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Microsoft's Longhorn Faces Antitrust Scrutiny
benore writes "The Department of Justice
will be reviewing Microsoft's Longhorn product as part of the company's antitrust settlement. One analyst opines that Mircosoft is appearing to soften its image to become kinder and gentler. 'They don't want people to hate them anymore. They've learned from their mistakes.' Hmmm."
That's gonna be a hard thing to do... The name of the settlement says it all, "Antitrust", Trust can be broken in a second, but can take years to build back up... If even that. Besides I don't buy that crap, when did M$ learn anything from their mistakes before?
I have to use linux at work as a developer.
it has its good sides and its bad sides. so has windows. some tools are better on linux, some on windows.
but the main advantage on linux is that at least, there is some adherence to standards. most of the protocols are open, and you are basically free to do with it what you want.
if microsoft wants to be 'not hated', they had better start sharing information and decoupling olexpress, media player and iexplorer from windows.
i think that the OS market is a bit like fine sand in their hands: the more you try to hold onto it by force, the faster it slips away.
Since the 2.6 kernel and better USB support, linux is becoming a feasible alternative for businesses, and microsoft is scared as hell of that.
i bet that we will start seeing more huggy type marketing as longhorn nears its release.
Windows ME needed to exist for the same reason that all other MS products exist. For $$$. But, on an optomistic note, while I only used it because 2k wouldn't run on my defected Asus system, I found ME to be MUCH more stable than 98. Also, installing hardware and software was much easier.
And about the XP UI, am I the only one who immidiatly changes it to the "Classic View"? Supposidly MS spent a ton of time and money looking at user efficiency when they designed the UI for XP, but I just don't see it. Am I the only one?
One area that DOJ regulators will be looking at, in particular, is a control panel in Longhorn that facilitates use of a browser and media player other than the Microsoft versions that will be pre-built into the system.
Great. We have government "experts" who think the choice of media player really important and they aren't even looking at the whole Trusted Computing initiative and the monopolistic implications thereof.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
A government that uses closed-source, proprietary software is not an independent government. A company that uses closed-source, proprietary software is not an independent company.
Yes, Microsoft is abusive, and will remain abusive until its abusive leaders are gone, but that is not the point. The point is that you should not pay someone to keep secrets from you.
Sigh. And since I use Windows at home and at work, I am not a free man? Even if I chose to use Windows.
The owls are not what they seem
The DOJ has no balls unless they are dealing with individual people and MS isn't people so its business as usual.
If the DOJ had a clue they would have split up MFST into two+ companies that each had an OS and had to compete with each other. And the company with Word would be competing with the company that had Excel and they wouldn't be allowed to talk to each other except via a public blog. And most of the game divisions would all now be working for different companies.
But the current DOJ people never bothered to look at the Standard Oil case or were bought off.
That control panel thing isn't what they should be looking for. There should be a complete means by which to remove IE from the machine completely. At present, there is no easy or reliable means.
I recently deployed a bunch of machines with Firefox as the default browser and "removed" MSIE from the machine (as claimed by the removing of the windows components thingy) and yet I can still access MSIE on these machines... more importantly, email software that utilizes MSIE as their HTML rendering libraries can still access the vulnerabilities that still exist. If somehow a bad email gets through, the machine is just toast... possibly more than that in the process.
The problem is that MSIE is bundled and imbedded in the OS. They need to be forced to extract it or at least make it conveniently possible. The product hasn't been released yet so there's plenty of time. They are dropping features and components left and right from Longhorn, so why not MSIE in order to comply with the DOJ?
For boxed copies of Windows, I agree 100% - it should include anything MS wants to put in the box. For OEM copies it's a different matter. It should include the kernel, basic subsystems, Windows Explorer, and very little else. OEMs could then be free to decide what media player, office suite, browser, etc. they bundle, and customers could then buy from differentiated OEMs. MS should not be allowed to use their effective monopoly in the OS market to create monopolies in other markets (e.g. the web browser market), and this is exactly what the antitrust laws state.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It seems totally reasonable that they, like Apple, would have an HTML rendering framework ship as part of the OS. IE uses that framework, as do other parts of the system. Other practices, like making IE hard to uninstall, pre-loading the framework to give IE a startup boost, and others, are more questionable.
At home you have far greater security that comes from the fact that no one cares what you are doing with your computer.
Remember the Vietnam war? The U.S. government killed more than 2,000,000 people, none of whom threatened the U.S. directly. Since then, the U.S. government has killed at least 1,000,000 more who did not threaten the U.S. directly. (Most people in the U.S. find these facts so painful that they refuse to learn about why they occurred.)
Don't think that a government that spends an almost endless amount of money on war-making capability suddenly becomes moral when considering invading the computers of foreign governments or companies.
It's a funny irony that as Linux has grown, simply because of Microsofts attitude, that Billy and Steve have become almost obsessed with Linux. that they have in my eyes ended up looking like silly cartoon villians.
I'll get you next time Linux! just you wait!
No offence, but this is offtopic; congratulations on getting modded up to +5 for a post that has almost nothing to do with the article. I don't blame yo, but the sheep-like moderators, modding up anything anti-MS and pro-linux.
Two things I sort of take issue with, though:
as well as forced upgrades
What forced upgrades, how? My company is still using Office 2000, and have not been "forced" to upgrade, despite some clients using Office XP; the documents still open just fine. There are still machines running NT 4; similarly, nothing is forcing us to upgrade them. Sure, support is running out/has run out, but the same is true of older releases of Linux distros. Without a leet C hacker or two on staff, businesses using them are similarly "forced" to upgrade if they wish to have continued support.
will be advocating limiting the use of MS products to anyone who will listen
Rather you should be advocating the use of the best tool for the job. If that tool happens to be from MS, then so be it. MS isn't the answer to everything, but then neither is Linux.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Microsoft's early mission statement was "A computer on every desk, running Microsoft software".
Their current mission statement is: "To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential."
Before October 2002, it was "To empower people through great software -- any time, any place, and on any device."
The early mission satement was far better, and more representative of how they actully do business. If you were an employee, which statement gives you the most clear goals? If you were an investor, which company's stock would you buy? Of course, there's no mention of integrity, quality, ethics, but nevermind that...
Back to the topic, has anyone seen any real changes in behavior (not just some analyst saying they want to be nicer)?
Mac mini arriving will allow me to eagerly switch from MS's world to that of Apple Macs
I've always found it quite interesting that people choose to switch from MS products to Apple products. Apple is quite possibly the most restrictive company of the three. They don't only lock you in with their software, but they lock you in with hardware as well! They force high hardware prices on people because there are no alternatives (although many mac zealots, suprisingly, love to defend the high profit margins Apple pulls in for hardware). Their software practices just as much lock-in and integration as MS. Yes you can run unix apps on OSX, but you can do the same in Windows. Don't kid yourself, if Apple had the market share of MS, they'd be slapped with a massive anti-trust lawsuit too.
If you are leaving MS on principle, move to Linux. A fantastic, full-featured OS, with none of the capitalist 'dirtyness' to marr it.
Not so much the smallness, more the seperateness. They would still be 3 very large companies, but they wouldn't cover the whole market individually.
Office and Windows are cash cows used to subsidise entry into all other markets. If this free cash is withdrawn (due to office and windows being in seperate companies than the rest), then the other microsoft stuff has to compete on something approaching a level playing field.
If Office is not obliged to lock people into Windows it would (possibly) have more interest in being more cross platform. Anyway, the main aim is to break the vertical relationship with the Windows OS. This will allow better competition in both the OS and Office markets, though I have to say I would expect Office to continue to dominate. Windows less surely so as it would run the risk of becoming a comodity without all the other microsoft stuff tied closely to it, and we are approaching a change in the way computers are architected (more parallelism, less Hz), though with 95% of the desktop market it's obviously in a strong starting position.
You totally miss the point, like most people.
Microsoft isn't using it's monopoly in OS to get monopolies in media players, web browsers etc. It is using it's web browsers and media players to force proprietary standards, like WMF, WMA, ms java, etc, which will only work on windows. This then reinforces the windows monopoly.
For example, microsoft licensed java, then added extensions to intentionally break compatability with any other OS. They created internet explorer to kill netscape, because netscape was the killer app at the time, and was available on every platform under the sun. Then you have a situation where IE is at version 5, meanwhile the only reasonable browser on other OS's is netscape 4. This is before Mozilla and Firefox came along, and greatly hurt the competitiveness of alot of platforms, as using netscape 4 is just slightly better than eating razor blades.
The only people who thinks it was Microsoft who brought cheap PC to the market is those who have no knowledge of computers whatsoever. The PC became cheap because the open standard that let anyone do a clone without expensive patents and copyrights standing in the way except for the bios. The competition that enabled was what drove the PC price from 8000$ down to todays prices.
Software had absolutely nothing to do with the price. Infact the price of software hasnt fallen much at all. Go figure.
HTTP/1.1 400
Products aside, MS had built a reputation of intimidation. The Dept.of Justice should have broken the OEM contracts. That would have leveled the playing field a whole lot quicker. As long as they have OEM's at their mercy they'll remain a monopoly. Yes, OEM's have a choice in the outset but what are they to do? I dislike MS more for their "business" practices than their OS's.
Yes, but that would be rather a lousy way to run a business, now wouldn't it? Maybe, if there weren't any competition, Microsoft could break compatibility every few months but that's theoretical.
I haven't had any Windows compatibility problems in the past and if I ever do I'm perfectly willing to upgrade. I don't understand why paying for a version upgrade is such an anathema. After all, Microsoft is not billing you for the service packs and patches you can download.
To me dropping Windows completely is not an option even if I wanted to do so. At home I want to be able to play games and at work I work I have to deal with MS Office documents. No, OpenOffice does not import/export documents properly.
Now, don't make a mistake. I am running Linux on my home "media server" and I've been running Linux and BSD variants since 1992. I am just pissed off at the kind of self-righteous false dichotomies offered by some people like the parent poster. The world is not black and white. It is not "you're either for free software or you're against it". His reasons - like those of RMS - for pushing free software are political, not practical, and I will not have any part in such shenanigans.
The owls are not what they seem
strides forward in the fields of Digital Rights Management
You should not call DRM "Digital Rights Management", the term is "Digital Restrictions Management". This isn't just a linguistic trick, it's framing the debate. "Rights" has a positive connotation, "restrictions" has a negative one. The idea is that you define the debate in your terms, so that your opposition has to defend itself using your terms.
The master of this is Frank Luntz. His way of framing debate with words is called "Luntz Speak". I don't agree with his politics, but I admire his methods tremendously.