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Microsoft Won't Appeal EU Ruling
Ec|ipse writes "Microsoft has decided not to appeal the European court order to implement antitrust sanctions, Instead, Microsoft hopes to win their main appeal that they (Microsoft) had abused their software dominance."
Microsoft are criminals. Nobody should be doing business with them.
Their "dominance" will wither away, and quickly, if they don't start doing something about security issues.
Then what will they do? Sue customers for running away?
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
I havent RTFA, of course, but it seems to me that they're shooting to have the bigger case overturned. Why pay the court costs to fight 2 battles, when you can just fight one? If they get the decision overturned, then the penalties will cease to be. Saves time and money for them.
You Lose! Now everyone selling this bastardized copy will be calling tech support asking "why can't I play this movie file like on my friends (with WMP) computer?
Its called code reuse. Not done well, mind you, but MANY MANY linux distributions have the EXACT same problem.
Take WMP for instance. It is really just a front end to the Windows Media API. Funny thing is, to install this arguably essential component of windows, Media PLayer comes with the package. They also do this for MAPI... thats why you get Outlook Express.
In a nutshell, Windows started out as a bunch of tech demos for the underlying technology. Now Microsoft is developing the "Proof of concept" mini-apps into full fledged applications.
P.S. Before the grammar nzi's strike, I do know that my spelling and grammar have a lot to be desired.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
It's a huge support problem, because a large number of applications suddenly become partially or wholely broken.
Frankly, I can't imagine any OEM shipping a WMP-less version of Windows because they would have to take the calls when some doof's powerpoint won't play music.
In the long run, it'll be the entire planetary economy that loses if American companies are the only ones that prosper. Competition is good for everyone, even if that competition sometimes needs a little help from government.
> MANY MANY linux distributions have the EXACT same problem
True for desktop software, but traditionally *Nix server software has very little code reuse (see Miguel's "Unix Sucks" paper). And then you have these elaborate systems like Gentoo where people can "solve" this supposed problem by recompiling everything.
The Linux approach of simple standalone custom-compiled apps works best for hardened Internet servers. But there is an appeal for the Windows approach on the intranet -- there are server apps which call into DirectShow or whatever for Image processing and on Windows it's always just in there without having to for sysadmins to deal with a complex chain of dependancies or a custom compile.
What I want is to be able to remove Media Player, Internet Explorer, and Outlook Express.
These three are just security holes.
To European customers they should sell a stripped down version for the same price that includes almost nothing. Not even notepad, IE, screensavers, windows update access, or minesweeper. Then they could sell an add-on CD for $29 that includes all the typically imbedded programs.
What makes you think that IE 7 won't simply be a "patched version of IE 6"?
I don't doubt that regardless of Firefox's emergence as a hotshot browser, Microsoft would not have been providing a browser in Longhorn with particularly new or innovative functionality, but it'd be odd for the marketing droids to allow IE to retain the "IE 6" moniker. Instead, I'd expect it to be named "IE NG" (next-generation) or something similar, after they'd revamped it with an Avalon interface (or something)?
While I refuse on principle to install WMP on my OSX box, the fact is that not having it has (AFAICS) put me at a disadvantage in that VLC (my primary player, handles near-anything & is FOSS) can only handle some .wmv files (and wmv files are the only things I've seen that it won't accept).
.wmv is pretty damn unlikely.
As a non-MS using geek I have had to make a conscious decision (sensible or otherwise) not to use that particular piece of software and thereby deprived myself of certain content. For an average Windows user to firstly know what WMP is when IE tells them it 'Needs to be installed to view content', secondly see any reason not to install it and thirdly put up with 'Broken files' not playing because the alternatives won't play the
No, if it saves them market share.
More to the point, it costs them less to pay legal fees and fines than it would cost them to "play fair." I don't think any legal system moves fast enough to make the cost of non-compliance more expensive to Microsoft than the cost of compliance; hence, they'll continue to play these legal games.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
Active X is only one of the security holes. Most of the recent security problems with IE, Outlook, MS in general have nothing to do with Active X. Heck, even SP 2, which disables Active X by default, still leaves the PC prone to several buffer overflow attacks and more.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.