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Microsoft EU Monopoly Appeal Thrown Out
smnicoll writes "The European Court of First Instance has thrown out Microsoft's appeal to have penalties for the abuse of monopoly suspended, reports BBC News Online.
'Microsoft's application for interim measures is therefore dismissed in its entirety,'
The court's statement said. 'The evidence adduced by Microsoft is not sufficient to show that implementation of the remedies imposed by the Commission might cause serious and irreparable damage.' The commission's case is mainly focused on Microsoft's integration of Windows Media Player into the operationg system and the effects that has on the ability of Real Networks and Apple to get their rival players used." Similar stories at Bloomberg, CNET, and Reuters (via CNN).
Surely a media player is an integral part of the operating system, just like a web browser, some card games, and a paper clip.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
"Following precedents is rather like walking backwards. i would rather there have been a mandate that audio and video codecs be open."
You missed the point. They were "in trouble" because they bundled a media player with their OS. Nobody is saying MSFT can't distribute their media player [crappy as it may be]. Just they can't include it in the OS.
What microsoft has to realize is that if they didn't market 95/98 so poorly [e.g. you can watch movies and play mp3s, etc...] and peddle these half baked programs [stupid backup/anti-virus/etc] and simply focus on a solid core OS.... they would be better off.
They could still sell their other software but if I walked into a store and bought windows I would not be installing 1.5GB of useless software that I'll simply replace with other implementation then pray someone with a net connection doesn't look at my box wrong lest they exploit it.
All about choice.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
No, since Apple is not a monopoly.
Only one of those operating systems is a monopoly. And antitrust-law says that using your monopoly in one area to gain monopoly in other areas is against the law. MS used their OS-monopoly to gain monopoly in web-browsers. Now they tried to gain monopoly in the streaming-media markets, by using their OS-monopoly. And that is against the law.
I find it really surprising that some people simply do not "get it".
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Making Microsoft unbundle components of the OS is a weak solution. Microsoft will do that but so something like like ask the user every week if they want to install it.
The real solution would be to force all PC vendors to include a option to buy the hardware without a OS and when doing so it must be listed with full credit of the OEM cost of Windows. So when a vendor says it includes $200 of software, I should be able to get $200 off if I buy it without an OS. Vendors could also offer Linux and BSD options. Make Microsoft contracts with the hardware vendors void as they are anti-competative.Because one of the big problems is that vendors like Dell, Sony and others do not give us a choice. For those running Linux or a BSD, you still have to buy a product that pays Microsoft extortion.
And if the US courts had any guts they would pass such a judgement instead of folding up like a house of cards