part of a modern OS distibution.
Who are we to say what they can and can't add to their OS? If I released a third party calculator application, could I demand they remove calc.exe from Windows? How about telnet and ftp? Both of these have commercially available equivalents. So do disk utitilies, that are pretty much equivalent to disk defragmenter. Should Windows come with no applications at all? Can they even justify allowing them to bundle windows explorer (Not IE - I mean the file system browser)? It would be easy enough to write an alternative.
If I release an application for a platform that already contains the equivalent, I have no justification to complain that they're not playing fair. I can either make it better than the one that comes with the OS, try to sell it to the OS vendor, or try making my money some other way.
Now we are being told to accept that the EU now decides how US companies do business WITH ONE ANOTHER. Getting a little too big for their britches.
Hey, I hate Europe as much as the next necent human being, but they're not telling microsoft how to sell their product in America / Lagos / Indonesia / insert_random_place_here. They're saying, if you're going to sell in Europe, you will follow europe's rules.
If you blog it...
I'd imagine they'll pull the same crap they did with their J++ dev studio: present an "option" to not install WMP, with a stern warning saying Windows may become unstable (hah!) if it's not installed.
They'll probably include a seedy reference to the Commission decision forcing them to do this too.
I'm generally in favour of Open Source software, but my attitude is that if Microsoft make an OS, they should be free to sell what they want with it, regardless of whether they have 5% or 90% of the market.
I know this attitude screwed Netscape over, but consider that the reverse side could be seen as SCOs; "the others have become more advanced, rendering our technology obselete, but we should be able to sit on our butts and get licensing fees"
I do not really feel that governments should interfere in the market, except that in recognition of the fact that they are the largest buyers, they should mandate as much open standards for all software that they purchase and use. Banning use of proprietary standards in all government dealings would be a much greater incentive to open source software and competition than all the market regulation and fines could ever achieve.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
This isn't standing up to "America" this is standing up to an American company that thinks it can buy its way out of anything. M$ bought its way out with our government yes however I'm happy to see its not working in EU. Good job so far.
I'm expecting Microsoft to next try using their US politicians to cause problems for the EU over this.
Your points are valid, but I think the issue is escaping you. Yes MS beat the competition fair and square, on their merits, with superior products.
The issue is how they have have 'abused' the position of a monopoly having suceeded.
There is a perenial general problem of how to deal with monopolies. In the limit monopolies defeat free market capitalism as surely as socialism.
Ideally power should be asymptotic, ie very easy to get to 50% market dominance, harder to get to 60/70% and damn near impossible to go above 80/90% market dominance.
Unfortunately unchecked free markets have the opposite (positive) feedback effect. Having achieved 50% market dominance it becomes EASIER to go the next mile. That's why government intervention is a necessary evil.
M$ decided to pull out of Europe, stop selling its products there, and invalidate all existing licenses? Hmmm... how about not merely seizure of physical assets, but also seizure and invalidation of European copyrights on ALL M$ software on national security grounds, and release of said code into the public domain? Yeah, that'd be a REAL good business decision on Bill's part.
I admire your cunning plan!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Why the fines? Why the lawsuits?
Let Microsoft be. It's the quickest way to beat them. By forcing all of these issues, you're creating an even bigger monopoly out of the company.
If you simple let them be, someone will eventually come along and do something better. They will create a competitive product. This is still a relatively new market (Less than 20 years old). Look at the market in cars or anything else. It just takes time for this all to happen.
By allowing Microsoft to go along their merry way, they will stop being innovative and then superior products will begin to overtake the giant.
Right now we're just playing into the old addage - That which does not kill us makes us stronger. And nothing we've done has killed microsoft yet.
Agreed. And that means, in a sense, we're doomed.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Who needs Microsoft? The software that is installed would continue working, until replaced by alternatives, like Linux and OpenOffice.org.
Please, Microsoft! Stop supporting us!
- Just another Old European
Yeah! I was totally unaware of Microsoft's anti-competitive monopolistic behavior until this ruling. All my friends were shocked as well.
No, the EU only decides how US companies do business within the EU. And, in case you are wondering, they have every right to do so.
Of course, US companies might start to wonder if they are being screwed by MS, seeing how MS is (albeit forcibly) playing nicely in European markets.
amen.
- tristan
Punishing Microsoft for monopolistic behavior is hardly ... uhm ... post-Christian marxist-fascist-existentialist nihilist behaviour.
It's straight-forward execution of the state's obligation to enforce rules of fair play as defined by consensus and trial-and-error through the ages. One of those is to prevent manipulation of markets by parties powerful enough to take a monopoly position.
Monopolists distort the markets and supress free competition so as to extract maximum resources from consumers. This is bad for innovation, for economic performance and for society as a whole. There is only one organ that we grant the right to raise taxes, and that is the State itself.
The EU are doing their job. The US have failed to do this perhaps because the State and Business are too close together.
BTW, wtf does p-C m-f-e-n actually mean? I mean, wtfffff??
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Come an ave a go if yer think yer ard enough!
Doubt it'd go nuclear tho... as America launches, Britain counters via Trident / Storm Shadow or vice versa while France probably panic-strikes both of us. Not to mention the risk of Russia assuming the missiles are on the way to them....
Sounds pretty terminal
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Let's hope it will have a little more impact on Microsoft's business practices than the last judgment
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
How else would you explain the time it took for most us software houses to move over to unicode?
Those pesky europeans with their damned
So, then, the big, big, question:
I don't think the EU has the authority to do what almost happened in the U.S. - company breakup. Placing a set tax on the company would have to be high enough to hurt *and* come with a stipulation to keep the company from raising prices to subsidize the loss. Releasing the code for public use would do good, but I'm not sure if that's enough to affect Microsoft. Ordering the product removed from EU nations wouldn't hold up to even *my* scrutiny, let alone a European court. Order European representatives of Microsoft thrown in jail until conditions are met?
...okay, that one would be interesting....
Nicholas Eckert
vidstudent
You are thinking Microsoft sells windows directly to the public, and it doesn't. The missing component in this vision are the OEMs. The real outcome here is not that MS will be forced to bundle these other apps with Windows, but that they will no longer be able to prevent (European) OEMs from doing so.
So think OEMs, these are the companies that actually distribute Windows, not Microsoft.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Too bad they are not going for the only sanction that would actually make a difference in promoting competition:
Stopping the force-feeding of Winodws with new PC:s.
There should be a law that would REQUIRE the OS to be a separate item in the bill for a new PC. If someone does not want it, the PC must be cheaper by exactly the normal retail price of the OS (no matter which OS). The OS could be pre-installed, no problem, but if the customer does not want it, the dealer must remove the OS and lower the price.
As I see it, THIS would be the only way to level the paying field for OS'es.
(or rather, in modern terms, WTO, how many stealth MIRVed ICBMs?)
Lets take the analogy a bit further..
.. heck even your music system and the repair shops use Ford as the defacto standard. Of course, Ford has patents and strong arm tactics to maintain its position in the market.
Ford (Microsoft) has 90% of the market. Gas stations have pumps (hardware/drivers) that only work on Fords and virtually all dealers (dell, gateway, etc..) will only sell you a Ford. Parking spots, roadways
You could buy a Toyota (Red Hat). Unfortunately when you do, you realize that you end up having to find different pumps to get gas (which are few and far between), cannot buy a Toyota fully assembled (computer w/Red Hat installed) and end up having to buy a Ford (Wintel machine) and installing Toyota parts (Red Hat & software). Of course, even after you have your Toyota and you realize it is better (more fuel efficient, more reliable, more features, etc..), you find that Ford's dominance adversely affects the full potential of your Toyota. You no longer can use the local pumps down the street, you end up having to do maintenance by yourself (as very few if any of the shops will service your Toyota), and worse of all, your favorite parking spots, streets and music (software) is not supported full on the Toyota so you end up either having to find completely new music, new places to drive and new parking spots or end up simply being constrained on where you can go.
The bottom line is this -- cars don't work this way. I had a Honda and bought a Toyota. My CDs still worked in in, I could still get the same gas, drive the same roads, park in the same parking spots. The basic fundamental "user interface" is the same -- perhaps laid out slightly different. I can get it serviced at a wide variety of places, get the oil changed at the neighborhood gas station. No problems.
Unfortunately, when talking about computer system choice, this is obviously not as "drop in and go" as you make it out to be. The fact that Microsoft monopolized the market, coerced OEMs into supporting only MS products (bundling deals and the like), effectively dumps their product to get people hooked and does not follow industry standards to maintain a certain level of lock-in adversely affects everyone.
There is way too much money in Europe. That will never happen. Microsoft has a *lot* of levels to lobby and bribe at. There are a lot of concessions they could make. Even in the most extreme hypothetical situation -- Microsoft gets banned from putting out Windows in Europe (which won't happen), they'd just put out a Linux distribution or something.
May we never see th
When I try to read the story linked to by the Slashdot posting (using Opera, although that may not matter), I can't! There's a big ugly Microsoft ad obscuring the first few paragraphs!
Ironic or intentional???
-David.
How is The EU going to make MS pay? Couldn't MS just pull completely out of the EU? If they have such a huge monopoly, wouldn't that be a big blow to a set of systems that already "dependent" on MS Software?
I'm just wondering which will be deemed the bigger loss of property to them... the forced OSing of their software and a huge fine, or to pull out and make any EU company who wants their software go through import channels.
I'm not a MS fan, but forced source disclosure seems a bit of a slippery slope to me.
Just a thought. Please resume, the "YAY EU!!"s and MS Bashing.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
All I heard until now was noise about media players. Nothing about a more general root solution as the poster seemed to imply.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
so microsoft have admited they will continue to abuse there monopoly. I say fine them hard and fine them everyday that they don't bring out a lite windows after all that's what microsoft want done to Lindows.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
This would really pave the way for a market where the best product wins. Be it open or closed source. Which I'm sure is the ideal of everybody, right? :-)
PS: This would not be enough for a fair competition though. IMHO it should also be illegal for hardware vendors to supply drivers for windows only. But it's another matter. Ah, cruel world.
The company as it is organised today isn't important, its services are. The services and their users would be much better if the services and products were opened (as in open standards, published interfaces), and this can only be enforced if MS is reduced to several especialised companies instead of today's conglomerate.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
This is not a troll, idiot. This is a serious possibility. It's been done before in other fields under the guise of national security here in the US. I have personal experience of at least one instance, I'm sure there have been MANY more.
The EU just wants to get their hands on the cash that MS is holding. Really, they can impose restrictions to curb the monoploy that MS holds without such a high fine. It reminds me of small towns setting up excessive speed traps to get revenue.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Remember when Microsoft first bundled a TCP/IP stack with Windows (I think it was Windows 95)? TCP/IP vendors complained bitterly, and suggested that Microsoft should be forced to sell Windows without TCP/IP. I wonder if that issue will be revisited. If Microsoft's right to control its own property is compromised, I don't see where the line can be drawn.
Come to think of it, there was a time when third parties sold memory managers for Windows . . .
I was wondering what /.ers have to think about MS pulling its product line out of the EU. I am not sure what their return on investment is in the proprietary market of EU, but if they were to pull their product from preinstallations, this would probably apease the courts, and allow them to have a market. This being an alternative to opening their source (something I think they would never do). And they could still make some revenue from internet sales on machines with windows preinstallations and they might be able to sneak a copy of the OS into the packaging of new machines. I am sure they will at least run the numbers on scenarios such as this to see if it will more cost effective than having a reacuring 1-3 billion dollar fine.
And then they armed me with moderator points and the world mourned.
How outrageous! The USA has of course never tried to influence how business is done outside it's borders.
When you are sure of something, you probably are wrong (search for "Unskilled and Unaware of It").
After all, you've go the superior OS, the source and everythings hunky dory. Why then would you care what some vendor you don't use is doing with thier source?
--- "1.21 Jigawatts!" -Doc
The services and their users would be much better if the services and products were opened (as in open standards, published interfaces)
Better for WHO? Sure it would be better for the users, but like I said before, it would destroy the company. Microsoft would not exist if it weren't for their proprietary nature. That would be very BAD for their shareholders. (Not that I'm against MS being knocked down, I'm just making a point that it's not better for EVERYONE)
My user number is prime. Is yours?
I'm not an MS fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm curious as to what people here think is "fair" in a realistic sense.
Open Source is nice, for example, but does that mean proprietary software is "unfair?"
So we can come to the car analogy again, for example, if someone starts putting proprietary air filters or even a proprietary stereo (where you can't figure out the connections, for example - you'd have to rip out all the old speakers and everything and completely replace it to put a new one in). Those things would really suck, and make me not want to buy that car, but would it really be "unfair?" Should the government step in and say that car manufacturer can no longer install stock stereo systems?
I realize we can go around in circles about what consumers are "forced" to buy when they buy a new computer, but the fact is that now, more than there has been in the past 20 years, there is a choice. So we can rag on all the losers that don't know a bit from a byte or what an OS even is, but if they are the majority and they want their "free" media player/browser/whatever installed when they buy the computer, is it "fair" to tell them they can't have that? Isn't this just making things difficult for the vast majority of the people involved?
I suppose we can look at future rewards from current hardships, but we have to ask if it's really necessary.
For the record, I don't buy MS software, I won't even buy an X-Box even though I love games, I just can't bear the thought of giving my money to MS. However, I'm not such an idiot that I don't understand why other people do it, and they should be free to do it if they want. People should start taking personal responsibility, if they put up with that crap, the manufacturers will abuse them - the same as we are being abused by the RIAA and MPAA and keep going back for more. If enough people abandon MS, they will get the picture.
A subscription to Mandrake, for example, is a good start... so is not buying cheapbytes discs, but buying them from the actual distributers. Macinstosh, for many, is also a fine solution, although I have no doubt that given the market share they'd be just as bad, if not worse, than MS.
Let's assume there's 500,000 slashdot subscribers. Let's assume 80% are open source advocates who use Linux. Let's assume they all did the $60/year Mandrake subscription. That's 400,000 * 60 = $24,000,000 that goes to Mandrake Linux. Let's say Mandrake is supporting a number of OpenSource projects. All those projects improve (not necessarily) and create more demand. After two years, 800,000 people subscribe. That's how it's supposed to happen, not by crying to the government to impose restrictions on your competition so that everything is "fair" - that's like a Harrison Bergeron world.
I'm really beginning to hate the word "fair", because I don't think most people actually understand what it means.
BTW, cheers to the people in the EU who fought this fight and made it happen. I don't know about any of your constitutions as much as I'd certainly like to, but the U.S. constition has no provision that life will be "fair".
This is not to say I don't agree with laws banning some monopoly tactics (like dumping and tying), just that I think it's not as clear cut as a lot of people think (is MS dumping their product by giving it for free with the OS when other companies don't charge for their media players or browsers?) Even the tying claims are difficult because it does give better performance to integrate some things with the OS, even if we all disagree that the performance gains outweight the problems that can cause.
I guess my biggest problem with all this is that it is not going to make MS go away, or even lose marketshare. As such, it's not going to cause third party developers to support linux or open standards (which is what we really want, isn't it?). We can't rely on the government to do that.
MS cannot "beat" OpenSource software, but it can keep us b
Stupid sexy Flanders.
> The EU commision is composed by people suggested by the national governments, and approved as a whole by the EU parliament.
> There is no "single point of failure" like with the US president.
Well, apart from the directly elected European parliament that is...
Sure it's low turnout for electing MEPs, but the US presidential election turnout is pretty poor too is it not?
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
How many consumers are even aware of this case? How many care?
The Hague Invasion Act being one of the examples. Maybe, after the election, the law is broadened even more to include economic charges against an American based company as a valid reason to act against European countries.
It may have been a joke, but this could leave a sour taste.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Still can't really see what effect this will have. More pre-installed drek for me to lose as soon as I can, if I ever need to buy a Windows PC.
Also if there's one thing I trust less than Microsoft, it's the software that gets pre-installed by such OEMs.
I can't help but thinking that it's less a step in the right direction, but a step away from the wrong direction - but not one that's necessarily going in one that's better.
TiggsTiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
Video Lan CLient (VLC) isa free multimedia tool that was statered a "project at the French Ecole Centrale Paris but is now a worldwide project". And there ate too many others to mention. Compition if rife in that particular market and MS seems to actually be at a disadvantage because they refure to distribute many audi oand visual codecs.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
DuBeers has a near monopoly in diamonds while Microsoft has a near monopoly in desktop computers.
I donno about you but I use my computer more than diamonds!
Harm to the consumer...Well, let's see, in the last month or so about 20 new viruses or worms have been released focusing on vulnerabilities in Windows, in addition several known security problems exist in IE which propogate the problem of viruses, and as Windows/IE is packaged together and has more than 90% of the market share, the viruses are much more easily spread and cost companies billions of dollars each time.
Yeah, no harm to the consumer there.
As someone that has worked in the EU government, I would say that this case is extremly politically motivated. The European Commission's DG Compitition authorities don't touch the diamond trade because they are afraid the Antwerp / London based industry will leave the EU completely. A lot of what the diamond industry does is not properly taxed by member states but that's OK because they have political clout. Europeans say the monopoly is better than not having the industry at all... which imlies that the EU would be LESS likely to fine Microsoft if it was a European company engaged in the same practices. Regardless of whether you think MS is good or evil, please don't think the EU is an honest anti-trust body... the timing of this case might be more to do with Bush / Anti-Americanism than anything MS has done.
This happens all the time. In fact, I would say that it is almost expected.
/. here have we had about the exportation of jobs in the US to other countries? More than I can remember but all of the economics aside if we just focus on the politics of it what we are asking is for the goverment to favor our country over others.
How many threads on
I think that it's a normal thing to expect your local goverment to stick up for your own more than others. Not that it is always right but it's nothing new.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
You are sadly getting caught up in a typical USsian anti-EU mentality.
- Its De Beers, not DuBeers. Get your names straight. It does not bode well for the rest of your arguments.
- De Beers is founded and largely still operates from South Africa, not the EU.
- The MS EU show is about misuse, NOT -having- a monopoly, please show how DE Beers misuses their monopoly, and how this is "magnitudes worse" for WE, the people, then MS'ses -proven- misuse.
Thanks
"/Dread"
Nearly half of all MS revenues come from Europe, and they only have a monopoly supply of their software as long as EU governments say so. An MS embargo of Europe is a non starter.
the main problem is there abuse of being a monopoly not the actual monopoly it self.
Ok, I'm just ranting now. Cheers
There's nothing like a good old rant it helps keep the blood pressure down.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Its everything i can say! This is the first time that i feel that Microsoft can not do whatever they want.
:)
The empire is falling!!!
May the force be with you
Who are you comparing M$ with?
De Beers doesn't have a true monopoly. Neither does OPEC. De Beers is part of a functional monopoly on diamonds, whose prices are grossly inflated. This has reached the point of common knowledge - though I've heard some talk that Russian diamonds are set to start a bit of a price war - with artificial diamonds soon to follow.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
So I connected the PC, loaded the company image w/o the software and promptly spent the next couple hour downloading patches since the last image was made. Didn't need any of the OEM software in my company, so it was pointless of getting it in the first place.
So we can come to the car analogy again, for example, if someone starts putting proprietary air filters or even a proprietary stereo (where you can't figure out the connections, for example - you'd have to rip out all the old speakers and everything and completely replace it to put a new one in). Those things would really suck, and make me not want to buy that car, but would it really be "unfair?" Should the government step in and say that car manufacturer can no longer install stock stereo systems?
If you couldn't get your car without the Stereo, the multiple cd changer. Sure, it's free, wink wink, nudge, nudge.
Do you remember that Netscape wanted and needed to change for their browser? And Bill Gates said in a public forum that MS still had OS revenue and they could "compete" in the "free" browser market while he didn't see how Netscape could.
After MS included the browser for free, loaded on the machine, and excluded any other browsers, Netscape was forced to enter the "Free" browser market and simply make money on server products. (They're not free, Netscape had to try to leverage it's server market products market-share to support the "free" browser.) I can't find quotes, as they're old but some of the statements by Gates are pretty damning.
It's been said many times before, but once you reach monopoly status, you can't use the same tactics to force people out of your markets. The power and ability to do so, the theory goes is too great and the results always ultimately hurt consumers.
So, no, I don't think this is unjustified. Sure, it's way late and probably will only serve to increase the rising tide against MS, rather than early on where it could have turned the tide. That's too bad, but we shouldn't give up on prosecuting the murderer simply because it was 20 years ago and he's in jail on bank fraud. (Not to mention, we don't know where things will go tomorrow and having a judgement in the bank will go a long ways to prevent abuse as much as possible as MS either reforms or dies.)
Anyway...
Cheers,
Greg
Despite all the horror that DeBeers causes in third-world countries, from a European anti-trust perspective they only hurt diamond buyers: rich, bland, unimaginative money wasting types. I mean, they are getting ripped off for buying a glorified piece of coal they don't need and which serves no purpose at all. It means more taxes, great!
Microsoft, on the other hand, hurts all computer users, which is pretty much everyone in the EU.
That's not an implausible argument. But the US is also (or was) harder on foreign companies than on local ones. The reason it isn't anymore is because all the politicians are for sale (well, all the powerful ones), and they don't care about the nationality of the people who pay them. I don't consider this to be an improvement.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
two issues imho 1. Windows 3.0 did not have media player as far as I remember. They made big fuss in 3.1 when some basic sound tools were introduced as "multimedia" 2. M$ is a monopoly (repeat monopoly). That is why certain retriction apply (and more should) that do not exist if the market is competitive.
Because florida disenfranchised over 10,000 (mostly black) voters. They _illegally_ turned them away at the polls, saying they were not allowed to vote, when they, in fact, were.
This election was clearly stolen.
I am not too concerned, as Kerry will win the election in november. I am so convinced of this, that I am willing to bet money on it.
Be patient world. We are going to get rid of Bush. Im sorry for what has happened. Please forgive us and work with us to fix the mistakes he has made.
("Bush" being the current administration. Bush himself isnt really at fault for most of this stuff.)
Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson
Somebody Mod this guy up! He has told what is really going on. All the funny arguments to the contrary his report goes right to the fact. His report tells what is going on and right on the point.
What is going on in world trade is that the USA gave the EU the drivers seat regards the WTO and GATT and they are driving. The fact that it was American Ignorance that allowed this to develop does nothing to alter the fact.
Frankly as an American I am glad at several levels that M$ is getting the *#%##!!** knocked out of them by the EU. But this has more to do with the old dictum that in war, "The Enemy of my Enemy is my friend." M$ is probably everything and worse than described on /..
The reality of our world is that Americans are being IGNORANT of reality too much and are shall we say stepping in the manure. Examples of this extend widely and are too numerous to name here.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
This isn't about you and your ability to install a brand new windows from scratch.
It is about the average Joe User who wouldn't even think there is something else than WMP let alone download and install.
This is about giving Joe User a choice, not about you!
Move Sig. For great justice.
Copyright is a purely artificial invention. So Europe simply suspends Microsoft's rights and either: a) allows Windows to be freely copied and distributed within the EU or, more likely b) it sets a fixed price at which people can obtain Windows from the EU. The EU takes a cut to cover costs, fines etc and passes the rest on to Microsoft.
The bottom line is MS needs Europe much, much more than Europe needs Microsoft.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Who modded the parent as insightful when there are already several comments below refuting it?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
As far as I Know they have to do more in order to give others more chance to compete. They have to reveal source code and specifiy interfaces to serversoftware. Could they be fined just for delivering bad error prone software that causes bilions of dollars of damage through software leaks and vulnarabilities? Regards, Martin.
Should Windows come with no applications at all?
This is exactly the point of the most extreme remedy: breaking up Microsoft into an applications division and an OS division. The OS would be developed entirely separately from the applications, and they would never meet until an OEM installed them on a system to sell. This would prevent them (at least in theory) from using hidden, arcane APIs to make their own products work better than other peoples'. If this happened, and they actually stayed apart, we might actually see real competition in the OS world and the office-suite world.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Suppose Microsoft is forced to provide the option of a version of Windows XP without the media player? Now that it's pretty well established a foothold in the marketplace, how many customers and OEMs are really going to exercise such an option? Plus, they already have XP Embedded waiting that could be easily adapted to this purpose.
Net effect on Microsoft's media strategy: minor speedbump.
Fines: I've heard talk of 2e8 Euros. Even with the depreciation of the dollar, MS has 6e10 dollars in cash. That's about, oh, 0.3 per cent. Like, hurt me.
Effect on Microsoft's cash flow: minor speedbump.
This may appear stringent compared with the US Justice Department's settlement, but it's still no big deal for Microsoft.
As usual, the wheels of justice have arrived too little, too late.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Well, you are missing one significant point :
...) are a very little part of the market.
...
there are many car producers (Honda, Ford, Mercedes, Toyota, BMW, Saab, Fiat, Peugeot, Renauld and many more) which are sharing that market...
But Microsoft is NOT sharing the computer market with anyone... Microsoft do use bad practices to grab more and more share market and alternative (MacOS, Linux,
On one side, we have a competitive market, on the other side, we have a quasi-monopolistic market...
That allowed Microsoft to put a "Microsoft tax" on computer (which is slowly being removed as more and more PC makers are selling PC without Windows), to push many other poduct while making their competitor's fail (as if Honda was also selling park-doors and was using his position in selling cars to push people to only uses his doors ),
Anti-monopoly laws are to prevent such misuse of a dominant position in one market...
"I mean, if I go out to a Honda dealership, while I'm looking at an Accord, they don't tell me the specs of a Camry. They sell me a Honda product with Honda accessories."
You are, however, making the choice to buy Honda. It wouldn't even occur to 95% of people to choose anything other than a Windows PC such is their effective and pervasive monopoly on consumer computing.
"IMHO, if Microsoft is forced to open their source to the European market, they should just pull the plug. Don't sell it anymore, revoke all European lisences, and tell them to install Linux. You know for a fact that the general populus would flip. Most of them would flip at the idea."
Well, they wouldn't go for Linux, they would go for Apple instead because Apple have the muscle to market themselves as a Windows alternative in such a situation, the Linux distros do not. This has obvious consequences for major US tech companies such as Dell and Intel who would see a market of 400 million people disappear over the course of a year.
"OK, last thing. I also don't understand what jurisdiction the European market has over MS. If they are an American based company, how can they order MS to open their source and include other versions of Web Browsers and Media Players."
If I went and murdered some poor sap in Wisconsin, could I claim that the US courts didn't have authority because I'm a European based human?
The trial is actually about what Microsoft did, not what they are doing. There are various cases of them outright lying about competitors products and coding their own product (great to control the OS) to break the competition's products. They did use unfair influence to tie their prices not to the number of units bought, but the the number of competitor's units bought.
Currently they've only written about trying to embrace and extend certain necessary protocols to kill Linux, they've had close dealing with SCO, etc.
While at any one time there may not be enough to say MS should be shut down for, the company has had a history of outright criminal actions.
This isn't an MS thing, this is an accountability thing. If you harm your competitors though criminal actions you NEED to be punished. Otherwise we're simply saying to everyone that if you want to succeed you need to break the law, and that you won't be punished for doing so. Not if you break really big laws at any rate. Rob a 7-11 and go to jail for life. Steal billions and we'll let you keep your ill-gotten gains.
I couldn't care less if MS made a complete reversal and was now sponsoring needy children in Africa, they need to be smacked around for their past transgresions that put them where they are today. The fact they haven't stopped just makes it worse.
So for all those consumers that don't know or care - and be honest, most people don't have clue about computers - they shouldn't be provided with a media player out-of-the-box? Yeah, that's in conumsers' best interests. If they do have a clue, then they know they can install something else and most likely will.
The problem is that Microsoft, the company that makes the OS, is the same company that makes the apps bundled with the OS.
Microsoft already has a monopoly with its operating system, anything that comes bundled with it is almost guaranteed to be accepted as 'standard'. If Microsoft is going to bundle apps with Windows, why not (in a competitive manner) add alternatives to its own apps? But then again, should this be the answer?
Maybe we should be thinking "Should the company that creates the operating system be allowed to distribute it with its own pre-selected apps at all?"
I keep saying that Microsoft should not be able to distribute a version of Windows purely with its own apps, but that Microsoft should provide a 'bare-bones' version of Windows and other companies should produce 'distributions' of Windows for the end-user. This would enable people to buy a version of Windows that contains Firefox instead of IE, or maybe Opera, Firefox and IE too. This would really split up Microsoft without going as far as litterally splitting up the company.
Microsoft can't be trusted. Windows 'distributions' would be the best way around this.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
It's not really that MS have a duty to bundle other people's software, it's more that in a capitalist system they have a duty, or a requirement, to compete on a capitalist basis: in other words in a manner which produces the best deal for consumers by open competition - the so-called "American Way". The governmental view is that it's fair enough (although sadly not true) that they obtained their existing monopoly by being the best OS available but it's not okay for them to use that monopoly to prevent further competitive battles taking place. MS do not like the capitalist model (in fact, the reality is that they have never competed in the open market and won, having ridden to their current position on the back of IBM) and would much prefer a Stalinist system where the state mandates that all the people use the one approved system, enforced by DRM and controlled by one, unelected, man who is replaced only on his death. Basically, Microsoft is about as American in philosophy as as Fidel Castro.
Honda do not have a monopoly on car sales and so governments generally are not concerned about their arrangements for cd-players etc. If you don't like it then there's plenty of other car companies to choose from. Plus, of course, Honda are not as well known for bribing, lying and stealing and generally treating the law of their home country as an amusing joke as Microsoft is.
Finally, MS is a US company but they want to play hardball in the EU so that's the juristiction issue. MS don't have to sell their products in the EU, and I for one would be very happy if they didn't. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as we say.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Hi, thanks for the response. I realize there's nothing wrong with being a monopoly until you start abusing that position.
I'm still wondering what "fair" means as applied to Microsoft, as in "Microsoft is not playing fair". How are they not playing fair? Is bundling a media play with windows somehow unfair to the consumer?
I can see how you can say it's unfair to the competition, but again I ask if that's not ALWAYS the case? For example, most Hondas come with a rebranded Honda stereo. These days, you don't even have a choice - the car comes with a stereo. Find me one that doesn't. So is that "unfair" to JVC or Sony or other manufacturers? Seems to me the aftermarket stereo market is quite brisk.
And so the question is if you really think it is unfair, how do you make it fair?
If you require it to be a download, %99 of the people are going to download WMP. The only people who will download quicktime, for example, would have done it anyway.
If you require choice in installation (i.e. the Windows installation requires you to select none or more of WMP, QT, and Real) then what about OTHER mediaplayers? Do you have to be a big business in order to be included (mplayer, vlc, etc.)? Soon you will need several extra discs just to hold all the choices for browsers, word processers (hey! bundling word-pad is unfair!), mediaplayers, text editors... where does the line get drawn so that it's "fair" for all companies?
As far as the definition goes, I still see it being arguable that MS is not (in this case) being "unfair." If there was a contract about what consumers should get, and they weren't getting it, then they'd be unfair with respect to definition 7. Otherwise it's subjective (what's a fair profit for MS?).
In definition 8, MS is certainly consisten with the logic of increasing value (if only percieved value, which is valuable in its own right) of their products. I don't know that it's ethicly wrong to include a mediaplayer with an OS. If it is for one, it should be for all. I won't complain that mandrake includes mediaplayers. And that brings us to rules. These rules are too subjective... what makes MS a monopoly (I'm not arguing they're not)? What rules do they have to follow? Are those rules different from what everyone else has to follow? Is that, in itself, "fair?"
The reason I bring up the whole "fair" thing is because people throw that word around in a very selfish manner, which is totally against any meaning of "fair" there is. Most people here who whine that something isn't fair are complaining that they are not getting something they want, or some group they are associated with, or some company they support, are actually forced to play by the same rules everyone else plays by, and somehow that's not "fair".
It's like a very large number of people who believe rich people are not paying their "fair" share of income tax in the U.S. I don't want to get into a political argument, it's the idea of what people actually think is "fair". What is fair? Not a textbook definition, but what do you think would be fair and equitable for everyone?
Is there anything MS could do, while being a monopoly, that slashdotters would think is "fair?"
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The future of Windows is inside a VMWare virtual machine, running on a linux kernel and operating system.
However these technologies come together depends on how the market unfolds, but already it's quite clear. Servers running on the Linux kernel, with a Windows kernel running a desktop in a virtual machine (sandbox), safe from wrecking the machine with viruses and whatnot.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
Lemme get this correct:
EU: "You have a monopoly. You don't play well. Change"
Microsoft: "No."
EU: "Ok. So we'll fine you big"
Microsoft: "Ok. Oh, by the way.. Windows will be more expensive from now on."
EU: "That's OK. At least people can compete."
Microsoft: "FOOLS! We have a monopoly. People hwo WANT to use our software will pay for your ignorance."
EU: "Oops."
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
It's no surprise that the talks ended. Here's a rough transcript of the proceedings that I was able to smuggle out of Brussels:
Monty: Microsoft, we're going to levy heavy penalties for your past behavior.
MS: Now, wait here: let's compromise.
Monty: Okay, let's here it.
MS: How about you don't levy heavy penalties for our past behavior.
Monty: [silence]
MS: Well?
Monty: Heavier fines.
- The Amazina Llama
- - - Patent applied for and deliver us from evil
I hope the EU has the strength of will to really stick it to MS, in terms of both fining them and forcing them to change their business practices. Not because "MS is the evil empire" -- I'm an MS developer, I love their tools and such -- but because a precedent needs to be set that will force Microsoft to address its monopolist strategies. Competition is good for consumers, encourages innovation and lowers prices -- and this is something that Microsoft has been railing against for over a decade.
Anywho, I hope the EU hits Microsoft with the maximum $3 billion fine and forces them to separate their Media Player from the OS. In doing so, the EU will not only make a dent in MS's much-vaunted cash reserves, but they'll also hammer home the point that their strategy of tying apps to their OS to invade new markets won't fly. And if hitting them in the coffers won't significantly prevent them from subsidizing these strategies, it will definitely raise a hue-and-cry amongst their shareholders, to whom Microsoft is ostensibly beholden.
Too bad we don't have a government that will take this kind of action here in the US, tho.
For f#%&'s sake - You didn't even read his post!
The problem is _most_ consumers don't CARE if MS is an anti-competitive monopolist... they CARE if they get what they want - an OS that is pre-installed and easy for them to attempt to figure out. No matter what linux fanatics say (mods can mod this troll if they -want- to, but it's true), the truth is that linux may be user-friendly, but it's VERY picky about it's friends. This is to say that it requires more intellectual investment than most are willing to put toward it to run it properly... even systems with it pre-installed can cause some difficulty with upgrades and using their 'favorite' programs.
Bottom line is, it's no suprise, and people will keep buying from MS as long as they give them what they want, unless something else comes along. Linux cannot provide that (yet), and the masses will _alway_ stick with the status-quo until beat over the head.
Well it was on the 1pm (1300 GMT) RTE1 radio news here in Dublin Ireland! -Nivag
Thanks, I agree completely. My problem is that when people ask for something to be "fair" they are generally being very selfish about it.
I do agree MS needs to be punished, it's the question of bundling and tying that bother me. I haven't made up my mind about it, but I don't see how it's not "fair" to include a mediaplayer, for example.
IMO, MS still needs to be kicked in the pants for the actions it took to get it's monopoly - per processor licensing and the breaking of Windows on DR DOS. They basically got a slap on the wrist, but by then had all but sewn up the market.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The comment above is not a troll, but the moderators are clearly biased. Yes the poster is angry (and he has cause to be), but the real troll is the parent post, which reeks of a typical "f-you" 'blind patriotism over common sense' attitude that endears his nation so much to the rest of the world (and again shows how insular, uninformed and out of touch many of them are).
Remember, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player are not free products. They are given away freely by Microsoft provided that you run Windows by which MS assume that you have paid for the development of those products within the cost of purchasing your Windows OS or other MS products. After all, the developers of WMP and MS need to paid somehow... It just means that MS have to do a bit of work separating out the "application" from the "operating system", exactly the same as every other developer of Windows products has to do - in the EU, we call that "a level playing field".
It seems that the best solution, with the EU ruling in place, is for MS to cut the price of each Windows OS and drop the "extra" products from Windows onto a separate purchased CD, similar to what the "Plus Pack" was but maybe call it the "Desktop Pack". After all, why would anyone running Windows in a server environment necessarily need to install IE or WMP on that machine? On the other hand, Joe Sixpack can go buy a CDs with IE and WMP on if he wants them or have the freedom of choice to go buy other products of even use Open Source ones. (Yes, dear Windows users, it may shock you to learn that there are a very large number of Open Source apps for Windows also!)
Microsoft need to be made to realise that they cannot "have their cake and eat it". On one hand, they encourage developers to create applications for Windows and hand out developer tools but, on the other hand, they integrate IE and WMP so tightly into Windows that they make it difficult for developers to create integrated media and browser apps of their own.
Finally, I'm pretty certain that most of the Windows users on here probably make and play MP3s and DivX/MPEG movies. So how do those same people feel about DRM being brought in with WMP to ultimately stop them doing that in the future. How are those people going to feel in 2-3 years time when they're forced to go with WMA & WMV formats that have to be licensed from MS first?
Maybe the EU has been hard on MS but, let's face it, MS have been pretty damn hard on a lot of other companies over the years so I personally am not going to feel sorry for them.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
MSNBC often comes down pretty hard on MS. I think they overcompensate sometimes to keep from giving the appearance of bias. I remember being surprised by their stories a few times during the last trial.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Most people don't care. All they care about is if they go to the store there is something to buy, and they can simply shove it in their PC and it 'just works'.
That it came from ( or for ) a monopolistic evil company bent on controlling all data on the planet is irrelevant to them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets,
We shall fight in the hills;
Sounds like our last family vacation.
Mmmm.. Donuts
The only difference is that MS is still trying to acquire Real and QuickTime's share. But forcing MS to offer a MS reader free version won't change the monopoly. Faced with a choice, Europeans will choose the "with" version of Windows over the "without" version, particularly if MS makes the latter more buggy.
For all their whining and rhetoric, it's easy to suspect that MS is secretly delighted by what the EU plans to do--a bit like the children's story where a rabbit, caught by a fox, desperately pleads, "Don't throw me in that briar patch."
In the end, there's no solution to the problems of a monopoly but the rise of genuine competition. Linux and open source offer just that. The EU would do better to fine MS $2 billion or so and invest that money in developing open source software.
They'd need a cluster of those to run XP! Step 2 complete.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Sorry, it's just the way this is phrased brings to mind this.
MS Uber Alles!
But seriously, how is this going to help anything?
First of all, how is the average user going to FIND a media player in the first place? If he already knows a player by name, he probably has a preference for it and will download it anyway, whether or not Media Player is pre-installed. He can always Google for a media player, but honestly, not including one just makes the system incomplete. Believe it or not, in this day and age, there are two things that we all (even Linux fans) expect to come with our OS for free: a web browser and a media player.
I feel that bundling all these applications is just going to hurt Microsoft more than is necessary (i.e., these terms are being set just to make Microsoft bleed). I mean, there's the obvious confusion factor inherent with shipping a system with 3 or 4 different media players (Average user: "why are there 3 different media players? Does this one do something the other two don't? Why can't I just have one media player that plays everything? Why do I need 3 installed?"). I know Linux nerds can't grasp this point, since they love having about 50 different text editors, web browsers, etc. all installed at the same time, but to the average user such an approach just looks thrown together and comments poorly on the OS as a whole.
Most slashdotters are fiercely anti-Microsoft so it's understandable they were elated by the EU news.
But is anti-trust law really good for most people in the long run? I'm no economist but I have first-hand experience about the side-effects of the anti-trust law.
I can say from my experience that if Microsoft were forced to its knees, most slashdotters would suffer in the long run.
When AT&T was a monopoly, scientists, engineers, and technicians had a great time in the telecom industry. There were a lot of talents working in the then lucrative telecom industry and a lot of innovations funded by AT&T's phone bill income, including UNIX (I am not saying AT&T is the sole creator of UNIX but a very significant contributor), the father of LINUX.
After AT&T was broken up, the phone call price dropped significantly, a big short term benefit to most consumers. But the drop in revenue forced out a lot of talents from the industry because there were no more money to hire them. I know a lot of talented engineers who spent years in the telecom industry but had to throw away all the domain expertise to switch career to wall street.
I think in a sense Microsoft's high profit margin is good news for LINUX vendors. That means they can charge a lower price than Windows and still make a decent profit to fund long term R&D. If Microsoft were forced to compete in a market where prices go down the toilet, like what happened to the telecom industry, then LINUX vendors will suffer as well. When the money flowing into the software industry dwindles, most slashdotters will lose their career just like what happened to the engineers in the telecom industry. Right now it is a business strategy to give some open source software away for free in the hope that customers will buy the enterprise version, by that time you will be forced to give away a lot more than even the open source people want. The entire software industry can no longer sustain all the R&D going on right now. Is that really a good thing for consumers in the long run?
Is it really a good idea for government to decide what is good for consumers? You have to think about the answer without bias. Just because the government sided with you this time doesn't mean it is a good thing for you in the long run.
Windows 3.0 did not have media player as far as I remember. They made big fuss in 3.1 when some basic sound tools were introduced as "multimedia"
R Yup. Video players are simply an extension of basic sound utils.
M$ is a monopoly (repeat monopoly). That is why certain retriction apply (and more should) that do not exist if the market is competitive.
There is no crime in being a monopoly. Several companies are lucky enough to have a disproportionate amount of market share. This is nopt a crime, and no restrictions should apply. Microsofts crime was being anti-competitive. They were using their dominant position to bully providers into only supplying Microsoft applications. The only reason being a monopoly is at all relevant is that if they were not a monopoly, these tactics would not have worked. People would have simply switched to their competitors.
Doesn't that say more about the lack of any real anti-competitive behavior? I mean, if you were totally unaware of any.
I thought the point of antitrust law was to protect the customer. But if you'll notice, it's never the customers speaking out and doing this to Microsoft. Microsoft got where they are because they offered software we wanted.
Here on Slashdot, however, it's "unfair" if you're the #1 company. "Unfair" if you're the standard or if you ship free programs with your OS.
Ok, I think I'm actually in agreement with you here. I don't think that telling Microsoft what they can or can't or have to include with the OS is going to help the situation. The only real remedies in this case are to make sure that Microsoft is not allowed to strongarm OEMs by using predatory pricing tactics to prevent competitors from being able to distribute through those OEMs. Next, they should force Microsoft to make complete documentation of all APIs and file formats available publicly and in a timely manner. This should be enforced by independent auditors. Finally I think that they should slap MS with a large fine and that money should go to benefit the public by funding open source development to help bring new options to consumers and to investigate open source alternatives for government use. Governments should always prefer open source software when possible. Both for financial savings and for the fact that consumers are not forced to buy proprietary software to exchange information with government agencies.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This case is about open source VS MS. It's about MS being an abusive monopoly.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
ok, let's give it a shot ;-)
... it's funny to see their 'drea
Open Source is nice, for example, but does that mean proprietary software is "unfair?"
not open source - monopolies are unfair. There's nothing unfair about normal competition, but a monopoly has a lot of weight to throw around and that usually has the effect of sheer quantity squashing undiscriminately all competition, be it qualitatively superior or not. Think IE for instance. And no, it's not that 'monopolies aren't allowed to innovate' - it was bundling IE with the ubiquitous OS that achieved the effect, not merely producing it.
For the car analogy to work, it should read there's one hugely dominant car brand and things like roads, carwashes and so on are slowly getting 'optimized' to work with tht car first. Otherwise you can just buy a new car, no harm done. You have to do a little research beforehand, but that's unavoidable. And you have some freedom of choice in the car market, at least.
The problem with WMP for instance is that it only exists for Windows - then Windows being so widespread the move that's already happening is WMP-type formats are (about to become, anyway) just as widespread. Would you want wmv to be accepted as THE standard HDTV codec?. This in MS leveraging its Windows monopoly to dominate the media - a WMP monopoly underway and the two combined will have a tighter control on the consumer market. After all, one would want to be able to play all those wmv discs on the home computer and windows will be the only way to do it, if this happens. (disclaimer - I realise the codecs aren't tied to the player, but this is not the point - different players would come with different default codecs and they can compete on merit instead of on the default player. What if. And there's always the problem of new codecs - if MS does not provide support for ogg/ogm and sets WMP to fail to retrieve the codec everytime, will the average consumer even know where to look for them? a player monopoly cn turn into a codec monopoly quite easily.)
So we can rag on all the losers that don't know a bit from a byte or what an OS even is, but if they are the majority and they want their "free" media player/browser/whatever installed when they buy the computer, is it "fair" to tell them they can't have that? Isn't this just making things difficult for the vast majority of the people involved?
Again, you're missing the point here. no default Windows Media player != no default player! it means OEMs are free to install whatever player they want. Right now, it's quite hard (and expensive) for a oem to untie WMP from the OS - so why would they do it? MS is effectively forcing people to use their player. And no, installing a second/third additional player won't help here - WMP already has an unfair position here. Besides, doe to the competition being MS, few people would try to produce an alternative, player or codec. And that brings the other point in - opening the APIs. Would you consider making a Windows movie player when you know WMP will always work better because the OS has a special 'embrace' for it (read as 'API hooks')?
So here's fair - or rather unfair. Your Mandrake subscription won't help them play WMP formats. And if MS locks the home media in their formats, that will drive Mandrake out of business sooner than bad management, since they in particular sell a desktop-oriented distro. Right now, you can play dvds with decss/dvdread and windows files with windows codecs. That's not a 'level field' already. What will happen when the next format war is won by MS?
I guess my biggest problem with all this is that it is not going to make MS go away, or even lose marketshare.
again, this is targeted at 'future market share', mostly (and here's the hope that it has at least partial success). I for one don't want MS imposing its Windows-only formats everywhere. OS now, media already happening, mobile phones next
Well, you're right.
However: for once, a large government entity is saying, 'We think your practices are wrong, and will make you pay for them'. The fact of it being just media player software is likely to be buried under the hype, and it will have an effect.
More and more people are starting to wake up to the power they have ceded to Microsoft. Isn't that a good start?
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Yes, Windows is so easy to use that there are literally hundreds of books and magazines devoted to how to use it. You think that sort of thing couldn't be done for Linux?
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
Anti-trust law has always struggled with tying decisions, it is much harder to argue that they hurt consumers. The case law effectively bans tying if you are trying to monopolize the tied product market. If Ford was successful in pushing their backward spinning CDs through their market power on cars they would be tried for violations of anti-trust law. It's the attempt to monopolize a new market that is illegal, having a monopoly has never been against the law.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
The cost is included in a Windows License. Microsoft is charging for them in the WIndows License.
VAR's cannot remove them on their computers and replace them with Netscape or Real Player or Quick Time. Why? Because they are not free and they are part of a monopolistic plan.
I should be allowed to not buy them if I want.
I should be allowed to not have them anywhere on my hard drive if I want but I cannot get rid of IE.
You are alos chicken shit because you post as an anon. coward.
Should Windows include calc.exe, notepad.exe, explorer.exe, regedit.exe, winhelp.exe and cmd.exe? You can get third party equivalents for all of these applications. Which ones are part of the OS, and which are extras?
I dont see what the big deal with Microsoft shipping their OS with Windows media player is.
Then apparently you're not familiar with product tying in a monopoly.
If people dont like it they shouldn't use Windows then!
If people were allowed to buy a PC without Windows then they could.
It's their freaking product, they should be able to do what they want with it.
There is virtually no product that is sold that does not have some sort of government influence. Whether it be safety standards, product labelling standards or limitations on the age of the purchaser to name a few.
You also don't have to look far to find cases of a government being forced to breakup a monopoly to correct the situation. AT&T and Standard Oil come to mind.
Anyone whose taken introductory economics understands what's wrong with Microsoft being able to include their media player while excluding others but I'll sum it up for you in four words: Monopoly bad, competition good.
Monopolies cause prices to be high and stifle innovation. Of the price you pay for MS Office 75% of that is profit. For Windows it's something like 50%. How can a company continue to get away with those kind of profit margins? Because they have no competition to undercut them. The only real innovation Microsoft has come up with is incompatibility with previous releases. That innovation keeps people upgrading their software so they can continue to function but provides no net new value.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
Note to self: remember to preview before posting.
But how many people suffer and die due to Microsoft's control of the computer market?
I will use the word "evil" in all seriousness when discussing Microsoft's business tactics, but their brand of evil can't compete with DeBeers.
It will only really awake a lot of people and organisations for the first time, and make them see how insane it is to make themselves totally dependant on an entity they have nothing to say about.
Yes, it will buy MSFT 1 or 2 years, but in the meantime everyone will fevereshly work on MSFT escape plans.
Thinking about it, I'm wondering whether I've got the wrong end of the stick. Forcing MS to release a cut down version of the OS would make sense as a punishment for other violations.
Does this mean there really is a God?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Unfair in EU law generally includes things like
Overcharging for a monopoly product to fund goods sold under cost price into another market in order to destroy the competition in that market and become a monopoly there
Using your monopoly position to leverage other advantages (eg the if you ship windows you license us all your patents' type stuff)
The EU is generally happy for monopolies to exist providing they are not abusing their position too much and we have monopoly suppliers in various business areas that have existing as monopolies for a long time without being convicted in US courts, fined in EU courts, raided in Japan and so on.
I'm not an MS fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm curious as to what people here think is "fair" in a realistic sense.
Splitting up their products and selling them separately would be "fair". Bundling add-ons with a monopoly product is not fair.
Think back to the days when AT&T was the monopoly phone provider. AT&T sees the growing popularity of overnight delivery and says, "hey, we're a communication company, and overnight delivery is a type of communication. Let's get into that business as well."
At this point though FedEx is well established as the industry leader in overnight delivery. AT&T can't compete in this market without some help so it decides that free overnight delivery will be included with all phone subscriptions. At the same time it raises the price of phone service from $20/month to $100/month. In AT&T's version of events the new service is "free" and the price increase is unrelated, but obviously that service has a cost and that cost is being passed to consumers.
Microsoft would have you believe that Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player are integral parts of the OS and are given to consumers totally free of charge. They refuse to unbundle these components and reduce the price of the product appropriately. That's simply not fair. The line has to be drawn somewhere so that other companies can produce products for the Windows platform without the threat of Microsoft bundling in anything that proves comercially successful.
The problem is that every time they get called on this nonsence, the punishment is laughable. If they are allowed to continue selling the bundled version while being forced to sell an unbundle version at a slightly reduced price no-one will go for it. They have to be forced to unbundle conpletely and spin-off the portions of the company that produce the bundled items.
In the AT&T example I gave it would be like AT&T offering phone service w/o overnight delivery for $99.50. Obviously consumers are going to pay the 50 cents and get the overnight delivery service. The only way to avoid the problem is to tell AT&T that they simply can't get into the overnight delivery business.
The EU antitrust until now mainly hit european companies. You are just using blind "patriotism" to support a US company, which by the way is mainly damaging other US companies. Incredible and very disturbing that your port got modded to 5/insightful.
The problem was the Bush Justice Department. Ashcroft simply refused to do anything, and let the decision be unenforced, thus snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Let's pretend Al Gore was elected instead. Would that really have changed the outcome? Gore has visited the MS campus a number of times and I would say closer to Gates than Bush is.
Bush may have other issues but to claim Al Gore was some kind of shining night that would have nuked MS from orbit is quite mistaken.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Is bundling a media play with windows somehow unfair to the consumer?
O.B. Automotive analogy:
Imagine if, fearing automakers' adopion of alternative fuels, the big oil companies collude, offering everyone free gas-powered cars.
The price of fuel everywhere is increased. Alternative fuel distribution depends on the pumps picking it up, and the pumps are locked out by the oil industry.
Consumers are still free to buy their own gas-powered car, but they'll be paying extra at the pumps anyways. If they went to alternative fuels, they'd have to carefully plot their trips for vehicle range etc.
. . .
Now imagine if, fearing the adoption of alternative operating systems, Microsoft increases the price of its operating system and gives everyone a free media player.
Music distribution depends on the servers picking it up, and only MS servers support the most widely supported client format. The price of music everywhere is increased to hide the cost.
Consumers are still free to use an alternative operating system. They won't be able to play any music from MS-only sites, but this is a free market right? If the demand was really there, they'd put up servers and support the format...
Right?
My ass. You worked in what "EU government"? How come someone who has supposedly worked in the "EU government", (which is not a government in the sense that your government is) writes and spells like a 15 year old American school-child, i.e. badly?
Gore and the 'rats
Whatever the truth or falsehood of your post, referring to you opponents in this debate as "rats" is an ad hominem attack and severely weakens your argument. If you truly believe you are correct, you should be able to prove your point without resorting to insulting terms.
Can Microsoft maintain its monopoly with calc.exe, notepad.exe, explorer.exe, regedit.exe or winhelp.exe?
I don't think so.
Can Microsoft maintain its monopoly with IE and WMP? Of course it can.
This is about shutting others out via proprietary protocols and APIs, or locking people in.
You don't need a calculator app to be compatible with anybody elses app, do you?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
Would you really say that 95% of people have never heard of Mac? Lets be honest, in the 80's in every elementary school I went to (about 4 - 5) all had Apple II E's all over the place. Computer labs filled with them, and at least 1 in every classroom (sometimes 5 depending on the teachers use of them in the classroom). It honestly wasn't until Windows 95 and middle school that I ever touched a Windows based machine. I don't know how it is in Europe, but if MS pulled the plug, most of my generation would think Mac also, and they would think it over Linux because it was our intro to computers.
Well, they wouldn't go for Linux, they would go for Apple instead because Apple have the muscle to market themselves as a Windows alternative in such a situation, the Linux distros do not. This has obvious consequences for major US tech companies such as Dell and Intel who would see a market of 400 million people disappear over the course of a year.
Would they really? I think most people would be forced to Linux. Not everyone can afford $1500+ for a completely new machine when for free they can get Red Hat or Mandrake. The fact is, people wouldn't want to abbandon their current hardware because their governments didn't agree with the way MS does business, and they would want an alternative so they could keep their existing hardware. The truth is, Linux enthusiasts would be thrilled because a lot of games would have to be made for Linux also to keep up with the Market. It would really even out the market, assuming the people would stand for switching, but the truth is most people won't switch they won't know how. On top of that, the amount of money and business that would be lost from business that would now be forced to switch. They would not be happy with their governments forcing a migration to a new platform. On the upside though, the IT industry would BOOM there, and I'm sure people from America would be moving to Euro to find high paying jobs with the amount of demand a move like that would generate.
If I went and murdered some poor sap in Wisconsin, could I claim that the US courts didn't have authority because I'm a European based human?
Point taken, but you are in American soil commiting a crime in America, you will be charged just as I will in Europe. What I'm saying though is that couldn't MS just tell the European government that this is their product, and if they don't want to use it as is, they can go to hell. At that point the government can either stick their tail back between their legs (like our government does) and shut up, because they probably run a lot of MS software.
Personally, I think MS would be smart if they would allow the option to install Windows with or without certain things, rather then just disabling them, much like a Linux distro does. I don't even think you have the option of disabling them now with the XP install.
I don't think it matters why they're going after microsoft. If microsoft should be "corrected", and I think they should, then any reason is a good reason, even if it is a political one.
I am all for the EU decision vis a vis M$. Hooray! Kill the bastards, etc. As for De Beers and diamonds...don't get me started. Diamonds are plentiful. They are NOT worth what is paid for them as they come a dime a dozen. What De Beers and the rest of the cartel do is create an artificial scarcity of diamonds totally at odds with reality so they can charge loads of money for a frickin rock. To do this, they also setup a monstrous situation in Africa for those who live around, or work in, the diamond mines.
How's about the EU (and USA) get together and eliminate the diamond monopoly which is artificially and improperly limiting the amount of otherwise plentiful diamonds and creating, as a direct result, a very bad humanitarian problem for those in Africa who live around the mines?
If you want to deal with a commodity that is truly valuable due to a very real scarcity, then you should deal with metals like platinum, titanium, gold, and the like. Get out of the frickin' rock collecting business.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Paul Meller's articles at IDG have constantly been in favour of Big Business' interests.
Software Patents, EUCD, IPRED, etc... Paul's a constant and conscient carrier of misinformation (it's certainly not innocent since he's been contacted by a lot of people trying to inform him better).
For instance, about IPRED, he said that the proponents were glad that a last minute compromise amendment limited the effects of IPRED to to the commercial scale.
What he didn't say was the the amendment followed on the same phrase to end in... or not. There is a door for member-states to impose extreme sanctions on 12 year old girls (like the European RIAA's and MPAA's raiding her home and seising as much as they can).
I've heard that this EU compromise might not be much more than forcing RAND licenses, just like in the US, so Paul Meller would be over enfatuating as if it was something extreme when in truth it's just what Microsoft wants.
Keep in mind that the US court system had decided that microsoft should be split up, but then lost that ruling upon microsofts' appeal. Microsoft can still appeal anything that the EU courts decide at this point.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
AFAIK, France never surrendered to Bush... And I guess you didn't hear what happened to Aznar.
Ok, there is still Blair and Berlusconi the clown...
Where your analogy fails is that the price of Windows has been steadily dropping (for OEMs and corporations), or has stayed exactly the same for 10+ years (for retail).
Economies of scale should have driven the price of Windows throught the floor since they have certainly driven the cost or production per unit through the floor. The fact that the price has remained fairly steady while their profits have skyrocketed shows that they are eating up the vast price reductions that would have taken place if real competition existed.
So yes, even with the price remaining steady the added cost of Media Player and Internet Explorer is being passed down to consumers of Microsoft's operating system.
...a glorified piece of coal they don't need and which serves no purpose at all
I take it that you don't have a girlfriend!
</symphara>
I'm probably gonna get ripped for this one, but I like WMP-XP. Yeah, you gotta fix it in gpedit to lock the classic skin and kill the anchor, but once you do that, its great. I hate WMP 9, but the one with XP is really nice as a basic player. It doesn't have a stupid task tray icon, it doesn't boot up with my computer, it doesn't hog my resources, it doesn't try and open everything under the sun even when I tell it not too (quicktime *shudders*).
The fact about Microsoft is this: they didn't obtain their almost monopoly the honest way. Gates did lie, cheat, steal, and all that other good stuff, but the fact is he is winning. It seems to me that 15 years later, everyone is kicking themselves in the ass for turning the other cheek when they were offered bribes and again, all the other good stuff that comes with it. A monster was created, and now they can't clean up their own mess, so they make these bullshit laws so they don't have to clean up their own mess, just work around it. They made their beds, now sleep in them.
It also has severe innovation and development disadvantages.
Yes, I remember the pre-kitchen sink days. The 1980s were "interesting times" in the personal computer industry. Yes, some things were more difficult. But there was also a lot more development and improvement, unlike the stagnation we have today.
So let me ask you: are you happy with the soviet-style centralized/planned homogenous Microsoft solution? Do you think that personal computer OSes and applications of today, really are about the best they can possibly be? Have we reached the end of the PC revolution? If so, then vote for MS and the kitchen sink. Trust your leaders and planners, and let their mind be The mind. Lenin, Gates, Il-Sung: these are visionary heros to be praised.
But as for me, I'm an American. I'll take free markets, decentralization, chaos, and entrepreneurship, thankyouverymuch. I prefer the invisible hand to authority. Gimme back my 1980s personal computer industry!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"Would you really say that 95% of people have never heard of Mac?"
No, not at all. I would say though that it doesn't occur to 95% of people to even consider one when it comes to buying a new computer. I guess an analogy would be to say that most people have heard of Mozart, but when they go shopping for CDs they're only going to be browsing the Top 40.
I take your point about people not being able to afford new machines and therefore opting for Linux on their existing boxes, but there are a couple of observations to make on that.
Firstly, many people (and a majority of home users) only change/update their OS when they get a new computer. There are tens of millions of people out there still running Win95/98 and they will continue to do so until their HDs die. I find it unlikely that these people will stray from what they know, especially considering their only real alternative on their existing hardware is an OS the vast majority of them will never have heard of and which (and this will no doubt annoy many) is still nowhere near as user friendly for them as Windows.
I can accept though that the situation may well be different in business, mainly medium and large enterprises where (generally speaking) more importance is placed on heeping up to date and where resources to help staff get to grips with Linux would be more readily available.
Back in the Win3.1 days, those were supplied by companies other than MS. Evil MS killed them by bundling fripperies like a decent shell and stack.
Let's go even farther. You used to be able to buy programs that replaced the Apple-supplied virtual memory and multitasking systems for MacOS. (I've still got a copy of RAMdoubler around here somewhere) Perhaps those should come out of the MS distribution too?
Not sure what's left to ship after we're done with that (anyone remember if there were OSs with add-on filesystems?), but I'm sure there's something else that MS bundles that we could remove.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
This is not to say I don't agree with laws banning some monopoly tactics (like dumping and tying), just that I think it's not as clear cut as a lot of people think (is MS dumping their product by giving it for free with the OS when other companies don't charge for their media players or browsers?) Even the tying claims are difficult because it does give better performance to integrate some things with the OS, even if we all disagree that the performance gains outweight the problems that can cause.
The problem is that an MS application could outrace any competing application because they have full knowledge and control over the OS. Full documentation of APIs and such would partially solve the problem but remember this is closed source. Please recall ATIs & NVIDIAs 'optimizations' for benchmarks.
This is not to say I don't agree with laws banning some monopoly tactics (like dumping and tying), just that I think it's not as clear cut as a lot of people think (is MS dumping their product by giving it for free with the OS when other companies don't charge for their media players or browsers?)
Yes it is because the software is pre-installed wihtout the customers knowledge (I'm feeling redundant). You could for instance let the OEM sellers install browsers and media players the customers chooses. That would be fair providing the sellers are banned from recieving benefits for every MS product installed (still very abusable).
There is a long history in the EU of striking down acquisitions and meregers of EU companies based on lack of competition fears.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No wonder that politicians can get away with murder.
With such levels of misunderstanding of the political system it appears like a miracle that we have any rights and freedoms still to defend at all....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Agreed, but as you said, people usually don't upgrade until their hard drives die, but if they were forced to upgrade to something other then Windows while their hardware is fine, I truly think Linux would be the only option for a lot of people. If my mother was told when she got home today from work that she had to stop using Windows because Microsoft was revoking her license because she was a Linus sypathizer or something stupid like that, she wouldn't be able to afford a Mac. She NEEDS a computer, so she would be forced to use Linux. She wouldn't be happy, but she would be forced to learn something new. While she can barely use her PC as is, she has learned to do the basic functions that she needs to do, as I'm sure she would in time learn with Linux also.
The media player thing is a stupid holdover, like the browser thing, from when that mattered. I'd say drop the eye-for-an-eye and fine them for their past transgressions.
My big solution to MS would be placing all of their IP on file-formats and network protocols into the public domain, as well as forbidding them from ever getting patents (or other restrictive devices) on what should be interoperability issues. (Trying to look ahead at what they will be doing with these patent they've been getting.) Also, I'd force them to provide the file-format and network handling code they use in their products, keep it current, and release it under the BSD license.
The courts need to step up and make a decisive statement that you can't own formats, or obviously, the code to access a public format. In either trade-secret, patent, or EULA ways.
Microsoft's continual issue has been in trying to prevent competition. The remedies (not the fines - those are the wake-up call) should be intended to prevent them from doing this in the future the same as you take the right to drive from someone who abuses it. They claim to be capitalists, how about they produce a product and let people choose freely, on the merits of the product.
i think you're missing the point. if doing this DID destroy the company, it's evident they didn't have any real value or service to provide that the users wanted. afterall, if windows media player is really that good people would just go ahead and leave it installed. likewise, if IE was really so great a lot of us wouldn't be clammoring to use firefox or mozilla as a replacement.
their competition, apple seems to be doing just fine offering a proprietary windowing system on top of a an open subsystem and free libraries/standards (think khtml for safari and xml for config files). it goes to show that one CAN be profitable with such a system.
- tristan
I agree dumping (that is, selling below cost or giving away products in order to gain marketshare/eliminate competition) is wrong, but what if MS says, "look, you don't get WMP for free, it's 5% of the cost of the OS".
Doesn't change anything. It's also not really dumping when everyone elses player is free, too. What is apple doing? What is real doing? Same thing MS is doing - they want the market for the content creation, so they are all dumping, really, only if you have a legal copy of Windows you gave MS money and they can argue that part of that money goes to WMP, whereas Apple has none of my money and neither does Real, so who's really dumping?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
For shareholders too in the long run. MS as it is looses money in most business by trying to dominate everywhere, and has its future in doubt because it can't possibly adapt to open systems.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
They, meaning in particular Sir Bill and Ballmer, are scumbags and should be treated as such. They might just about understand a severe prison sentence, very little else will have any effect on their over-inflated egos.
How does web browsing help MS maintain their monopoly? How does IE keep people using Windows over MacOS or Linux? How does it lock people into Windows?
How does WMP help MS maintain their monopoly? How does WMP keep people using Windows over MacOS or Linux? How does it lock people into Windows (recall that MS does liscense their video codecs/algorithms)?
Sure. The problem in overhyping is the following disillusionment.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Once Microsoft decides to send everyone for a MS certification and some free software, I am sure all memberstates will change their mind, just like www.mikerowesoft.com. Remember that, anyone?
No, its akin to the government telling an artist to keep painting but to stop bullying all other painters to use the same brands of paints, brushes and canvases that he uses.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I can only assume that Microsoft thought that he'd bowl them over with his charm.
Yeah... Sure...
Strategically, this was a dumb move. Steve Balmer is the archetypal ugly, swetty-pitted,, "Bull-in-a-china-shop" American.
The European must have just loved having to deal with the troglodite.
The result is that their OS is about to have to "cease and desist" its "expand and embrace. Now that they have home-grown competition that they can't steam-roll over, legally or otherwise, they'll have to settle for being just an OS in Europe.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Which is, of course, doubleplus ungood. He obviosuly needs re-educated so he can develop the wholesome, natural and proper EUsian anti-US mentality.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
"Fair" is overused in this discussion as fairness does not enter into it. There is nothing fair or even equitable about most businesses even if their leaders are pious and temperate. Business models in their modern form are merely the domesticated versions of piracy, prostitution, murder-for-hire and fraud that has characterized 8,000 years history of the exchange of goods and services we call commerce in trade. The MBAs might disagree, but they've all read their Machiavelli primers too. As have I.
That said, business is not allowed to become government. It is only somewhat sarcastic to state that governments reserve for themselves the right to dictate what people can do, say or spend their money on. But businesses are *constantly* trying to elevate themselves into forms of government as that gives them just enough power to be almost as profitable as their shareholders expect. And this is where anti-trust law comes in. The government needs a tool to castrate any business that starts to dictate what people can do, say or spend their money on. And the shareholders can go to hell.
The EU, probably because it is a little new at this government thing, having recently been formed as it were, and being anyway something of a horse of another color as it were, is no doubt quite ready to show that it is bigger than a business, and has castration rights the same as any other government. The notion of setting an example of Microsoft, therefore, is more than slightly chilling; there is in theory no end to the benefit the EU could glean from a really nice, long, public castration of Microsoft.
It is as if Machiavelli was just elected Pope and, since he is not so pious as to be loved automatically, he must resort to a show of power to make sure he won't be undermined. So he fetches up in irons a lesser lord of a local domain who is known to abuse his power with the groundlings. Pope Machiavelli then declares him a heretic, confiscates his belongings, throws him in jail, threatens every day to kill him in painful ways, forces him to confess to all sorts of crimes real and imagined, to disown his birthright and his family, to sign over his wealth to the Pope, and then suddenly lets him out to wander the lands as a penniless begger spreading the word that the Pope is both powerful and merciful.
Microsoft is that lesser lord, it seems.
Enjoy the show.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Microsoft should be forced to release ALL source code and documentation for EVERY product they released during the company's existance under the GPL. They should be forced to give all their assets to the Free Software Foundation. Microsoft should be forced to shut down. And Bill Gates should be forced to give Linus Torvalds all of his personal assets, and work for Linus as a janitor. And pigs should be forced to grow wings and fly.
That's right, dammit! We're only prepared to put up with perpetual market distortion for a little while!
Sean
Here goes my Karma, and maybe I just don't understand how the anit-trust laws work, but the way Microsoft used it's brute force to slowly build an empire and weed everyone out. Isn't that what ALL companies are trying to do? Be number 1? Weed out the competition? Make mass quantities of $$$?
As a business owner it's hard for me to comprehend. In my line of work there is way more work than there is developers to do projects, so I don't worry about all the other developers out there.
However, ultimately if I could handle the load, I would absolutely love to be number one and weed out competition? Is that wrong? Maybe I need an attitude adjustment.
Not so much for the money but for the glory of being number 1 and having the best products and services and having everyone come to me because they know I'm the best.
I guess I'm looking at a company like Wal-Mart who kind of falls in the gorilla shoes when it comes to generic merchandise and even groceries. It seems like they've done a lot of pushing and knocked out a lot of local businesses here and there, but at the same time they've shown some restraint. Is this soley to avoid being nailed with anti-trust laws?
The only thing in my eyes that goes against Microsoft is that it's not like it was one man's baby that led them to the top. If Bill G. had developed the original software and been active in development all the way to now and it wasn't a corporation would it still be wrong?
Or a better question... If they hadn't done all the gorilla tactics of forcing other companies out of business and they had gotten where they are just by having a superior product (i'm not saying they do, I'm saying what if...) would they still be a monopoly?
I guess all these monopoly like tactics are things I take for granted as just agressive moves to win business. I'd be interested in reading over the actual law to see what it says you can and can't do.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
If Microsoft were based in one of the EU countries instead of the US, the process would have been significantly different.
I wonder how much the adventure in Iraq has affected the EU's position towards MS?
After MS included the browser for free, loaded on the machine, and excluded any other browsers, Netscape was forced to enter the "Free" browser market and simply make money on server products. (They're not free, Netscape had to try to leverage it's server market products market-share to support the "free" browser.)
Are you sure that it was Microsoft who forced them to enter the "Free" browser market, and not Mosaic?
How about the guys who wrote Lynx? Did they force Netscape to release their browser for free?
You seem to have this odd idea that Microsoft were the first people to put out a browser for free. Were you actually around for the whole start of the WWW, or are you one of these people who came later?
Coming soon - pyrogyra
ok, windows and mac. Until they pull the plug, as with IE for mac. Not really a big deal, since Apple also does the same thing bundling QuickTime with the OS.
The last point is moot. 'ability' doesn't help - besides, it's poorly documented API-wise so nobody outside MS would try to shoot itself in the foot and unbundle WMP, only to risk triggering obscure crippling effects if the OS won't find its favorite player installed. Also, you equate WMP with compatibility (sic!), which is wrong. codec support is compatibility, not a default player. A default player limits codec support, thus limiting compatibility.
No, its akin to the government telling them what paints to use. Or, not to sell paintings with trees in them, since there's an artist who sells paintings exclusively of trees.
the word 'bully' is completely inaccurate. bullys use force to get what they want. buying software is a completely voluntary transaction. One can choose not to do business on a "bullys" terms.
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
Open Source is nice, for example, but does that mean proprietary software is "unfair?"
False dichotomy. Monopolies are unfair, proprietary or otherwise. If RedHat had taken over the market for PC Operating Systems and had been convicted of using it artifically (hence, illegally) restrict compitetion, they'd get their asses hauled into court too.
I realize we can go around in circles about what consumers are "forced" to buy when they buy a new computer, but the fact is that now, more than there has been in the past 20 years, there is a choice. So we can rag on all the losers that don't know a bit from a byte or what an OS even is, but if they are the majority and they want their "free" media player/browser/whatever installed when they buy the computer, is it "fair" to tell them they can't have that? Isn't this just making things difficult for the vast majority of the people involved?
I suppose we can look at future rewards from current hardships, but we have to ask if it's really necessary.
If it adds value, competitors will pick up the slack. This idea that we should look the other way because of difficulties caused by remedying a crime is in direct opposition to the idea that we are all equal under the law. It seems to me, that you have a problem with anti-trust law in general, that's understandable, a lot of people do. The legal reasoning behind anti-trust regulations is that a monopoly inflicts greater harm than good through hidden costs to the consumer and causes stagnation in markets, since there is little incentive to innovate in the market it dominates. Windows is still an insecure POS at it's core, but MS is now trying to do consumer electronics and internet services rather than pushing innovation in their existing products. When a monopoly illegally leverages it's position in one market to move into others, we must stop it in order to keep the markets healthy. MS is currently capable of scaring away investors from a new market by making noise about entering it. Quit thinking about it from a purely technical point of view.
How many times to we have to repeat this? It wasn't the majority of consumers making independent decisions that gave MS this power or market share. It has been proven in court, several times, that they abused their dominance in the x86 world to squeeze out competition. When there were viable competitors (OS2,BeOS,Novell), MS illegally made it unprofitable for vendors to carry both Microsoft products and Microsoft's competitors products, cutting products off from the markets. If you already have a monopoly, this is where the anti-trust legislation that has worked so well for the past hundred years comes into play.
The 1995 DOJ agreement was supposed to stop this behavior, the anti-trust case here in the US was brought about by MS violating that agreement. In other words, they got busted, Uncle Sam slapped them on the hand and said no, then they did it again, so Uncle Sam took them to court. They were convicted in court, these are convicted monopolists. The case fell apart during the punishment phase, MS dragged it out long enough and the Bushies didn't want to be bad to business so they dropped the whole thing.
Now the EU has convicted them of being a monopoly as well and is actually going to punish them.
Now back to MacroEcon 101, Monopolies are bad. They are a natural by-product of free markets, but they then stifle free-markets. We accept that successful people may find themselves in control of a monopoly through their own hard work and competitiveness, and the law does not begrudge them that. If they abuse that position, to the detriment of our free market as a whole, then we haul them into court and start handicapping them until there is viable compitition.
Business leaders know these rules, it is the duty of the citizenry to enforce it. Business leaders will flagrently violate them if allowed, just as Bill and Co. are doing. There is nothing unfair in handicapping Microsoft to help their competitors. T
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Point taken, but think of this. Back in 1990 a lot of the illegal activity wasn't easily accessable. If they could keep it out of the newspapers by bribing the editors, the people don't know, and in the public's eye, it doesn't matter. Lets fast foward to today. Most people read their news on the internet, and information is found a lot easier today. I'm sure if Real Media decided to bring out their own OS (which I'm willing to bet would NOT come with a version of Quicktime), or hell, even their own Linux distro, Microsoft's illegal games wouldn't fly as easy. Take a place like this. Real Media's announcement of their OS (Real OS?) would be posted here, and the usual 500+ comments would follow. From that point on, people would follow the story. As it turns out, almost everyone knows a geek, and word would spread. If MS tried anything to kick them in the ass, then they'd be kicked right back by public opinion. Its not as easy for them do to do anything like that anymore. Now as far as them hiring a gang to torch Real Media's offices.....thats another story...
You can buy Ford, Toyota, Honda, Volks, Nissan, Pontiac, Chevy, etc. etc. etc.
You can buy Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, etc.
What if all the Microsoft cars came with the same "Microsoft" pieca shit CD player, and they messed up the wires so only Microsoft CD players ran well but CD players others were hard to install and use?
Don't need to drag politics into this. Even worse, don't romanticize your own position.
It's not like "all Americans" = anti-authority and "everyone else on earth" = subservient slaves and worshippers of homogeneity with no independent thought.
To believe this is true is a rather dangerously simplified view of the world -- one which the authorities you profess to reject would love to maintain.
In a sense, it's almost like politicians use antitrust for their own racketeering purposes. It's been revealed that Nixon definitely targeted companies with antitrust investigation that peeved him politically.
Milton Friedman's take on the US MS antitrust suite is interesting:
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"
Even more important -- if the descriptions of the remedies are accurate, MS will be forced to make it possible for those OEMs to exclude the MS applications (WMP at least) from the bundle. Allowing bundling doesn't force MS to change any of their code -- but making the apps truly removable does! I don't suppose we could get the EU authorities to go back and impose the same requirement on IE, but at least there will be a precedent going forward that should keep MS from migrating more and more application code over the line into the OS itself.
Just curious: why would a restaurant or hotel refuse you service? You don't have to show a passport to get seated at a restaurant.
I think you should have taken your vacation in California instead (southern CA is also fairly warm in November).
and it is a great pity that the judiciary was stacked with scofflaw pro-trust judges by Edwin Meese and Mr. Reagan, and this case of tying lost.
I NEVER want the stock car radio from the manufacturer. Yet, having paid for it, I often settle for having it for many years because I don't have that money for buying the better car radio from the independents. Quality of a product is very much a function of how many competitors there are. Companies that specialize in car radios do a better job: they have to, if they sold that crap that came with the car, they wouldn't make it. Car companies only have to produce a better car radio than the other car companies, and not even that if the other company's cars aren't the same. This is far less stimulating of innovation than the independent manufacturer's market.
Whenever a brainless judge says that tying cannot get you more profit than the original monopoly could if you just raised the price on the monopoly product, just point out that the tied market isn't usually fully competitive either (most markets are semi-competitive, very few are fully competitive), and tying does indeed get you the difference between the marginal cost and the market price, which is only 0 in close to non-existent fully competitive markets. It also reduces the effective number of competitors, which also increases the distance between marginal cost and market price.
I think not.
The fact that the US win its anti-trust court date only to have the penalties pulled, and that the EU is also winning and showing some guts, shows how dumb your line of reasoning is.
What next "Religion is a science." ?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The difference is that Honda isn't a monopoly in the car market, and in the OS market, Microsoft is.
A monopoly is not allowed to use the same competetive tactics that a smaller share competitor is, so what needs to be done is punish the monopolist (in this case Microsoft) for having engaged in practices prohibited to a monopolist in a marketplace.
That's the law.
Guess what?
A European court would likely hold that Microsoft does not have the right to arbitrarily terminate a license, so the only companies Microsoft could sue would be US based companies, or the US arms of EU based companies.
Either way, it would be US jobs that suffer, so perhaps it's not such a neat idea after all.
Europe would crumble? Crease with laughter, more like.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
You usually can't buy a car without a stock stereo. I guess you could get the dealer to rip it out, but you would stll end up paying for it.
BTW, I did end up buying a better stereo with my newest car than I wanted because the stereo automatically came with the other options I wanted.
What I want to know, is if a big fine is given out to Microsoft( a relative US owned corp), will it start a trade war between the US and EU?
Their profits from abusing their monopoly are at least tens of billions. This EU fine is just a speed bump for them, and profit-wise, abusing their monopoly paid off. They continue to serve as an example to other companies of how breaking the anti-trust laws makes you lots of money, and the government won't do anything that will cause you to regret your actions.
The worst the government might do is tell you not to do it again, and make you pay a token fine that sounds like a lot to the folks flipping burgers but isn't substantive compared to your profit from locking out competitors.
All that said, hey, the EU is better than the US at antitrust. Yeah!
Maybe I can consider porting reiser4 to Windows for use in the EU. I'll be watching to see how things unfold.
now THAT would cause MS some pain way beyond the sub-billion euro level they are talking about for the fine itself.
You should get a -1 troll.. if it was not for the (rather old) BB ref. you would be.. but I dont care ;-), but for the record.. my parent post seems to attack De Beers for no other reason then "its sounds european" and "diamonds are too expensive". The first is factually wrong, the second falls in the well.. so what? catagory. So how else should I view it?
Look at me now...
Im defending a company that makes money from pure Image, produces little value, and can basically get away with asking "what people are willing to pay" instead of "what the product cost making + 5%-10%" and -I- am the socialst from the department of love.
Oh the irony...
mod parent up +5 ironic.
peace
"/Dread"
Any M$ product on any other architecture gets pulled off instantly or Gates and Balmer get a "Go To Jail" card.
Let M$ got the way of DRI and for the same reason.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
How does web browsing help MS maintain their monopoly? How does IE keep people using Windows over MacOS or Linux? How does it lock people into Windows?
What reason do you think that some Web pages don't display correctly in the most innovative browsers available (when IE has stood still for years)?
Microsoft uses not only proprietary (non-standard) tags, but IE itself has an auto-correction facility that causes pages with errors to display correctly even though they're not written correctly.
This means that even though Firefox/Mozilla and Opera are standards compliant, because IE disregards standards and is the default browser, everybody codes for IE and doesn't recognize mistakes in the code because IE displays the pages correctly anyway.
How does WMP help MS maintain their monopoly? How does WMP keep people using Windows over MacOS or Linux? How does it lock people into Windows (recall that MS does liscense their video codecs/algorithms)?
WMP is the default media player in Windows, most people that produce streaming media will choose WMP formats to stream their media because they know that most users have access to this format. This gives WMP an advantage over other media players. I assume, as you're asking this question, that you haven't been keeping up with the EU case?
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
You might not want to bet money on it. Why?
One word: Diebold.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Point taken and gladly conceded. I mean, you just can't argue with that! ;D
Because, dear dumber, MS is a monopoly, the car companies you mentioned are not.
Tonto.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I thought you lot were buried with all the failed ideologues of the XXth century.
/. !
What a rare archeological finding. All here in
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Rarely one sees such brain dead sproutage.
Just for kicks lets assume that what is stated above happens, companies would continue to use MS software for one or two years after which all desktops would be replaced with comething else (more likely Linux using the same hardware).
In the meantime the EU would size all of MS assets in the EU and most likely would take legal action against MS and its executives in the US.
Many other countires would finally realize the predatory nature of this company and would follow suit.
Sometime in 2010, after the las billion of cash of MS dissapears in the black hole of litigation, MS is liquidated and nobody barely notices.
I wish they would do something so monumentally stupid, unfrotunately we are dealin with intelligent people here, not with, er, people like you.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
IBM?
HP?
SUN?
Novell?
And of course
Red Hat.
Madrake.
and maybe
Walmart.
No marketing muscle.
Goodnes gracious me. What is the fscking name of this planet? I want out, some of the natives are mentally challenged.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Hmm... you didn't read anything about the case?
It is about allowing OEM's to preinstall other media players. So Joe User doesn't have to download or know it by name. Maybe Dell will ship with WMP, but another OEM might just ship it with RealPlayer. So it is about choice, maybe not the choice of Joe User, but he never had a choice anyway.
Move Sig. For great justice.
So is it better to be hostage to a single company that dictates prices and terms and conditions of service as they see fit?
Somehow you asked the correct question:
"But is anti-trust law really good for most people in the long run?"
And then you got the wrong answer, in spite of reasoning close to the real issues.
If millions of costumers are benefitted by lower prices and the price to pay is the livelihood of a few thousends of people in the IT industry, then the cost-benefit balance is on favour of curbing the monopoly without the shadow of a doubt.
In industries and services where a monopoly is allowed to dominate, it is a well known fact that innovation is replaced by bureaucracy, prices spiral upwards and customer service suffer.
The coziness of a few geeks is not worth preserving if the price to pay is to keep the industralized world hostage of a few unescrupulous companies.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It would be hard for them to be more accepted, most of what they do is fairley standard buisness practice but from a large it has a big impact. Hence the dislike that is felt by them for some, they need to be more aware of the impact they have i.e being slow to fix windows vulnrebilities
The reason I bring up the whole "fair" thing is because people throw that word around in a very selfish manner, which is totally against any meaning of "fair" there is. Most people here who whine that something isn't fair are complaining that they are not getting something they want, or some group they are associated with, or some company they support, are actually forced to play by the same rules everyone else plays by, and somehow that's not "fair".
I see what you say i suppose it's a bit like one mans terrorist being another mans freedom figter, most people see things from there one perspective exclusivly.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
I'm neutral on this debate, but you're wrong. An insult is not necessarily an ad hominem, and it does not weak a case any to resort to an insult.
An ad hominem is trying to discredit someone by some irrelevent fact. Here are two examples:
"James Randi doesn't believe in god, so what does he know about spirituality? He must be wrong."
"He's just a priest, so his arguments about abortion are wrong."
Now, from what I've seen it seems that Bush really did win the election. To me, it doesn't matter much, as I dislike both democrats and republicans (I'm more libertarian). I hate Bush with a passion, too. I really don't know a lot about law, though.
But calling Democrats "rats" as a mocking insult is not an ad hominem, and it does not weaken or effect his other points.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
[rant | on]
Microsoft has a monopoly and XP is a perfect example of the ubiquitous sway they have with hardware developers and retailers. Everyone I know has been buying a new computer just to run this whore of an os. Why? Because these robot salespeople are being trained to scare the consumer into upgrading, saying 98 is no longer supported. Whoopity-freakin'-doo-dah-day.
Most users don't use the Windows Update feature or the Microsoft Knowledge base, nevermind doing administrative tasks like defrag the harddrive or network, so why should they change to a totally different operating system which has a different look and penalises people for upgrading?!
It seems like MS can continue to do what they want whenever the hell they want. So they get a slap on the wrist every now and then. Is anyone poised to replace them? Is another operating system breathing down their neck? Can Linux even play multimedia files properly yet, without me splunking the inner recesses of the internet first? Could I actually get working drivers for my Radeon 7500 videocard in RH 9? I can select the server during installation and that's about it. Will Apple stop being so friggin' arty-farty elitist? I want a computer, not a statement of transcendental essentialistic art or some bloody thing!
I wish the climate was different, but MS have no challengers currently. No bother getting all worked up over this. SNAFU.
[rant | off]
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
So, it's not about media-players, it's about the medium itself: in what format are we going to enjoy our music: Microsoft's?
ARRGHHHH!!!!! 100 million Euro to 1000 million Euro
Its been said before, but even leaving out the stuff where they do their damnedest to break compatibility with everybody elses apps (how long did it take to get useful free software that reads and writes .doc? How about NTFS?), they've still been quite "unfair". The biggest one for me was the whole fiasco with Windows licensing for OEMs. Basically, they required vendors like Dell to *not* install competing web browsers (and I think media players too at one point), or they would charge them more for each Windows license. Leaving all the other crap aside, that alone is directly using their monopoly to force out competitors in other markets... shoulda been a real no-brainer for the judges.
I can't help thinking that if it comes down to open-sourcing WIndows, MS may just stop distributing it in Europe. Let them all get the next outlook warm for 4 years for want of patches, and they'll be likely to change :(
After all, if MS doesn't do business there, nobody can allege that they have a monopoly.
Not when it comes to operating systems it isn't! What about if I want to go to a PC vendor and buy an empty PC because I want to run Linux or FreeBSD on it. How many vendors will sell me a blank PC and refund me the cost of the pre-installed Windows XP?
The answer is very few because of the way in which they have been "bullied" by Microsoft to sell pre-installed PCs. If they don't do that, MS comes down hard on them and charges them more per Windows XP license, thus cutting their profit margins which are already lean.
I agree that Joe Average probably doesn't give a damn about Linux or other alternative OSes but Windows is being turned into a platform to generate more income for Microsoft from every user's pocket and he should be made aware of that and protected from it.
The fact is that if you use recent MS software, be that Windows XP, WMP, MS Office, etc. you are, in effect, sanctioning and supporting closed proprietary data formats that you will have to end up paying to license from MS in the future - either because you are trapped in their planned "rental" model for their software or because media-related hardware you buy in the future will have an MS "tax" levied on it to use those licensed formats - and you will have no choice but to pay it.
Microsoft do not like open formats because it means they cannot make any money from incorporating those into their software. TCP/IP was forced upon them and, for the moment, they have to support formats like MP3, MPEG, TXT, JPG, etc. because of the widespread use of those. But you can see for yourself how DRM is now being pushed and you can be sure that formats like WMV, WMA, DOC, XLS, etc. are intrinsic to that push.
MS is not satisfied with just having its OS and apps on your desktop - it wants to control all of your data and charge you for the privelige.
You may want to hand over your personal freedoms to MS but I'd prefer it if you didn't hand over mine also.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Given that Berkman, when he's remembered at all, is remembered for a violent act he committed, I feel compelled to state that I like Berkman the author, but do not condone the acts of Berkman the man.
The ideal of Communism is theoretically a stateless society, but the idea that it is possible to give the State total control and that it will let itself then just "wither away" is patently ridiculous. In my opinion, any path involving totalitarian Socialism could never lead to ideal Libertarian Communism.
--Mark
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Are you sure that it was Microsoft who forced them to enter the "Free" browser market, and not Mosaic?
I'm sure. One of the principal developers of NCSA's mosaic started Netscape. Mosaic had been around and had been free for a while before Netscape existed. Netscape wasnt forced to distribute their product for free until microsoft entered the picture.
Some of the other NCSA developers started selling Mosaic under the name Spyglass. The codebase for mosaic was licensed by Microsoft to create the original release of Internet Explorer (so, i guess, in a way you could say it was mosaic's fault). According to the CEO of Spyglass, Microsoft then stole the code, stopped paying them the licensing fee and crushed the company. Spyglass survived by giving up on Mosaic and finding a new market. They started developing a toolset for embedding stuff into the windows desktop. After their initial release, Microsoft developed ActiveX and crushed them under a pile of lawyers. They survived by cutting loose that idea too. Now they just look for markets they think microsoft wont care about. (actually, i think they're out of business now)
That story came from the CEO of spyglass, so feel free to consider it biased.
How about the guys who wrote Lynx? Did they force Netscape to release their browser for free?
no. they were around when netscape was charging for their browser. that didnt seem to be a problem.
You seem to have this odd idea that Microsoft were the first people to put out a browser for free.
no, but they were the first company to tie it to the operating system and make restrictive licensing deals that cut off distribution channels from their competitor in the market.
Were you actually around for the whole start of the WWW, or are you one of these people who came later?
yes, i was around for the whole start of the web.
I remember using gopher, even.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Yes , indeed!
MS leverage their monopoly in one market (Office Suites) to uphold their monopoly in another market (Operating Systems). If it wasn't for MS Office, many companies would have switched to Linux (or other OSs) already. And they use their monopoly in the OS market to gather more and more monopolies in other software markets (firewalls may be next).
Monopolies are BAD for consumers. The lack of competition gives no incentive to lower prices or to innovate. MS are big, fat and lazy now. They innovate when THEY feel like it (any tabs yet in Internet Explorer?)
Break up is the best solution. One company for their internet services (MSN, Internet Explorer, etc); one company for Office software, including their databases; and one company for core Operating Systems.
THIS breaks their leveraging of one monopoly with another.
Then all protocols and file formats with more than (say) 80% of the market must be publicly documented. Adobe can document the PDF format, allowing alternative readers (xpdf) and writers (OpenOffice, PHP, etc) - so MS can document their formats and protocols.
MS do not, and can never, own the world. It is time they learned their lesson!
I am anarch of all I survey.
For example, most Hondas come with a rebranded Honda stereo. These days, you don't even have a choice - the car comes with a stereo. Find me one that doesn't. So is that "unfair" to JVC or Sony or other manufacturers? Seems to me the aftermarket stereo market is quite brisk.
i wonder how brisk it would be if Honda designed the cars so that the stereo couldn't be removed (rewired the ignition sequence to go through the stereo or something). I mean, it's no big deal. If you want a different stereo, just put a blank face plate over the honda one and find another piece of your console real estate to use for your after market stereo.
That wont happen though, because people who are really into stereos would never buy a honda if they did that. That's because they have a choice and the market can effectively regulate itself.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
indeed. :)
On another note, MS does not have a monopoly. They are close, but not quite there yet; a quick check on dictionary.com references a monopoly as: "A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity." If Microsoft had exclusive control over all computers, there would be no Macintosh, no Linux, and no Unix. Think before you speak please, and maybe we can discuss this matter politely without the flaming.
So how come when I go to London it's full of Americans???
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Bush has been the worst PR your country has had in quite some time. He makes your country look like a t-rex with the brain that goes with it...
You people already thought that. Clinton bombed lots of places, even without UN approval. I remember people in Iraq dancing with Monica Lewinsky signs.
You people just hate Bush especially more because he's a conservative Republican.
Comparing Microsoft the monopolist to any run-of-the-mill car manufacturer, the analogy always fails, for several reasons:
A) the car manufacturer isn't a monopoly
B) they don't use a proprietary, secret, unpublished wiring scheme to hook the radio into the car and then refuse to publish the specs to third-party radio makers
C) they don't use a proprietary, secret, unpublished digital protocol to interface between the speakers and the radio, and then refuse to publish the protocols to third-party radio makers
D) they don't hook proprietary connections between the radio and the engine, and then try to pretend that you will void your warranty and wind up with random engine crashes when you try to remove or replace the radio with a "competitor's" radio
E) they don't normally manufacture the radio, instead they buy them from a third party and rebrand if necessary (I'm assuming.)
F) thus, the car manufacturer isn't directly "competing" with other third party radio makers, and vice versa. The third-party radio manufacturers are all welcome to try to get a contract with any of the non-monopoly car manufacturers to include their radios pre-installed.
G) Microsoft does do or try to do all of these things. That is, it makes the radio itself, it uses proprietary connectors and protocols, and hooks the radio up to the engine ostensibly to provide "features" to the car buyer but really to make it incredibly difficult to replace the built-in Microsoft "radio".
All that aside, I think the answer to your question is quite simple. What would be "fair" behaviour for Microsoft? When it becomes possible for other companies to build compatible, competing products and penetrate the monopolized market far enough to become real competitors, at that point we can probably say that Microsoft is acting in a "fair" manner. Notice I said "possible". These competitors won't necessarily succeed in the market, but as long as it is "possible" to succeed, then the market can be considered a fair market.
At the moment, it is impossible for many competing businesses to even enter the various markets that Microsoft exerts influence over, no less to remain there. Partially because Microsoft has a monopoly (this is the fault of the consumers, Microsoft didn't create a monopoly out of thin air), but most importantly because Microsoft takes steps as a monopoly to make sure that market penetration continues to be impossible, by bundling products and using proprietary, closed formats and protocols. (Many of those same steps would only be unethical if they were not a monopoly.)
Time and time again they have started from the monopoly position, and then added on certain behaviours in order to extinguish competition and solidify that monopoly position. This has been made illegal in most countries because history has shown that abusing a monopoly like this causes damage to governments and economies. Competition is an absolute necessity in a healthy local or world economy, and Microsoft has a long history if using these illegal tactics (illegal solely because they are a monopoly) to kill off competition, thus causing present or potential future damage to the economy, and thus to the citizens that are affected by the health of that economy.
"Fair" is not a silly, selfish thing, it has to do with having a level playing field for healthy competition, healthy economies, and consumer choice. I don't think the question is as complicated as you make it seem. Microsoft isn't "behaving fairly" because in addition to having a passive monopoly created by the consumers which makes competition difficult, they also actively weild that monopoly in secondary ways to make competing with them more difficult, and in many cases impossible.
RedBear
Geez, that's easy! Just the other day, I went to buy a ruby ring. The store would only sell me a ring with a diamond. I reiterated my desire for ring with a ruby, not a diamond. The store said they couldn't sell the ring with a ruby -- if they did so, De Beers would vastly increase the price on any future diamonds the store purchased for their rings. I asked for a plain ring, without a gemstone of any kind, thinking I could try and install a ruby on my own. Again, the store refused, although they pointed out that I could buy the diamond ring, remove the diamond after I brought the ring home, toss it in the trash, and then install the ruby if that's what I really wanted.
The store was obviously more concerned about the economic penalties of disobeying De Beers' policies than gaining the business of people who preferred a choice of gemstones, like rubies instead of diamonds. It's truly frightening how much influence De Beers has in the ring-selling industry!
Oh, wait -- I seem to have made a few typos...
Whoops -- I guess I don't actually have a story that applies to De Beers after all. My apologies for straying so far off the parent poster's topic...
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
I think it would simply be cheaper for Microsoft to just say "fuck you EU" and refuse to to business in any EU countries. Then, go and give windows away real cheap to the few countries not yet EU members. Get them so hooked on it, that it prevents them from joining the EU for fear of losing their OS they are dependent on.
Netscape was forced to enter the "Free" browser market and simply make money on server products.
Netscape was always free. Never a day went by when a person couldn't download a completely functional, unrestricted copy of Netscape for no charge.
At one point they switched to where "commercial" users were supposed to pay for it, but that's all. It's terribly difficult to convince people to pay for something if they've already been getting it free.
Of course, if there hadn't been free competition, then they'd have tried harder to charge... but Microsoft wasn't their only competitor! In fact, the Open Source community was also a threat to netscape!
Up until Netscape 3.0, the product had hardly any features a handful of skilled CS grad students couldn't have thrown together in a week. No Open Source browser sprung up, because there was no desire to make one: people wanting a free browser could always download Netscape.
But if ever Netscape had stopped the free downloads, a bunch of "Free Software" people would've got to work and quickly produced a program to take the whole cheapskate market-share (ie everyone)
You *might* be right about the non-commercial use part. However, only the Beta versions were free. These would time out IIRC and in any case you were, by the license, required to buy a copy.
I can download completely free copies of Office on the net, does this allow me to use it for free? Woopie!
Linux was barely on the map in 94-95-96 when the whole crushing of Netscape we happening. Free software wasn't anywhere near producing a free browser that would compete.
Netscape never offered a free browser. They offered a 90 day trial, and free use of beta versions. (Believe me, I was involved in deciding or not deciding to license Netscape. When MS's browser came for free, mgmt wouldn't spring for the Netscape browser at any cost even though it was better for a long time to come.)
Go check your facts on Netscape - you're simply wrong. We can debate what the cause was for the Netscapes change, and exactly how detrimental it was, but your facts are simply wrong.
Cheers,
Greg
MS is a monopoly, they control the "windows platform" which is on over 90% of computers worldwide, they are the computing equival;ent of the old monopoly phone companies. Now if 90% of vehicles on the road where hondas, then the stereo manufacturers would have a case, but as it is they don't have inordinate control over the automotive market.
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
Even if it did, who would want to look at that horrid piece of code? You should see some of the Rapid application development code generated by VC++. It has long strings of if conditionals for the event handler. Isn't all of the windows software based on that code?
Innovation:The concept that microsoft lacks innovation is a blind man's argument. In the 10 years MS has implemented or innovated: a graphic interface, a web browser, new high speed data standards, media editing software, internal CD burning, multiple processor support, wireless connectivity and a High-Def audio video player. Whenever a new technology gains MASS APPEAL, MS releases patches or add-ons to create basic compatibility. For ten years MS has maintained as many as nine unique or variant Operating Systems at near universal compatibility (excepting devices designed for other OS' or for furure Os' such as USB on Win 95). I dont know another company that is so exhaustive in it's tech support. Every MS based computer ive worked on that has had major bugs or problems has been caused by hardware problems. Cheap CDROMS, disfunctional motherboards, bad power supplies etc. There are thousands of companies making hundreds of thouseands of PC and Server attachments and programs that on a daily basis work soundly with Windows and Windows subsystems. Alternately, add on software programs tend to interfere with each other more than they interfer or are interfered with by windows. I am negotiating a juggling act between ACT, Quickbooks and a program called EstiMate at work. Im not arguing that Windows has no bugs or failings ... I just can't believe that is denounced in favor of proven failed PC companies IBM and Apple specifically. Linux is a unique case though not completely different. It is a pro designed system for pro's to use. It's own supporters are saying it is not now nor will ever be a desktop system.
I dont support the antitrust laws ... but despite that MS can only be a monopoly if monopoly meant big company.. it doesnt it isnt, it has direct competitors and always has. It takes in new ideas that are helpful to the market and provides a compatible platform for competitors to demonstrate their products.
So, MS has to pay a fine and thats ok hunh? How does that improve the situation? MS loses it's financial reserve (10b last time i checked) and it stops focusing on updates/patches for 95/98/98SE/ME/NT$/2000/XP and instead throws its weight into Longhorn and moves the release date to 2005. This helps who? The only limitation MS places on their competition is that the users have to seek the product. If users are comfortable with IE they dont care that mozilla(a program that functions alongside it's windows counterpart) is out there.
I personally would like to see MS refund every (legitimate) copy of Windows ME and XP in the EU and then shut down every copy in europe. If they they dont like windows .. let em make their own software...but thats my frustration speaking
I would like to see one solution in Longhorn.. make everything run in RAM ... no slow swapdrives..require 2-4GB ... make a false swapdrive in ram for older programs
and yes I buy my copies of Windows
What reason do you think that some Web pages don't display correctly in the most innovative browsers available (when IE has stood still for years)?
... so you're saying that IE is dominant because their rendering engine has better error handling that Mozilla....lol (the biggest "problems" seem to stem around table rendering from what I can tell).
That has got to be the biggest laugh I've ever seen
And with regards to the non-standard tags, whoopie do. I can deal with having the tag being ignored...
Every place that I've ever worked for which does website design designs for way more than just IE. Aside from the various versions of IE, most companies make sure their pages render correctly on old versions of Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, and (for one company anyway) WebTV. On a good sample of platforms that those browsers are available on (ie: a unix box, mac, and pc).
WMP is the default media player in Windows, most people that produce streaming media will choose WMP formats to stream their media because they know that most users have access to this format. This gives WMP an advantage over other media players. I assume, as you're asking this question, that you haven't been keeping up with the EU case?
I'm looking at the EU case with quite a bit of amusement, as Windows has shipped with a media player of sort since the Windows 3 days. Now that their media player doesn't suck ass, "competitors" bitch.
Furthermore, the only desktop operating system which ships with the "modern" WMP is XP. All of those old ME, 98, and 95 boxes which comprise of most of the desktop installations do not have the modern WMP -- to get it, the user has to download it.
I laugh even more, because the current version of RealPlayer is a steaming pile of shit. It became a steaming pile when RP7 was released, and has gotten worse ever since. I have yet to see one person who likes it, or would choose to use it over ANYTHING. That is, of course, if they could navigate through the maze of "buy here" icons to look for the "download free player" text in a 4 point font somewhere on the page.
The biggest note of amusement to this whole case is that it means that MS isn't allowed to do anything to improve their OS. They'll get smacked down for putting a decent firewall in XP. They'll get smacked down for updating IE. They'll get smacked down for improving their MSN IM software. They'll get smacked down if they try to add functionality that makes burning cd's as simple as draging the files onto the cdrom icon. They're probably going to get sued for making it easy to open up a zip file.
To me, that seems utterly rediculous.
"please show how DE Beers misuses their monopoly"
"Its De Beers, not DuBeers. Get your names straight."
Someone sounds a little touchy on the Oppenheimer regime. Only an uneducated fool or someone with a stake in the field would consider the treatment of South African's in the diamond mines as being fair practice. You obviously are uninformed regarding the sale of diamonds. Go to your local library and look through the national geographics (since you obviously don't have a subscription or you wouldn't need additional proof), or just look it up on the net.
Also, consider holding back from flaming a posters spelling until you gain mastery over your grammer.
Because Americans are so insular, anyway, most of them have problems working out where people are from by their accents - English become Australians to the Americans, etc.
Meanwhile we have literally milions of Europeans literally begging to come and live in America every year.
Yes, you have Eastern European migrants wanting entry to the US, exactly the same as you do in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, etc. It's just economics, the less wealthy seeking "the land of opportunity".
In a recent raid of a few Wall Mart stores, over 500 illegal Europeans were arrested for working here illegally.
It just shows how little you know about affairs outside of the USA, exactly confirming my point about Americans being very "insular".
For your information, there is a huge emphasis on illegal immigrants in Western Europe currently, particularly in places like hotels, restaurants & other businesses that exploit cheap labour.
America takes in more immigrants than the whole of Europe , Asia, and South America combined.
America has a huge Mexican/South American migrant workforce because Americans won't work for the low salaries paid by the likes of Macdonalds, etc.
This is the same as in Western Europe and I don't see a problem with it - as long as people come into the country legally and have human/employment rights, I don't have an issue with them coming to do the jobs that cannot be filled locally.
If you Europeans clowns hate America so much, how come millions of you keep trying every trick in the book to come live here then?
Again, I think you're confusing the millions of European migrants with the Western Europeans that spend two weeks a year in Disney World in Florida!
I've spent time on the East Coast, Florida and Colorado, there's good things and bad things about all of them but I wouldn't want to live in any of them.
Unfortunately, the US only has a single strategy when dealing with other nations - either trample all over them militarily or trample all over them economically. Now the US doesn't like it when the EU stands up and says "No".
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The whole point with the Web browser issue is that Microsoft doesn't adhere to standards. IE supports whatever ideas Microsoft wants to put into it. Ok, this doesn't sound bad in any way, but when you have a monopoly and everything that you include in your browser will be accepted 'as standard', yes it is bad. Most sites have been designed for IE only, screw the rest (screw standards). Microsoft isn't SCO, it doesn't make everything so blatantly obvious. It maintains its leadership by manipulation.
Concerning Windows Media Player, it was never an issue before because streaming media wasn't such a popular/lucrative business. Now that streaming media is big, why can't Microsoft use open media formats rather than its own? The answer is obviously because it wants everybody to use its media format and make money (by getting people to stream their content in WMP format). Again, this isn't bad, it's business, but by bundling WMP with Windows its going to be accepted 'as standard' - especially with Microsoft working so hard to infiltrate the media market.
The biggest note of amusement to this whole case is that it means that MS isn't allowed to do anything to improve their OS.
This is why Microsoft should have been split up in the first place. Why does Windows come with the additional apps that it comes with, why not add something like Realplayer or other messaging clients? The answer is, because Windows is made by Microsoft, and Microsoft will add its own additional apps in preference to those of another company. If Microsoft didn't develop anything other than Windows as a bare-bones OS, Windows would ship with Realplayer, Firefox, etc.
If you have Windows distributions, as I suggested, people could buy Windows with plenty of different apps included (such as Firebird instead of IE for example). This would also encourage people to develop their Websites so that the most popular browsers can display them correctly.
They're probably going to get sued for making it easy to open up a zip file.
If Microsoft was to invent a proprietary compression algorithm and ship its own compression utility that made use of this with Windows, then Microsoft could face getting sued. It's all about shutting out competition, and using your monopoly to get things accepted as standard.
Microsoft wants to be in control, not by being a leader, but by manipulating the situation so that it gets in the lead and maintains its leadership.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=popul ace
My girlfriend is an engineer :)
It is obvious even to the most blithering idiot that the rules that apply in a normal competitive market do not apply in a monopolized one.
The actions that are kosher for Apple or Linux distributors are not necessarily so for MS.
The car analogy is so idiotic that I don't understand why blithering idiots keep using it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That wont happen though, because people who are really into stereos would never buy a honda if they did that. That's because they have a choice and the market can effectively regulate itself.
And how is it different in the computer marketplace?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
> it looking at a considerable fine and possibly being forced to open up Windows. how boring i remember there was many cases with such an end microsoft doesn't fear paying pesso - this is also a great way to "overpay" and give bribes along with fine. we also know they woldn't open the sources,or if they to this oficially - we know all the important stuff will be hidden in pre-compiled libraries or their proprietary compiler itself. as you see - there are nothing about cutting out mediaplayer, nor explorer. we all know for sure that windows will not function without them anyways, so they can just remove icons from start menu, and call it EuroWindows or something. boring boring boring it is all about bribes being too low for european commision oldfarts. microsoft will learn on their mistakes and will never underestimate eurofarts. ::chipsets::
because in the computer marketplace microsoft enters into exclusionary deals with distribution channels to keep competitors from being able to bring choices to the customers.
In the computer marketplace, microsoft does tie applications to the operating system in a way you cannot remove them.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
"I'm still wondering what "fair" means as applied to Microsoft, as in "Microsoft is not playing fair". How are they not playing fair? Is bundling a media play with windows somehow unfair to the consumer?"
Anti-trust laws are not about consumers or customers. Anti-trust laws primarily focus on competition. The consumer benifts like, lower prices and better products, are a happy side effect of a Free Market.
Ask yourself this: How does bundling a media player into the monopoly produdt affet your ablity to start your own business creating and selling your own media player? That is how you are hurt by bundling. Consumers are hurt because you are unable to create and sell a competing product. In fact, I would argue that a large part of the "bubble" bursting, is the stigma that as soon as any person or company deveops a software product that becomes nominally successfull or profifitable Microsoft eventually comes along and destorys you.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
One word: precedent
Either it will make MS more reluctant do bundle things, or if they continue current practice will give other competitors grounds to fight that.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Most sites have been designed for IE only, screw the rest (screw standards).
... maybe because they'd have to pay those companies money? Would YOU want to pay an extra $80 so you can get Windows with RealPlayer and 3 different IM clients?
... gee, what does that sound a lot like ... Sorry, no thank you. I'll take everything & the kitchen sink, turn off what I don't want, and replace what I don't like.
:p
Funny, I've yet to find one site that renders oddly in Mozilla... I found a bug in Mozilla once with some of my HTML (it didn't render correctly in certain cases with dd blocks), but that's since been fixed...
It maintains its leadership by manipulation.
*hands OwlWhacker a tinfoil hat* I think it was made very clear in their anti-trust trial that they couldn't manipulate their way out of a paperbag...
Concerning Windows Media Player, it was never an issue before because streaming media wasn't such a popular/lucrative business.
It still isn't a popular lucrative business. P2P downloading of movies is definately popular, but I wuoldn't exactly call it a lucrative business...
Now that streaming media is big, why can't Microsoft use open media formats rather than its own?
They do support open media formats. Fact of that matter is, if you write a codec for it you can get WMP to play any format you want.
The answer is obviously because it wants everybody to use its media format and make money (by getting people to stream their content in WMP format).
They don't make money from people streaming content in a Microsoft format. They do make money from liscensing the technology behind it (as does every other major player in that arena) -- you can argue that it isn't better than anything else out there, but there will be people who disagree with you.
Again, this isn't bad, it's business, but by bundling WMP with Windows its going to be accepted 'as standard' - especially with Microsoft working so hard to infiltrate the media market.
If you want to be technical, their formats are "standards" -- they've been published with standards bodies, and there is talk that the "next generation" dvd formats will support one of their better encoding methods...
Why does Windows come with the additional apps that it comes with, why not add something like Realplayer or other messaging clients?
Wild guess here
Second reason: So that they don't put themself in a risky position by depending on a 3rd party.
If Microsoft didn't develop anything other than Windows as a bare-bones OS, Windows would ship with Realplayer, Firefox, etc.
If MS only gave us a bare-bones OS, anyone who bought it would spend 5 days of their life downloading/installing software to get a useable system.
Windows is not a bare-bones OS. It isn't made for geeks. It is made for the mass market. It is made to do what most people want right after installing it. Think that's a bad idea? Look around... it is standard practice.
If you have Windows distributions, as I suggested, people could buy Windows with plenty of different apps included (such as Firebird instead of IE for example).
That's wonderful. I'd hate to see the god-aweful mess that such "distributions" would bring to the market. I can see it now -- software that won't install, software that functions improperly because the xyzzy interface was a 5th party knockoff implementation created by another piece of software, software that requires you to install other software before it will work, which requires you to install other software, every application re-invents a number of "standard" components
Nothing is stopping computer manufacturers from installing stuff on top of what MS provides -- before tha anti-trust case that was an issue, but no more.
This would also encourage people to develop their Websites so that the most popular browsers can display them correctly.
Err, isn't that what you're complaining is happening already?
Look, I'm not saying MS is full of a bunch of underhanded, low-down bastards, but:
because in the computer marketplace microsoft enters into exclusionary deals with distribution channels to keep competitors from being able to bring choices to the customers.
Name one. Yes, it used to be the case, but vendors are no longer locked into only selling MS, or per-processor licensing (which effectively meant only MS). Even larger distributors, like Dell, will let you select Lotus or Word Perfect instead of MS Office (last I looked, anyway).
In the computer marketplace, microsoft does tie applications to the operating system in a way you cannot remove them.
Yes, they do... and don't. It's bad, really, only because they are a monopoly. Other companies can do this and no one complains. Even so, the analogy again is bad because even if you can't remove IE, you can still use Mozilla. Even if you can't remove WMP, you can still use another media player... it's not like a stereo being locked in the car - where would you put the new one?
Frankly, I just wish you could smack people on the head and make them aware of alternative, but I'm getting sick of all this MS legal crap. Nothing works. This isn't going to work. MS will pay a fine amounting to the equivelent of $0.50 for you and me, and they'll change things in a way to comply with regulations, but the first time you boot up (and you need to connect to MS computers, remember, to register), things will automagically download or something, or they'll make windows nag you into downloading the products.
The sheeple will comply. Instead we should promote alternatives. Not because we want Linux (or something specific) to succeed, but because we want open standards to succeed. We're not going to get that by whining to a corporate sponsored government (and I don't just mean Bush or republicans - they are ALL bought and paid for, let's not pretend they're not).
Instead, let's continue the grass roots effort. It is working, if slowly.
Stupid sexy Flanders.