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MS, EU Agree on Name for Windows Sans Media Player
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has agreed with European Union antitrust regulators on a new name for Windows software sold in Europe. Officials at the U.S. software giant said they had accepted the European Union's offer to call the European version of Windows sold without Media Player "Windows XP Home Edition N" - with "N" standing for "not with media player." Microsoft's "XP Professional Edition" will also include the "N" for versions sold without the media player. The prior name for the OS was Windows XP Reduced Media Edition." News.com also mentions the choice.
What's going to prevent Microsoft from issuing a "critical update" that re-installs Media Player onto the reduced version? I think this is the loophole that Microsoft is going to use to get Media Player back into play.
If the EU wanted to do some actual, tangible good, maybe they should have forced Dell or Gateway to offer alternative OS's on their PCs that are sold in EU markets.
I'm all for giving Microsoft a good kick in the teeth at any opportunity, but how exactly does this benefit the user? If, as I suspect, this is only the version which is _sold_ in the UK, then it will affect very few people. Most people buy a PC with Windows XP preinstalled, I doubt any of these will be version "N". Which retailers are going to want to sell a PC which won't play media out of the box? Sales people will easily talk a lot of people coming in just to buy a copy of XP to get a new machine instead with the "full" version of XP on, which can only increase the collusion between Microsoft and retailers. If the European Union is serious about its concern regarding monopolistic practices, they should immediately implement the same policy as the government of Peru.
With my crystal ball I'm seeing the future. Hmm... The price of the N editions will be...drum roll...MORE than the non-N versions! It's natural that since they need to remove some stuff from the original, they need to be compensated for this extra work!
And few years down the line Microsoft will claim that since the non-N versions are not selling so good, nobody really wants choice in media players.
...Anyway?
I'm willing to bet that 90 + % of all future users of this Windows XP N thing will just go and download the Windows Media Player installer from the MS site anyway.
What is the EU gaining?
Last time I bought a car, it came with a stereo already in it, yet, this wasn't an antitrust or monopoly concern. All of the other car manufacturers also had the opportunity to include some form of music player in their cars, and in fact, most or all of them did so. I recognize that the media player is a great selling point for Windows, and it's hard for the smaller companies and to grab a piece of the market share, but that's the way it works. Kia and Hyundai didn't get into the US car market by forcing Ford and Chevy to sell cars without radios. They did it by targeting a slightly different market group and by underselling the larger competition.
The bottom line is, that in spite of my distaste for Microsoft, I don't see how bundling Windows Media Player with Windows fits into the category of antitrust. If they were after Microsoft for all those nifty contracts they've got with computer manufacturer's to ship computers with Windows pre-installed, I'd understand that. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some shady dealing in getting those contracts, and you can definitely argue that they harm other OS's distributions. I think the EU is addressing their concerns about Microsoft in the wrong way.
That has nothing to do with the article.
A Lie.Grandparent explained its relevance to the article.
software patents would not allow only MS, but any company (and technically individual)
Everyone knows patents don't just work for microsoft. Is this what you call a 'rebuttal'.
The software patent issue is far, far larger and more important than some "M$ versus teh world!"
Who the hell would disagree with that. Certainly not the grandparent who you are supposed to be replying to.
You seem to offer nothing in your +3 interesting post. Author or people who modded this up, please explain what value this post has.
sorry
Actually, this is a great new revenue stream for Microsoft. Users are going to pickup the Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition "N" and discover later that they really wanted the version that included a media player of some sort.
Are they going to go to the Internet and download any one of the hundreds of media players for Windows? Nooooo - they'll head back to the store and pickup Microsoft Windows Media Player Toolkit for Home Edition "N". Heck, if they play it right, MS could even bundle some features in this second version that would make even non-N users envious.
Honestly, if the EU thinks this is suitable punishment for the Microsoft monopoly, they obviously don't understand computer software. We need to enforce open standards for data interchange; for example, there should be a common word processing file format that can be accurately read by any wordprocessor.
Eric Sarjeant
eric[@]sarjeant.com