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EU Releases Microsoft Antitrust Report
Hassman writes "Ever wondered the reasoning behind the EU fining Microsoft and ordering them to sell a Media Player free version of Windows? Well now you can stop wondering. If you aren't up for the full read (it is 302 pages), check out the Reuters summary. Want more? Check out a quote from the summary: 'There is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system [as in not Windows],' he [a MS exec] wrote Gates. 'It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy version at times...' Mmm...sexy indeed." Reader BrerBear writes "News.com is reporting that the European Union has released its report on Microsoft's conduct, to which Microsoft has pre-emptively responded. Inside are more classic examples of what one should never write in an internal memo: 'In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago,' from Microsoft Sr. VP Bob Muglia."
So, the memos point out things we already knew. At least they are smart enough to admit that they don't have a great product. If only they were smart enough to fix it and do right in the future.
Evolution or ID?
'It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy version at times...'
I wouldn't exactly say patience is the right word, how about ignorance? It was very difficult for most computer users to leave the more comfortable Windows enviroment, but then again I learned DOS when I was 6 yrs old to play Montezuma's Revenge. So it cant be that hard.
> 'It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy version at times...' Mmm...sexy indeed.
Let me just say, there is no switching cost: you have been fooled. It's not your fault; Microsoft has been fooling billions of people the same way you have been fooled. Offset training and allocation of new resources in your company for purging out Microsoft as being standard operating costs (upgrade costs), not "switching" costs; it's a farce to think otherwise.
Long term benefit in using a reliable system makes any switching price worth every penny. Short term benefits are that you can simply ignore the next bout of viruses, your staff will love you and you can also take credit for the increased profits from operating a tight ship.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Don't forget that in the US MS was convicted as well.
The fact that they are convicted twice won't change a thing until they actually *PAY* the fine.
MP3 Search Engine
Ok, so you read the microsoft response but did you fail to read the actual reuters summary? The commision found that barrier-to-entry for the operating system market were so high because people don't want to have to change to an incompatible product, and that this places *special* obligations on microsoft an a monopolist in such a market.
A better analogy would be that there was a dominant shoe maker that refused to make the shoelace holes in a way that would allow other shoelace makers to create a product that worked with their shoes.
But yes, nice "flaimbait" quote.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
The analogy with the shoelaces is somewhat good, but it lacks the fact that if Microsoft were making shoes with shoelaces they would also own all the rights for making shoelaces to 95% of the shoes in the world. And that's as close as a monopoly as it gets.
It's the #1 player why?
Probably because there hasn't been any alternatives, since Microsoft has been stifling them. User indifference matters here; re Netscape vs. Microsoft.
Try using the free Media Player Classic.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
Which is exactly one of the reasons the competitors get no chance and why the EU has made this decision.
BTW, QuickTime works just fine on Windows afaik and I see it used quite a lot by people other than Apple (though often alongside other formats, rather than as the only format)
The worst that would happen though, is that MS would strip the player from the windows CD.
People would still be able to download it from their website for free, just as they have with every successive recent version of WMP.
True, a lot of consumers wouldn't realise and wouldn't bother - at least not until websites and files started telling them that they needed WMP to play the file they're trying to view, but I'd hardly say that it would be a disaster.
I followed the whole damn rediculous case. Get them on their licencing practices, not on this baseless Media Player argument
A better analogy would be that there was a dominant shoe maker that refused to make the shoelace holes in a way that would allow other shoelace makers to create a product that worked with their shoes.
Good point. I forgot that Quick Time won't run on windows. I also forgot that when the Real Player programmers finally got it to work on Windows, Windows fought back and installed spyware, blaming it on Real Player. The whole "DirectX" thing is a sham -- only Microsoft gets to use it.i dont se how its more cross platfor than anything else
quicktime works on osx
on windows
and on linux with mplayer
real works on windows osx and linux
so wath makes wmp more cross platform
yeah and the ting with real player being sucky thats true but those companies want to make money
from the media streaming companies.
but reals marketshare sems to be to low to purley make money from the streaming companies so then the have to make some money from the player.
and lets faceit aslong that wmp is integratet in windows wmp will be the only format that streaming media providers can rely on wich means that the marketshare for new companies wont be bigg enuuff to make money without getting some from the player.
Any dimwat can go to their mechanic to replace a part, or go to foot locker and replace a shoelace themselves. Ever try to get someone to use a different web browser, even for SECURITY reasons? Let ALONE another media player. Most people (i.e. non-readers of /. , they do in fact exist) won't be bothered, and it can sometimes have detrimental effects. It's not even a 56k thing; if you already something to do it, why download another program? Maybe if they'd just package the competition and give people a simple wizard-based choice, it'd be all good.
I'm not saying Microsoft should be forced to remove it or anything, but computer applications are a whole 'nother leage than stuff you can buy at Kmart, and including them does kinda stifle competition for possibly *better programs*. To be quite honest, I don't know what a reasonable solution is, barring the wizard-choice one.
Also, I think the Preview button should exist by itself, as a *default*, the first time you try to post, in order to avoid any or grammar spelling mistkes.
Standards are needed - and despite Real's protestations to the contrary, there are two main reasons their "product" has lost market share left and right.
#1, they feel the need to load it down over and over with spyware - especially that Gator crap. And then they put in the constant-nagware messenger of their OWN with that "Real Messenger" garbage.
#2, their encoding schemes SUCK. Compared to the visual quality of Divx encoding, WMF, or even earlier-series Quicktime (which had some real nasty blocking problems), even modern Realplayer blows chunks.
This exec spreads fear and dissent. But it is all lies. He lies. Alternatives to Windows for individuals (Customers, if you will) are often obtained for the cost of 720MB of bandwidth, which is often "unlimited" or "unmetered" over the course of a month and already paid for. The only cost involved for an individual to switch is the time and effort to learn the other operating system. The cost for a company will be high since they are expected to compensate their employees for their time. But the cost for individuals to switch is low. If they are a homeless greasy bum with nothing else to do, naturally this cost will be very low.
We will surround their pricey vendor lock-in, and then it will be they who will be surrounded. We will continue to give away our free alternative operating systems for the price of what it costs you to download it, and a shoe.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
My options are
At a cost of CAD $399 (not including the box) my choice will be #2
Good flame !
...
Naturally one wouldnt expect to buy shoes without the laces however; shoe laces are easy to remove and there isn't one single shoe manufacturer that (excuse the pun) ties shoe wearers into wearing a particular type of shoe. Also shoe laces from different manufacturers (including manufacturers that dont even make shoes) will work on any pair of shoes without requiring any modification to the leather e.t.c.
Its common sense really!
I'ts not the fact that there is or isn't a market for the built in media player, it is the methods and practices that they use to keep it there that is the problem. For example heres a contorted scenario. The porn industry. Imagine if M$ were stupid enough to make it so that WMP was unable to play porn movies. There would be a lot of pissed of breast worshippers about. The lack of choice and the vendor lock-in and the "we control you" attitude of microsoft is what this is about. Its about microsoft dictating to people should and shouldnt do with something that is essentially theirs.
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Do you really, genuinely, truly believe that Windows has the market share it does because it's that much better than competing products? Really?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I have been thinking all week why the NIST should standardize the windows API.
I think that NIST would be better than ISO/ANSI/IEEE, and they have a working agreement with ANSI. Also the specification would cost less (if at all) than an ANSI/ISO version.
By standardizing the API, you immediately have the government buy the software that uses this standard. It would make our country secure not to be dependent upon one single supplier of an OS (as much as Microsoft thinks otherwise).
It also means that Windows stops being the moving target that it is.
Before you troll me with free enterprise/right to innovate/unnecessary/linux blah blah blah, anything that lessens the cost for everybody is a good idea. The OS is the only thing that has increased in cost as compared to other parts to the computer.
I know linux is free, but the fact remains that the vast majority of computer users use a Microsoft product, and wants to keep their software investment minimal (even though all the software companies want us to continually upgrade).
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
"Inside are more classic examples of what one should never write in an internal memo...."
I disagree. It is sometimes one's duty to point out that one's employer has weaknesses. These are exactly the sort of things one *should* write in internal memos to people who can and should do things about them. *Good* leadership wants to hear about the company's weak spots so that they may be addressed.
Yes, sometimes bearing bad news gets you fired. In the short run that's really bad, but in the long run I'd rather not be working for weaklings and cowards anyway.
umm..this memo is from one guy that may have been in charge of MS's C++. It was written in 1997 and reflects this single person's view of the products MS had released in 1997 and before.
Anyone who claims that Windows 2000 is buggy and unstable is in error. And an idiot.
They do this by making a loss in this market until such a time as their competition is forced out of the market, then it's time to start making money. They can do this by using their other sections to provide revenue whilst losing money in the other markets...think XBox for a current example.
Microsoft seems to fit this definition to me.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Anyway it's a poor analogy, because shoelaces are only available separately because they're effectively a service item, like car tyres or fountain pen cartridges. I'm no great fan of WMP, but I'll concede that it's unlikely to need replacing because it's worn out.
There is, however, a *universal* market for shoes whose laces can be removed and replaced. Nobody would buy shoes with nonremovable laces, even if it were possible to force another set of laces in alongside.
Since history shows that Microsoft is capable of building only nonreplaceable parts, what other recourse is there but to demand that they not install those parts in the first place?
(Quick poll: how many of you have figured out how to completely remove Media Player, for instance from a server (where one has no conceivable use for it), so that Windows Update doesn't plague you with offers to patch or upgrade it?)
President Ed Black wrote letters to Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, telling them he knew they had been asked to "take extraordinary actions" because of the European decision.
When I read stuff like this it makes me think "get stuffed USA". No disrespect to the nice Americans reading this, but your current administration is too big for it's boots. Don't tell us how the USA is all about freedom and then try to bully us into doing what you want us to do.
Given the alternatives of the time, oh yes! And, over time, the windows competitors got better, there were plenty of Windows users who stayed on board because Windows/Office/etc is what they know.
Example: I once talked to a programmer from a not to be mentioned company, they primarily use Cobol for their database front and back end (non SQL query based). After some discussion, I asked the question of if they have ever considered modernizing their systems. Her response was that what they had was faster then anything else on the market today. Note: She did not say that their systems were able to handle more transactions per clock then anything else, or that they could do data processing faster then any packaged software today... her comment on speed had had poorly to do with the cost of upgrading in terms of time.
Even if every Windows user on earth had the completely free option (financially) to get a new operating system, office package, web browser, media player, etc (No, I don't need any links as I know they exist). The time required for the user to learn all of these new packages would cost them huge amounts of time!
So goes the old axiom: "Which word processor is the best? Mine is! Why? Because it's what I know!"
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
This is a common tactic that is used to confuse people into thinking that Microsoft is just trying to do normal business and not using monopolistic tactics to keep people from switching OS's. Almost everything Microsoft does is designed around keeping people from switching. That includes, extending standards, proprietary file formats, licensing agreements ect. You can never stop Microsoft until you break their tactics. Of course, they camouflage their real tactics with simple analogies that they expect everyone to believe.
Thanks for your ignorance again - it was fun stating the obvious (and it was just a simple example, if you were minimally inclined to think before you c&p for karma, you could have come up with zillions of examples that would show why MS's claims are half-truths and plainly wrong in the larger picture. Besides, this was explained plenty of times before here on ./ for the likes of you, but you keep beating the ./ is biased drum without addressing these explanations.
I really can't understand how you could be afraid of being bombed while holding such a misunderstanding of American politics. Not to be all arrogant, but if the world is going to hate America, I will demand that they have half a clue what the hell it is they hate.
1. Colin Powell is the Secretary of State. He represents the US in the world arena.
2. Powell and Rumsfeld don't have one tiny thing to do with each other unless the US is already attacking a foreign nation. That is the ONLY relationship they share.
3. Rumsfeld never came up with "excuses". He works for the President's administration. He comes up with plans for military action. He doesn't have anything to do with the political situation except to play TV Star with the reporters.
4. What perversion of good sense makes you think that a company which represents one of the foundations of the American economy can take such a beating internationally and the Secretary of State would twiddle his thumbs? This strikes me as not only ignorant of politics but of world history for the last 300 years as well.
5. Even the dimmest of wits who believe against all odds that the US attacked Iraq for oil (despite the fact that the Persian gulf contributes not even 25% of American oil imports, and of that oil, almost all of it comes happily from Saudi Arabia) could not explain what American could gain by attacking Europe.
So in conclusion, you're scared of America attacking Europe, and I'm scared of what would happen if Europeans had laser beams for eyeballs and mechanical arms that could cut a(n) (American) car in half. My fear is slightly more likely to be realized than yours, thanks for asking.
There is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system
The switching cost definately is a reason for large companies not to switch to Linux, but there is a totally different reason for small companies. I have been working with, for, and around small companies (25 employees) for years and almost all of them are running some flavor of windows/windows server because Bob from accounting knows about computers and knows how to fix issues if they come up. These companies do not have the budget for a full time system administrator, so they make do with what they've got. Since most people are running windows at home, Windows is going to be the easiest thing for these companies to use at work.
Johnkoerner.com
I'll place my vote with "Because the competition spends more time complaining about fairness then they do producing a quality product" option.
For years, I hated installing RealPlayer. For a long time it was the standard when it came to streaming media. I hated having to mount Sherpa guided expeditions through real.com in order to find the real player. Only to have to do so again a month or two later after my version 'expired' and had to be 'upgraded'. I hated having to uncheck multiple check boxes in order to keep from being bothered by requests to buy the full version, but those prompts would still appear.
I came to prefer Windows Media Player for most streaming as it offered a far better experience then Real did. Feel free to blame Microsoft for driving Real to such tactics if you want... always remember that it was up to Real in the end how to treat their customers.
Yes, there are alternatives to Real, however for my needs, Windows Media Player does handles most of them. (although more recently, iTunes is beating it out for almost anything audio).
I for one welcome our new/old Microsoft masters! Almost everything I need in a single box? I call it Windows 2000.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
There is absolutely no need to trash Microsoft this time... they did it themselves!
'There is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system [as in not Windows],' he [a MS exec] wrote Gates. 'It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy version at times...'
and
'In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago,' from Microsoft Sr. VP Bob Muglia.
and isn't that the truth? I write software for a living. If I did my job as bad as Microsoft has over the years, I'd be fired!
If I lived under a brutal dictatorship, I'd want someone to intervene on my behalf...
If I lived under a brutal dictatorship I would do everything to end it myself.
Oh wait... I did that already. But it was another country and another dictator I got rid of. So maybe my opinion doesn't count.
And for sure: I would curse the country that basicly said: You are incompetent to deal with your dictator on your own, which we let go 10 years ago because we didn't want him away at this point. So this time we will bomb you into shock and awe, then we wreck or let wreck every public service that is and stop you from rebuilding it because we promised the contracts to our buddies first.
What happened to let people decide for their destiny themselves? How long would Saddam Hussein have been in power if the U.S. just said: We don't care? One year? Two? Ok. There is the argument that this would have meant another 10000 or 20000 dead people on the hand of Saddam Hussein's regime every year.
How is that worse or better than the probably 30000 dead young men enlisted to the Iraqi army and the 15000 dead civilians? The so feared Republican Guards just disappeared. Those actively supporting Saddam Hussein knew when to hide. But not the young people who were serving an army they probably didn't like, but which died by defending the home of their families.
I can't hear anymore the argument that it was best for Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein by first bombing the land into chaos and then fail to have a contingency plan. What if Iraqi people were able to sort out Saddam Hussein themselves? Did anyone ever looked at the alternatives?
Or was it that Saddam Hussein had to be removed by external force because otherwise the Iraqi would have dealt with him, and then the U.S. couldn't close the ring around Iran and Russia, because a selfliberated Iraq may have had no incentive to let them in?
Forget that the application is installed by default and bundled with the SatanSpawn Windows.
Which is the best bit of software out of Quicktime, Real and WMP?
Quicktime does a reasonable job (normally image quality's better). In fact, I quite like it. Files are typically slightly larger (because of the higher quality) than WMP. But an alternative.
Real. Ugh. Try stopping it starting at boot on a Windows box. Even if you remove it, you'll find it back again. Same with quicktime (even deleting from the startup registry and it comes back). Real's so full of adverts etc that the view window by default's tiny in comparison.
Well, WMP. I'm not going to make too strong a case for it, but I'm not going to do it down either.
Personal opinion: WMP is the best out of the three. It's a personal opinion, but one formed from years of use. I don't think that way because it's bundled - it's the feeling I'm left with after trying out all the major competitors.
If you're going to get at MS for anti-competitive workings, do it for something REAL like the bundling of IE. IE is comparatively BAD to most other browsers, but people use it because it's installed by default. Don't do it over the one piece of software that's actually pretty darned good.
In philosophy there's a saying, "there is no natural law." One could say of business, "there is no business ethics."
(*) Yes, I know WMP is available for Mac, but how long before Microsoft stops developing it, just as they did with IE?
.... hasn't been caught conspiring to ONLY include their brand of shoelaces, and browbeating the other lace and shoe manufacturers to "follow their lead..or else", nor that shoes be so constructed that using another brand of lace makes your shoes fall apart, or to make the task of inserting new laces so difficult as to be near impossible without getting the "secret shoe lace instructions" that are "licensed" and "propietary".. and even if you get the shoelaces inserted, they constantly fall apart and won't hold a knot. There's the difference.
They got caught, with more than enough evidence, of being serious crooks and liars and have gone well out of their way to stifle competition using illegal tactics. It's more important for them to maximise profits at the expense of following the law or building functional products, or NOT building stuff that breaks other peoples stuff. Just reality. They are crooks, plain and simple. Just very wealthy and powerful crooks. If they WEREN'T, then we wouldn't have all these people pointing it out. If they hadn't strong armed the box vendors, then it wouldn't have come up. If their stuff wasn't designed on purpose to break other peoples stuff, no one would have brought it up. And yada yada yada, but they did all these things, it's pretty clear they have a deep seated corporate culture and mindset and practice of serious lawlessness that goes directly to the top guy, then goes back down and spreads sideways. And they accept getting busted because it won't matter, they can absorb any of the fines and still keep doing lawless acts, over and over again.
They need to have their corporate charter revoked, not just a pussy fine. I mean, busted, jailtime for gates and some others. gone, out of business. tough beans to the investors, maybe they shouldn't "invest" in crime, it's called being a skunk and being part of the crime. Anyone who holds their stock now and DOESN'T realise the company is crooked does not have my synmpathy, it's been proven over and over again. and if they do and still wish to "make money" off being crooked, being part of it,well, IMO they are just as guilty. Same with several other large mega corps,REVOKE their incorporation, that's the ONLY THING that willwork with this sort of thing, until "they"-the serial crooks still out there- get the message to stop being crooks and bullies just because they think they are big enough to "get away with it" and it's just "part of doing business". I got a clue stick for those people, it's quite possible to be in business and make money without being a crook.
If I lived under a brutal dictatorship, I'd want someone to intervene on my behalf
Are you really sure about that?
I live in Spain, which had a dictator (who was sometimes brutal) up until about 25 years ago. But if you ask people today I think most would tell you that they wouldn't have wanted the USA to invade to get rid of him.
People everywhere have pride. They like to sort out their own problems. That's as true in the USA as anywhere else. I'm sure if Bush suddenly decided he was a dictator and was going to halt democratic elections the people of the USA wouldn't be clamouring for the Europeans or Chinese to "liberate" them.
The reason that it seems logical to you that the war isn't about oil is that you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. It's not about making oil cheaper in the short term.
You do know that the plan is that Iraq is going to pay for its reconstruction from oil revenues? So all those American companies getting contracts worth billions of dollars are going to be paid for with the proceeds of Iraqi oil, however much the oil costs. So the net outcome is a huge movement of worth from Iraq to the USA.
That's why the administration isn't worried about being massively overcharged by the contractors like Haliburton. In fact, that's what they want - the more the Iraq war "costs" the more worth will eventually be moved from Iraq to the USA. Also, the administration is trying to make it so that most of the big companies in Iraq (services like telephones, water, electricity etc.) are american ones, so in the long term even when the Iraqi's are spending money at home there will be a tranfer of wealth to the USA. It's great business!
I hate to jam my finger at your otherwise decent post, but it's MOOT point, not mute point.
Cool. So I can play WMV files using Quicktime?
Oh, wait. WMV is a locked MS format and they won't let anyone tap into it.
The correct solution here is not to make MS bundle this or unbundble that. Simply require that ALL MS file formats, protocols, etc. be released IMMEDIATELY to the public domain. NO fees, no license restrictions.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
What? Sure people would. Think of all those trainers (US: sneakers) that have velcro fastenings. Like laces you can't replace. Only better than laces because they don't snap and are easier to fasten.
Fact is, lots of people would happily sacrifice the ability to replace or upgrade a component in return for a cheaper initial solution, or some other benefit. Indeed, that's the entire trend of the last century or so.
It used to be a a shoe could be re-soled or re-heeled four or five times over its lifespan. Now, many companies make shoes that can't be re-soled at all.
It used to be that people bought separate hi-fi components from different places and integrated them with standard jack-plugs and leads. But lots of people are happy to buy all-in-one systems that don't even have a line-in or line-out.
Should we have stopped hi-fi makers from selling CD-players with built in amps and speakers, that make it impossible to replace those built-in components with ones of your own choosing?
Now, I realise that there is still a difference going on - MS is a near-monopoly, while no hi-fi maker can claim to be.
The question, though, is whether if MS only had 40% market share and they still integrated media player to the (effective) exclusion of alternative components, would people still buy their OS? If the answer is 'NO' then MS is abusing their monopoly to do things they could not otherwise do. But if the answer is 'YES' then MS are behaving just as any non-monopolistic corporation would, by modifying their product in a way that satisfies the market.
Now it seems to me that end users don't give a crap about any of this and would be happy to buy an OS that forced the use of it's own media player component or its own TCP/IP component or its own zlib library, to the exclusion of competing equivalents.
So, MS is off the hook....
Unless you say that the end users are not the customers. Instead, you could argue that the real customers are resellers like Tiny and Gateway and Dell, and corporations. Maybe this lot would refuse point blank to buy an OS that prevented you swapping out media player components. But I doubt it. If instead of one dominant OS, there were, say, 4 OSes with about 25% market each, I imagine resellers would simply offer to pre-load PCs with whatever end users asked for, thereby shifting the real market force back to end users.
So, much as I hate to say it, this whole 'integration' thing, be it media player or IE or whatever, is a complete red herring.
There are plenty of sharp practices that MS engages in such as restrictive licensing deals. They really should focus on those and drop this whole bundling argument.
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how much am I paying for NTFS compression then? I mean that was more than ten years ago.... You'd think they'd start charging money for it eventually....
.bombs flamed out. And it's not because Microsoft is evil, but rather the market is unforgiving.
The job of the OS is to take input from the user, and render output to the user. There is no reason an OS shouldn't just understand what audio and video are, and what to do with them. Windows having a media player is both obvious and good. To bad linux makes it a hassle, but there's that whole soundcard mess to get through first. Now Windows forcing one to monogomously use the microsoft approved media codecs, that is very bad. And also what they didn't do. Far from just real and quicktime, there's all the dvd software, of course software that really whips the llama's ass, and well, in perhaps an ironic twist, there's always mplayer.
Car manufactures all colluded to install car stereos, in every car! The horrors! They're an evil cartel and must be broken up! I might add, installing software, at least on windows, is a hell of a lot simpler than installing a car stereo. The only two people I know with stock stereos drive an Avalon and a Jaguar respectively. Microsoft's media player is a non-issue.
If companies could come up with something superior enough to offset modest effort of installing something, people would install it. People install bonzi buddy, so that barrier for entry is very VERY low. If you want to make it something people will buy, well that's a little trickier. Which isn't microsofts fault. Most media players are free. And even the versions that aren't have alternatives that are.
The simple fact is Microsoft is the 600 or so lb gorrilla not because their bastards, but because they grow as their customers demand. Perfectly? No. Servicably? Yes. They don't wander around resting on their laurels content to fiddle as the new little guys plan their "operation crush." IBM did, they died, and have since been resurected. Xerox, wow. Everyone knows that story. Netscape was full of such talented programers the founder now specializes in moving programing jobs to india, and couldn't keep up with the underfunded academics who continued developing Mosaic when Mark was pleasuring himself with a fist full of franklins. It's not a coincidence Google, Amazon, and Ebay lived while other
In general though, the US has been getting a little techy about the growing independence of the supra-EU state. The next biggest issue is the EU's design to create its own defence forces, the US sees this as a worry because it weakens the need for NATO and creates two large divisive superpowers (witness the continentals vs. US wrt. iraq).
Or to sum it up briefly, the US would like to continue to be the world's only superpower. While the European Union is quite different from Soviet Russia, it's a lot easier setting the agenda alone. The military is one issue, but the greatest step to that effect has already happened with the Euro.
I talk to quite a few US people and few of them seem to "get" the EU. The german are german, the french french and so on. We're not becoming "europeans" the way you are "americans". Different people, but working together for the good of all of us.
The european way is to try to cooperate, because we have to. The american way is "are you with us, or are you against us?". And it rubs the whole of EU the wrong way. We (Norway) were officially supporting the Iraqi war, yet we saw the biggest anti-war demonstrations since WWII. Did we like Saddam and think he was a nice guy? Nope. Did the people like the attitude and warmongering of Bush? Also no. So we're somewhere between in the gray, but in the US there's only black and white.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
But, since it is so prevalent...you gotta make exceptions for it, so the sheeple can view your site with it...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I talk to quite a few US people and few of them seem to "get" the EU.
Same with the Brits unfortunately!
Different people, but working together for the good of all of us.
You try telling that to the Brits!
The american way is "are you with us, or are you against us?".
Come on that's not fair. It's the Bush way, not the American way.
"Getting oil" is an outright ridiculous conclusion, in my opinion.
You keep repeating that but as I've said, when people say the war is about the oil they don't necessarily mean the USA physically getting their hands on the oil. It's about the wealth and power that oil represents and owning/controlling that.
So it's not about "getting oil". But it is about the oil.
Windows fought back and installed spyware
What spyware? Care to cite a single example?
The whole "DirectX" thing is a sham -- only Microsoft gets to use it.
Nobody is forcing you to program for DirectX. Use SDL if you want. Or OpenGL. Or the myriad of other libraries out there that just wrap to DirectX or Win32. Cocoa is only for OS X, as well...where's the bitching?
Oh, that's right, everyone just hates "M$" and so mindlessly bashes. I find the low comment count (for an anti-Microsoft article) to this article hilarious--clearly people are just bored with this whole thing. The damn JPEG patent article has more comments.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Sorenson and Apple are not monopolies. I'm getting really tired of having to continually repeat this completely obvious point.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
I find the low comment count (for an anti-Microsoft article) amusing. Clearly people are just bored with this whole agenda that OSDN has against its competitors, using a "tech news" site it just so happens to own in order to post negative articles. The damn JPEG patent article has more comments than this, and I see more and more people rising up and posting about how tired they are of the mindless drone "M$"-bashing and RIAA-bashing and whatever else.
I guess I just remember when Slashdot was a good source for interesting technology news. Now it's a proactive, agenda-driven website that bills itself as a news site. OSDN owns Slashdot--is it any coincidence so many articles negative toward OSDN's competitors get posted? If Microsoft owned a website that posted anti-Linux articles all the time and called itself a "news" site, all of Slashdot would be up in arms. But too many fanboys have joined this site, bought into the groupthink, and formed their worldviews entirely from Slashdot headlines. That's how you get the whole Linux-is-100%-perfect mindset, the everything-M$-does-is-bad, the piracy-is-just-free-advertising, and whatever other drivel Slashdot pushes down our throats.
If it's not a headline entitled "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China" (a real article) that blames Microsoft for the Chinese government's actions (and--surprise, surprise--ignoring the fact that China has its own custom Linux distribution, and Red Hat changed KDE flags to sell there...yet no "OSS Violates Human Rights In China"), or a new user-ran executable that somehow gets labelled "New Microsoft Hole" (a real article), or a study showing Linux as the most breached OS on the net with a headline that magically gets changed to "Linux Most-Attacked OS" instead of "Most-Breached", or theaters arresting some guy for bringing a camera into a theater, and Michael posts it as "Theaters Using Night-Vision Goggles" and magically turning it into some bizarre privacy issue...hell, I could go on and on.
Not to mention that for a site which has such a pro-Open Source agenda, the way editors run things is decidedly closed. CmdrTaco never listens to anything you say, and e-mails you send him are either never answered or receive very nasty, sarcastic replies. I can't begin to imagine how many people will never get mod points again because they dared reply to "The Post." And of course, there are Michael's modbombs and user insults.
Anyway, I imagine this will get modded Off-topic at least once, but I accept that because I just had to say my piece. Slashdot has become really rotten. A lot of new OSS guys come here and have their whole worldviews shaped by the agenda-driven, fact-twisting articles posted here. That's where all the asshole zealots come from that hold Linux back. Everything here is accepted as truth, and nobody seems to realize that outside the little niche here, nobody knows or cares about "Linux," "RIAA," or even "M$."
It has nothing to do with making a good product or not. It has everything to do with illegal monopolistic practices. MS has the source to their OS. They make tweaks/fixes in the OS code for their non-OS products as revealed by the leaked MS Code. This is a huge advantage to MS. For MS to play on a level playing field, they need to make all the specs, protocols and API's to the OS open and freely usable by all. They can keep the source code for their OSes closed. For all of their non-OS products, they can keep them as locked up as they like since if competitors can leverage MS's OS as much as Microsoft can, then the playing field is now level.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
I think you're mistaken in dismissing the importance of Iraq's oil for America (and the rest of the world). Persian Gulf oil may only amount to 25% of imported US oil, but that's a deliberate strategy to not depend on a single supplyer and prevent the sellers from fixing the price (like Microsoft is doing in the software world, to stay on topic).
But the persian gulf (and especially Iraq), is where most of the world's oil reserves are, and their oil happens to be one of the easiest (thus cheapest) in the world to extract (unlike say North Sea or Alaska oil). So, Iraq being back in the oil business is important for all oil hungry countries (America, but also Europe & Japan) in the medium and long term.
The only reason it didn't play in the short term is because of the unrest in Iraq which isn't good for business.
Let's see -- it seems that with every release of Windows the printing specifications have changed. Enough to break quirky old app's that *WILL* remain running until I deem necessary. I'm also getting sick of digging in different places for system settings. In Windows 98 they were here, then in 2K over there, and now with XP someplace else.
... and you know, most of the Netware servers are notorious for running *YEARS* without a reboot or any issues. My record is just under a decade before I _really_ had to replace the last Netware 3.12 server (every fan in the system was dead after we finally found where it was hidden :).
... buh-bye Microsoft. Too much money (WAY TOO MUCH) much too fast...
Have you USED their operating systems? Now, have you *USED* Linux and OS X extensively. I have placed each platform in front of myself and used it solely at home for months on end with each. The Windows box almost got thrown out the Window, but stopped myself short (good hardware) and reformatted Linux and used that. Then I put a Mac in front of myself and continue to use that to this day (Linux is still plugging away in the basement, thank you).
Have you ever used & maintained a Windows Server? How about BSD? Linux? QNX? Netware? Well, again, I have. It also happens to be my job. There's little wonder why there are -0- Windows servers in the data-centers
And people don't wonder why I've been mythodically replacing the Windows boxes in the offices with Linux and Mac's. Particularly after they're up and running on their new system.
As for Microsoft business practices... Yeah, I still want my many THOUSANDS of dollars back for Windows licensing that I _had_ to purchase if I wanted decent hardware through normal OEM channels from many years ago. Funny, but those servers are still running Linux to this day...
I don't care that they dominate the market. Their operating system, well, does suck pretty bad. They've never been leaders, but wanna-be followers who have stolen and cheated their way to the top.
I love Apple's offerings today -- if you've worked with their stuff you'd understand. I wouldn't be without my iPod, and until you sit in front of a iSight you just won't understand. I also have little doubt that if Apple had risen to the top they'd pull the exact same tricks IBM did, Microsoft is, and the next big company probably will. In the mean time
I have been developing for 8 years now and have worked on MS Windows, Linux and Solaris. All three platforms have thier pros and cons for development. Trying to say one is easier over the other is sheer stupidity and I usually only hear those kind of statements from MS only developers with no experience on other platforms, hence why those other platforms seem "harder" to develop for. Have you developed with QT? QT is very nice to develop with, has great documentation and an extensive framework of helper clases to do all kinds of task in a cross-platform manner. How about your experience with GTK+? GTK+ has more language bindings they you can shake a stick at. Perl, Python, C, C++, Java, C#, you name it. Many people sware by Python as a RAD tool. How much Phython GUI development work have you done under Linux to make statments? How much Perl code have you written? You can connect to many different databases with Perl with great ease. Perl has so many CPAN modules it is not even funny. Those modules handle anythign you could want to do, database, CGI, HTTP, FTP, you name it. Blanket statements like yours only shows your ignorane with other platfroms, tools and frameworks.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
The thing is, I couldn't give a monkey's butt if Real Player goes away for good. It's second rate and noone likes it. What I do care about is the future of computer interfaces - and this ruling just put us nearer to the command prompt a further from minority report. So, let's say WMP is taken out for 'anti competitive' reasons. What next? Longhorn can't ship with Avalon (which was going to give me a cool 3d interface, a richer media experience, a touch of the future) becuase Macromedia get's scared that it will crush Flash and goes telling on them to the EU? How ridiculously unfair is it to tell a company that it can only add new features 'as long as they aren't very good features' (i.e. no chance of competing)? Would you want a bunch of dim-witted EU lawyers designing your next-gen product for you? AARRRGGGH.
Yes, exectly, Heinz has some 90% of the U.S. ketchup market, this even though you can make your own ketchup, and firms like Hunt's offer ketchup. Yet the anti-trust people have not been knocking down Heinz's door. The key reason being that Heinz has not abused their position in the ketchup market. For example:
In other words this has never been about Microsoft having a near monopoly it is about the abuse of the monopoly. If for the sake of argument Microsoft had (like say Heinz) reached their position just by having a very good, resonably priced product, then not used their near monopoly to try and crush all others the regulators would have basicly left them alone. Instead Microsoft has taken a very different path... and the net result Heinz is being left alone while Microsoft isn't.
>Let's say Apple ruled the domain. Everyone ran on Apple's hardware, ran OSX, etc. Would everyone start treating them like they treat Microsoft?
>I guess where I am going is... is the hatred /.'ers have toward Microsoft truly due to their business practices, or simply because they dominate the market?
Though I cannot speak for all of /., I think it's the former because of the latter. After all, if they didn't dominate the market, then their business practices wouldn't matter nearly as much.
Taking a look at MPlayer's page which you kindly linked to, I'd say there's another big reason why no one who uses Windows uses MPlayer: I didn't see any pre-compiled Windows binaries available for download, just source and a Red Hat RPM. Maybe more people would download and run MPlayer if a pre-compiled binary was available for Windows. Yes, I'm certain that there are websites around that provide pre-compiled Windows binaries for MPlayer, but when there's nothing on the official site, along with a nice big message saying that they don't endorse any of those, there isn't much encouragement to want to switch.
I'm a Windows user, and I never use WMP. The free-as-in-beer BSPlayer along with a good codec pack solves my video needs nicely (except for Real, where any substitute doesn't work well, and QuickTime, which is perfectly fine with Apple's player). After hearing all of the posts here about the fact that MPlayer's the cat's ass, I'd love to try it, but I don't feel like trying to compile it.
Make it available, and people will download it and use it given a little bit of info. It's not like WMP is beloved by Windows users. Provide an alternative, and people will use it.
If using Linux is about choice, how come people complain when I choose to use Windows?
It is real easy to see that Apple is doing most of the stuff that MS is doing, with the only difference being that Apple has an extremely small market share.
The other difference is that Microsoft is a monopolist, and has been convicted of this in a court of law in the U.S. This is a sufficient difference, because the law applies differently to monopolies than it does to other companies. That's how antitrust laws work.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
First up, the existence of WMP as a free product in no way prevents other companies from selling their own media player. Don't forget, Linux 'free' and yet that doesn't stop plenty of companies from selling their own operating systems, including other versions of Linux.
If I read what you said right... free products, regardless of quality will win out against products which cost money. If this is true... why does Windows have such a larger market share than Linux on the desktop?
I'll grant you a point that you didn't make... by having WMP included with Windows, it gives Microsoft an advantage over Real, Apple and Nullsoft as an end user has to download and install another player if they don't want WMP. This is a similar argument to the Microsoft anti trust trial, IE being included with the operating system unfairly hurt Netscape (an argument which I thought was BS (however preventing OEMs from being able to install Netscape or other browsers was a legitimate gripe for Netscape and others)).
None of this though prevents in anyway other companies from selling their own music player, Nullsoft (Winamp), Real (RealPlayer/RealOne), Music Match (Music Match) and others have done quite well in selling software which does a lot of what WMP does (and more in some cases).
As I hope you recognize, your argument of saying that WMP simply being on the market prevents others from making quality products is completely with out merit. One product does not prevent another product from being sold by its simple existence, one product on the market can however lesson the sales of another if there exists sufficient differences between the two where consumers opt for one over the other.
Just remember, just because something is free does not mean it is better!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
wrote Gates. 'It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO
Hmmm... High TCO? Pardon but I'm a little annoyed at this. For years they have been touting their "low TCO" as a selling point. Now they admit they have a higher TCO than the other solutions available.
I'm sure Microsoft has some redeeming value but it's apparent companies should reconder when looking at upgrading/continuing with Microsoft products. Even rich companies want to save money. Here is how. Get rid of Microsoft products and go with something better (subjective statement I know).
It's already happened once in my lifetime. People used to say "Nobody ever got fired buying IBM". It could happen again.
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
It is much easier to overlook shady business practices when the company doesn't wield the kind of power and market dominance that MS does.
If Apple does something detestable, the marginal Apple users will say "fine, I'll use MS or Unix*". Apple loses market share and rethinks it's actions. Most people will not concern themselves enough to get riled up.
In fact, when the macintosh came out and was not backward compatible with IIe, many Apple users did just that.
If a market dominator is not abusive, there will be detractors but most will not take issue. Novell's dominance of networking during the 80's is a good example of that. If you wanted to use something else to do the networking, Novell would even provide the clients/server components to make your transition easier. They were content that their product could stand on it's own merits.
*term used as generic description of operating system - not to be inferred as trademark infringement upon claims by infantile litiguous companies currently disputing ownership.
Your business is quite particular
I don't think it is -- Every small business I've worked with has at least one, and sometimes many special purpose or vertical application (and that's excluding accounting apps). Last year I worked for a firm in the legal industry, and they had at least 10 "essential" Win32 apps, excluding internal stuff. There's also an enormous amount of VB/Access/MSOffice "talent" out there grinding out new solutions on the cheap.
In larger organizations, the situation is orders of magnitude worse. I think it was Ford Motor that put out a report indicating they had more internal apps than they had employees. Now not all of those are Win32, but you can bet that a hellauva lot are.
This attitude that "Mozilla + OpenOffice = Business Desktop" is just out of touch with the real world -- Microsoft has been worming their tentacles in deep for many many years. Their monopoly is so profound that many LinAdvocates seem to fail to even understand it.
Now, I'm not saying it can't work some places, but you are talking about only the oldline mainframe-only, IBM-only shops, or very new progressive web-only shops. And that's a minority.
The longterm trends are towards webapps, Java, and NET, which is good for Linux. But unless Wine is 99.9% compatible, Linux on the desktop is just not reality for most businesses.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
From the Microsoft rebuttal: It is also notable that the specifications Microsoft must now license do not yet exist. Microsoft will have to create them. These specifications, which will comprise thousands of pages of valuable information, will qualify as copyrighted works in their own right and as copyrightable preparatory design material for a computer program under the EC s 1991 Software Copyright Directive.
This just confirms what we've been thinking for a long time -- MS software is not planned. The protocols aren't mapped out or specified. The implementation *is* the specification. Software just happens; there is no such thing as Software Engineering in the Microsoft world. To get a written specification, it has to be reverse-engineered from the product.
Ouch.
It is real easy to see that Apple is doing most of the stuff that MS is doing,
I think there are two major differences, aside from the monopoly issue that others have already posted about. 1) Quicktime is bundled with the OS, but it isn't integrated (it can be removed if the user doesn't want it). 2) Apple doesn't force retailers to bundle Quicktime. If they choose to offer a customized solution (w/o Quicktime) they don't suffer the price penalties or license revocations.
Now that I think of it, there is also a third. If you have a version of the OS w/o Quicktime, you aren't forced to install Quicktime to get security updates or do a service pack upgrade (think Windows 2000 and I believe it was SP2 that required WMP).
The way I read it... it wasn't that the site didn't work. It's that they spent money for something new and the manager in question wasn't seeing any newness.
but your current administration is too big for it's boots.
No disrespect taken. I don't think you really understand the situation. A lot of us don't like him and his, either. Heck, most of us voted for the other guy, last time around.
Now, if you go picking on the country as a whole, that's kind of a different animal. We tend to get a bit nationalistic when insulted, as do a lot of other places.
Don't tell us how the USA is all about freedom and then try to bully us into doing what you want us to do.
Oh, another cultural misunderstanding. When we say "freedom", we mean OUR freedom, not YOUR freedom. As far as most of us are concerned, as long as we're happy, the rest of the world can "get stuffed", to borrow your phrase.
We've a pretty insular culture, for better or worse.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Americans of the late 19th century would have understood. Having been beaten into economic submission by the railroad and oil trusts, they howled for reform. That's how we got the laws that occasionally have been used to protect us: citizen action. Unfortunately, the sorry history of US antitrust law since is one of big money obstructing progress and undoing results at nearly every step.
If we're ever to get out from under the yoke of our Microsofts and Wal-Marts, which depress innovation, cripple competition, batter markets and saddle society with a host of costs and social ills, we'll need to resurrect that lost spirit of the engaged American--the citizen who knows his interests and how to fight for them.
Is that quicktime the program or quicktime the media framework that can be removed? AFAIK any sort of media playback in any application on a Mac uses the quicktime subsystem for rendering.
M acOSX/Co nceptual/SystemOverview/SystemArchitecture/chapter _43_section_2.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000980/CH DBJCFH
See:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/
It would be just as hard to remove that as it would be to remove DirectShow/DirectPlay from windows.
Apple doesn't force retailers to bundle Quicktime?
Huh? Only apple itself sells computers with OSX and all OSX computers have quicktime preinstalled. Who are these retailers that can make customised distributions of OSX stripping out Quicktime and swapping in a customised media subsystem?
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "