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PC Makers See Little Reason to Deploy XP N
suitepotato writes "In this article, Ingrid Marson reports to CNet News that in a small survey of companies such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo, there are no real plans to deploy Microsoft's Windows XP N which was the version required by the European Union. It would seem that despite the rants of anger towards Microsoft that they were unfairly bundling Windows Media Player with Windows XP, the public at large would not seem to agree and is not actually demanding any such stripped down version. Perhaps the EU's actions were unnecessary?"
I don't see a problem with Microsoft bundling any software of their own with Microsoft Windows XP such as Windows Messenger, Windows Media Player, MS Internet Explorer and others. What I have a problem with is the inability to uninstall said media player and other programs without severely hindering the operating system to the point of crashing or worse, incompatibility with programs that don't themselves correctly interface to the default browser, IM client and media player.
That is the real problem I see. Not the exclusion or inclusion of programs or their efforts to play favorites (come on... within reason!) with their own software. Hell, I'd do the same thing. But making it so you can not remove a software program by choice without resorting to some advanced (for the home user) hacking or third party (possibly buggy, problematic or worse - trojaned) program or scripts to do it for you.
What we really need is Microsoft to allow removal of any and all programs that are not basic for an operating system. Yes, even Internet Explorer. By itself, if it weren't tied into the OS itself and able to be run in locked memory away from other programs (to eliminate potential points of attack) it's fine. Older versions weren't so bad because they were just that... stand alone.
I'm not even a fan of the KDE Konqueror(SP?) browser being integrated. While it's great to have a browser by default, the potential problems that can happen (taking out your shell, yes it's happened, AND your X DE) are too great for my taste. The internet hasn't been safe for a LONG time. Even the bandaid of an included firewall with SP2 won't solve much in the long run.
Correct engineering of software programs and their development, it seems, are almost lost. Where are the programming and engineering teams with good ideas with the skill and desire to pull it off?
The people who really were hurt were the competitors. If they were hurt to the point of being driven out of business, -then- the public would be hurt. The whole point of protection from monopoly abuse is to catch these situations -before- the public suffers irreparable harm....
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More like wrong action when action should have been taken.
Indeed. It's not Windows that needs to be broken up, it's MicroSoft that needs to be broken up.
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I like this quote myself...
Microsoft said it bears no responsibility for making PC manufacturers use Windows XP N. "Microsoft has made these products available through its standard distribution channels," a company representative said. "Whether or not customers or distributors offer this product in Europe is a decision for individual computer manufacturers, enterprise customers and retailers."
Microsoft has been known to strongarm companies to carry a certian version of their Windows Operating Systems, with pricing or threats of removing licences so the statement of "...is a decision for individual computer manufacturers...", is in my opinion, a lie.
Since when has MS taken a lax approach to what version of Windows OS retailers and OEM's install on their systems?
Most people don't care if they're using quicktime, realplayer, windows media player etc. They probably won't even notice the difference. But if there wasn't the choice, then they would notice, because the media player available would suck if it had no competition to drive it on. People don't realise it's important to them that there's competition between MS and real (if they did, there wouldn't be any need for the EU to act, people could sort it out themselves). But that doesn't mean it isn't.
I am trolling
The right or ethical thing to do not always equals what the public deems necessary. For example, most people are not aware of the patent issue, just when they bump into it. I'd hazard the guess that one of the foundations of a government or union is ideology. To give a exaggareted example, if you could jail 10 man, 9 guilty and 1 innocent, would you do it? It would certainly seem economically good, could even meet public support, but is it the right thing to do?
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Be yourself no matter what they say
Most of the public doesn't care enough to go through the effort of "upgrading?" to a less OS.
Of course they don't. The thing about illegal competition is that it's illegal because it's an abuse of your position. The customer feels that he's getting a deal, but that's not the point.
Taking the common gas station example, customers get really happy when one gas station underprices another by $.50. The fact that this is hurting the consumer in the long run (less competition) escapes that customer. He just wants cheap gas.
The same is true of Microsoft. The fact that they effectively put Real and Netscape out of business is the real point, not what the consumer feels. As a result, this EU decision is weak at best.
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That is a very short-sighted view. If all you *really* care about deep down is low prices, then I feel sorry for you. When all the small businesses go away, our choices go away. Some people actually want to buy decent items, not just the cheapest items. This is why it hurts when every store goes away and all we're left with is one big Walmart.
Sometimes I look at this like this and people like you and wonder where we're going as a society. Are we really becoming smarter and more advanced? When everyone shops at Walmart, I think not.
You *should* care about competition, not just for lower prices, but because it promotes creativity and the inventive spirit that has gotten us so far. It's a shame that it's dying out in favor of "I'm just a stupid consumer - please tell me what to use!" mentality.
--- witty signature
Perhaps the EU's actions were unnecessary?
Or perhaps the actions were useless because they were poorly designed and did not address the real problem? OK bundling is bad because it allows a monopoly to extend their monopoly. Forcing MS to offer a version without the bundled application is useless because everyone who buys Windows still has to pay for it.
Here comes the inevitable analogy...
The electric company has a monopoly on electricity distribution in any given area. If you want electricity you have to buy from them or go to great lengths to create your own. Imagine if the electric company raised everyone's rates by $10 a month. Now imagine they took that $10 and bought ice cream which they gave away for free to all their customers. Not all of their customers wanted the ice cream and but some liked it. Now the ice cream manufacturers all lost all their business, complained, and sued. The government, in its infinite wisdom decreed that the electric company had to offer electricity without free ice cream, they did not, however, say it had to be cheaper than the other package. The result is nothing. The solution does not stop the bad behavior.
The media player part of the settlement was completely useless. The only parts that were not useless were the parts requiring sharing interoperability information and even those are severely watered down. Obviously if your choice is $60 for electricity or $60 for electricity and ice cream most people will choose the latter. What needs to happen is MS needs to be required to offer the media player only as a separate application. OEMs can add it or Realplayer or both or neither but MS can't give incentives or breaks to OEMs that include windows media player. That would fix the problem. That will likely never happen because MS has too much money and politicians are too corrupt.
I just noticed that you got modded into oblivion. I don't necessarily agree with you, but a lot of people are thinking it, so I wish your post was still above zero... :-(
How do you break up Microsoft? You can't break it up into regional offices like what was done to the phone company, because that doesn't make sense. But how do you break up Microsoft in a way that's not utterly arbitrary?
I mean, everyone around here see Microsoft as selling an OS and bundling a bunch of extra apps with it like a media player and a web browser. The distinction being that they are providing both a platform as well as apps that run on that platform, and a breakup would be between the OS developers and the application developers. But that's not the only way to look at it, and not even necessarily the best way.
If you look at Microsoft, they have purchased webTV and created the XBox, and have split off their OS into a consumer and a professional edition. It's pretty obvious that they are heavily pushing their wares as an "appliance", where people just want it to work. In that context, it's not unreasonable that they sell a complete working system with a web browser and a media player. The OS is secondary to the goal of providing functionality to the user. It's dumb to break off the media player and the browser, because that's what they are trying to sell to the public, a solution and not an OS.
So, you could break off their app divisions that aren't related to their media appliance goals, so you'd have MSWindows+IE+mplayer, and maybe another company that does MS Office and the visio+sharepoint infopath stuff. That would make sense, but it wouldn't address the problems that competitors have with Windows as it is now.
What I want to know is, when people say break up microsoft, what do they mean, and defend their position as to why they think it's a good idea.
I see what you are trying to say, but it really isn't the case. There is no paying for Media Player, its "free". Now your implying that they are just rolling the cost into Windows, but I don't agree with that.
They have offered Media Player as a free download for Mac OSX as well (I don't think they do that anymore, but not sure).
The issue was never about abuse of users in the way you are suggesting, it was about other companies (Real) not being able to compete because Media Player is bundled with Windows. Now you can argue it SHOULD have been about other issues, but the fact is the EU case was about other companies not being able to compete not about any user "abuse".
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
I believe that the playing field should be kept level, and that other companies should be treated just as Microsoft was by the EU.
I agree as soon as Apple is declared by the courts to have a monopoly on desktop operating systems I think they should be forced to comply with all the anti-trust regulations that would then apply to them. Oh wait, the same laws do apply it's just that Apple is not a monopoly and MS is.
Yes you can uninstall all of those applications from OS X very easily with the exception of Dashboard which is actually a part of the OS and is built into the UI. It can be removed with a little know how though. All of that, however, is immaterial.
The problem is not with companies bundling things together in general. If someone wants to sell fish and cheese together, great, good luck. The problem is that if one company has a monopoly on something and only sells that that something bundled with something else it drives everyone else out of business. That is why their are special rules for monopolies, because they can upset free trade by coercing their customers. MS has and is doing just that. They can sell all the cheese they want and all the fish they want, but they can't sell only fish and cheese bundles once they have established a monopoly on fish.
Of course no one wants the stripped down version because it costs the same as the full-blown version .
This isn't vindication for MS - it is just proof of the stupidity of the EU bureaucrats who did a half-assed job of imposing the punishment on MS. If they weren't so incompetent, they would have mandated that not only must MS make a stripped down version, they also gotta sell it for proportionally less too where "lots" is equal to some value of proportional...
reference: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22283
Media Player's not critical
So when my application needs to play an embedded video, it's not a critical function? The fact that I can rely on certain components being available allows me to avoid reinventing the "video playing" wheel. This is worth a lot to me as an ISV.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Wasn't 100% sure, were you saying developers being forced to install 3rd party apps wasn't a bad thing?
I thought that was a bloody TERRIBLE thing!!!!! I remember back when this was the case and soon I'd have 2-3 apps for every purpose on my machine. And MUCH worse was when different applications needed the same 3rd party app, but both needed different versions!
AHHHHHHHH!!!!! I still have nightmares. I for one am very happy for developers to develop for IE and Media Player!!!!!
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
The suppliers of other media players are hurt because Microsoft...
Who cares? It's not Microsoft's fault that a companys business model is on commoditized software that people don't care enough to switch to let alone pay for. There's no market for a media player because there shouldn't be. I understand that Microsoft is a monopoly so things are different, but you can't expect Microsoft to stop adding value into its products so that consumers have to continue paying for hundreds of dollars of addons just to do something as "1990s" as playing a video on their computer. I agree that because MS is a monopoly that they should be forced to allow third party alternatives, but not remove value from their product.
If there was a competitive Operating Systems market, then Microsoft couldn't force money out of customers' wallets, either, because customers could choose an OS supplier that did not inflate the price of their OS with a Media Player.
When Windows came out it was very competitively priced. Actually, if I remember correctly it was cheaper than any product offering from any other company (IBM, Apple, etc.). When taking inflation into account Windows is actually cheaper now than it was before it was a monopoly. The price never went up even when IE, Windows Media Player, and a slew of other features were added to the product. Software has never followed hardware pricing (droping like a rock after a year) nor should it, it doesn't lose value over time (unless a new version is released) and it's the reason you have the hardware in the first place.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
OK fair enough, but without a browser included how are you going to get whichever one you want? Run across town to a store to buy it? Call a company and have them ship it to you?
Its fine to not want to use it, but not having it there at all would be a real pain in the arse.
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Yes, easy for you. However, what percent of average PC users do you figure would be able do that?
;-)
Sometimes people who don't know about such things will actually try to use a PC. I know we shouldn't let them, but lets humor them a bit
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert