Windows XP N a Bust

mushupork writes "CNN has an interesting article about the just-released Windows XP N. From the article: 'Computer distributors and manufacturers are so far showing little interest in the new product, which compels consumers to choose their media player and download it from the Internet.' Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?" Similar to an earlier article about the same issue from the PC Makers end.

Comments

Why would it?

[XanC]

Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?

Why would it? I think it'll open their eyes to how much "good" Microsoft's bundling does for them.

Re:Why would it?

[IHateSlashDot]

Exactly!

"We'll continue to sell the old version because it's obviously better value for our customers,"

The 'N' version was released due to a poorly thought out EU lawsuit. It turns out that no-one wants the new version of XP. They'd rather have the old one that the EU tried so hard to get rid of.

Shows you how out of touch with reality the EU is.

Sorry, you can't use this as a poster child for open source.

Re:Why would it?

[iminplaya]

So should Microsoft include an extremely crippled "radio"...

Of course they should be allowed to. Mere inclusion isnt a problem. Sabotage of third party stuff is.

Re:Why would it?

[IntlHarvester]

OEMs would never purchase an IE-less Windows either, primarily because it would be incompatibile with nearly every modern Windows application (both MS and 3rd party).

Re:Why would it?

[bheer]

Objections to this would include:
- Microsoft cannot and should not be forced to bundle competing products, it sets a very bad legal precedent
- Why should choice be offered only for browsers? Maybe OEMs should bundle OSes and let people choose OSes on first boot. And Office suites too. Maybe PDAs should do it too, after all the newer ones have more power and storage than 486s. From this point on, your suggestion degenerates into several impractical scenarios. However, this is missing a bigger point--

Years ago, people bought word processors, spreadsheets, and so on. Until some bright spark brought out something called 'Office' -- a bundle of all of MS' products at one low cost. This generated a lot of questions and controversy, with editorials in PC Magazine asking whether customers would really abandon best-of-breed apps for a jack-of-all trades, i.e., by giving up Lotus Word Pro for the slightly inferior Microsoft Word. Well, we know now the result of *that* tossup-- Office suites won, big time.

The desktop OS marketplace is in the throes of a similar shift: the OS is no longer a bootloader + (virtual) memory manager, it's a suite of programs that let you interact with the digital world _and_ a platform that lets you build more programs.

Like with Office suites, people have voted with their wallets that they like OSes that let them do more. Apple and Microsoft -- and in a flawed way, Linux distros -- understand this. The only people who didn't were the EU antitrust lawyers, but given their myopia on other matters I can't say I am surprised.

Only alternative?

[moz25]

Would there be a point in ordering that the N version is the only one allowed to be sold in Europe? Obviously, there won't be much interest in a stripped down version of the same product, especially if the old product is still available.

answers....

[Mad_Rain]

Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?

No. Next question?

Media Player?

[turtled]

which compels consumers to choose their media player and download it from the Internet.' Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?"

I didn't think the media player was the onlything keeping users of Windows XP or any version. To me, it is compatability with current programs such as Office and Adobe products, and there are attractive alternatives. Media players? Eh, there are 100s of media players for all platforms, it's not that big of deal.

Re:Media Player?

[Otter]

In any case, there's also Windows XP *with* WMP, available for the same price. I don't think the submitter realizes that, but his notion that people will switch operating systems (or hardware platforms!) rather than download a media player underscores why no consumer with an ounce of sanity would buy Windows XP N.

Huh?

[Telastyn]

Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?

Huh? Why would the fact that people are not interested in choosing their software package push people towards linux, where that unwanted feature is commonplace!??!

Re:Huh?

[forgoil]

Exactly. People who want a different browser/mediaplayer/whatever is going to get it anyway. Those who don't give a shit about these things (lets face it, they aren't computergeeks such as we are) are only going to say "why the fuck can't I play videos now?" and don't care at all that there are other players out there.

People wants the bundled stuff, they are just happy that they don't have to call their computer geek friends to read email or watch some porn^H^H^H^Hmovies. This is just a pain to normal users, and doesn't change windows. Tax payers money badly spent, again. Could have spent all that money on, let's say, universities that could have produced free software...

Weren't OEM's B*tching About This w/r/t Browsers?

[ewhac]

Hmm. Maybe the OEMs could -- gee, I don't know -- pre-install a media player of their choice. I seem to recall a big criminal lawsuit a while back when OEMs wanted to pre-install this newfangled thing called a Web browser, but Microsoft wouldn't let them.

Did the OEMs suddenly lose all their imagination? Or are there not as many "partership" opportunities with media players?

Schwab

ARGH!

[Spy der Mann]

It's not about CHOOSING which version of Windows you prefer.
It's about The users HAVING TO CHOOSE which software they download.

And if they complain "hey, this doesn't include media player!", you can answer: "It's illegal for monopoly". Then they'll be FORCED to choose and download a product. Yes, sounds sad, but Microsoft FORCED them not to choose in the same way.

The XP N idea won't work if the old version is still available. Doh.

Re:ARGH!

[Khuffie]

Apple bundles iTunes and Quicktime with OS X. Does this not "stiffle innovation" nd decrease competition in the Mac market? In fact, there's a serious lack of a decent alternative to iTunes for OS X: ie an regular good ol' winamp-like MP3 player, and a lack of a decent alternative to Quicktime (VLC doesn't count, im talking things like Zoom Player).

On the Windows front, there's a whole wackload of alternatives for Windows Media Player that goes on and on and on. In that respect, there's no decent photo viewer other than iPhoto (Picasa is there for PC), no decent consumer video editor other than iMovie (plenty for PC) and so on and so forth. No one has competed with Apple on this front. Why? Because it's their by default? Why isn't Apple getting sued?

Ya ya, because Apple is not a "monopoly" you say. But guess what? If Microsoft was *forced* to strip Windows Media Player/Internet Explorer/MSN Messenger and all their other additions, then why shouldn't Apple be forced to strip Quicktime/Safari/iChat/iPhoto/iMovie/iTunes from OS X? After all, it would give them an unfair advantage. They can start marketing that they have all these great features right out of the box while Windows only comes with Notepad.

Suffice to say Microsoft is doing absolutely nothing to stop others from installing other browsers/media players or whatever people want. So Real Player has every opportunity to gather attention, and in fact their player used to be quite popular. Then it started to be spyware ridden, over-bloated interface and horribly slow player, and they lost it.

No....

[Junior J. Junior III]

It's because XP-N was the wrong "punishment" to inflict on MSFT.

People like getting free stuff bundled with things that they buy. At worst, don't use WMP and download something else.

When you force the removal of the free media player as a court decision, it's the consumers who feel punished. Now they have to go out of their way to get a media player.

What would have been a better punishment for Microsoft would have been forcing them to open up their APIs and documentation, publish their source code, or split the company up into competing units, or revoke their license to do business.

Re:No....

[geekee]

"What would have been a better punishment for Microsoft would have been forcing them to open up their APIs and documentation, publish their source code, or split the company up into competing units, or revoke their license to do business."

Actually, how would the EU accomplish this, invade America? I think MS would abandon Europe's business before agreeing to split up their company or publish source. You might get an agreement on APIs?

Who will change their minds?

[tod_miller]

No it just means people don't ask, and companies don't want to be seen as giving the 'reduced version'. People don't understand this, and as far as I am concerned, the whole problem with Microsoft and its abuse was cut down to some fairy arguments, and then those were made to stick.

It does a lot worse things.

Anyway, show me a linux distro aimed at home users whose default install doesn't have mp3/ogg/xmms etc.

Happy microsoft got slammed? Yes. Give a shit about the hole XP N thing? No.

Will it open people eyes? No, because form their perspective nothign has changed, unless you meant the distributors, who work on supply and demand, and will start taking space away from their m^2 floors as and when it will be profitable to do so.

Right now, they don't see it. Now the price of hardware is exacerbating the percentage of cost that goes to an OS, *that* might make a difference.

Tallyho.

Red Herring

[ndansmith]

Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?

I doubt that. The article says: "We'll continue to sell the old version because it's obviously better value for our customers," said Gina Jones, spokeswoman for PC World, Britain's leading PC retailer.. In other words, this is a battle between the new and old versions of XP. For the same price, which would you rather buy? The one that comes with the free media player or the one that does not have a media and forces to user to have an internet connection and download a player just to play CDs? I am guessing that most Europeans will look at the two products and choose conventional XP, without evening looking down the Mac aisle.

Just illustrates misguided courts

[voicecrying]

People aren't interested in a Windows without a media player - it was the competing businesses who were complaining.

Surprise?

[NFNNMIDATA]

XP N is supposed to be a bust. MS doesn't want you to buy the version some government made them create. They want it to die a quiet death after it serves its purpose of compliance.

Re:I doubt it

[defkkon]

Now if you (a slashdot reader/poster) is saying this, imagine what the average joe user is thinking?

I'm not surprised there is little interest in this. Many manufacturers realize what their customers care about - after all, that's why they're still in business.

You ask the average person whether they want Windows XP with or without Media Player to allow a free choice, and they'll probably look at you like you have two heads.

Why? They don't care! They hardly care what OS they have PERIOD. All they want is for their office applications to work, for their email application to work, and their web browser to work.

Not only do they not care, but the moment they try to listen to an audio file or watch a video, they're going to be pissed that their computer "can't do it" out of the box.

It's all about the customers!

[Quadko]

It's too early to draw conclusions, but this would point to a conclusion 'customers gripe, but happy enough with Microsoft product' given the freedom to choose.

* So now above someone is already mentioning a totalitarian and roughly monopolistic response of "make the choice between XPs illegal, make only the N- version available! Then customers can't buy it!"

* Yeah, we see involving the government in software is *all* about increasing freedom. meh.

* More to the point, if retailers aren't buying into -N, their customers aren't expressing much need. :)

What, this whole lawsuit business must have been about competitors's business, not about what the customer wanted! (Shock! Amazement!)

Re:I doubt it

[loconet]

See, what I find interesting is that I'm sure the poster _also_ knows the sole availability of a media player is a highly unlikely influence when choosing an OS but for some reason I have noticed that it is trendy (necessary?) to plug a pro-Linux/OSS comment somewhere in a /. article summary even if it is far fetched as this one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not too hapy with Microsoft actions sometimes either and as a developer, I use Linux/OSS whenever I see it fit because of its technical and non-technical values but can we try not throw random irrelevant comments whenever a new piece of news is shared? I'm sure we can come up with a better way of letting people know of alternatives without appearing as brainless zealots.

Re:Vote with your dollars

[DaveCBio]

Seriously, if your dignity is somehow attached to an OS, program or any other technology you really have some issues. Why do people treat things like this as a personal insult? It's business, pure and simple. If anyone thinks IBM or HP or any other company is embracing Linux for any warm and fuzzy reasons you are delusional. It's about the bottom line and making the right business choices.

Re:I doubt it

[gooogle]

> Why would the (lack of) avilability of a media player influence my OS decision?

It would influence your decision on the OS versions: N vs XP. I don't think anyone would want a degraded eXPerience when they can get the OS bundled with Media Player.

Re:Break Microsoft..

[bigNuns]

why would they compete? they would all just be their own monopoly... ok maybe not the business division... a better plan would be to spilt them up and give them each their own copy of windows source and then let them compete!

Dumb Solution

[MichaelKaiserProScri]

The "N" thing is a dumb solution. MS should have allowed to BUNDLE anything they wanted. However there should be clear and clean options to include or exclude any of the bundled packages and a clear and clean way to REMOVE any packages an OEM chooses to install. Ever install Debian using the Sarge Installer? Ever use Aptitude on Debian? You can install as much or as little as you like and you can uninstall anything you like. Why can't Windows do that? The only bundled piece I have a REAL problem with is MSN Messenger. You can't friggin uninstall it! I actually wrote a "do nothing" application called msmsgs.exe and copied it over the real one to get rid of it!

Re:No.

[MeanMF]

I'm not sure I'd call them shortsighted.. They successfully extorted hundreds of millions of dollars out of MS all in the name of "consumer choice" which we now know was a load of BS.

Re:Hmmm...

[LiquidCoooled]

But funny mods make yourself and others smile.

I will take that over karma any day :)

EU's Antitrust reasoning, and why it sucked

[DrSbaitso]

The reason that XP-N isn't selling is obvious - it costs the same as regular XP, and is worse. What a stupid "remedy."

Bundling is considered bad by most pre- and post-Chicago school economists is that it uses monopoly power in the tying product (in this case, the operating system) to attempt to gain monopoly power in the tied product (the media player). Microsoft's strategy, so the EU and Justice Department allege, is to force me to take their crappy Media Player along with their operating system, locking me into it and creating a second monopoly from which they could then profit further - by jacking up prices for song downloads, e.g.

There are a number of reasonable critiques of this analysis which I won't get into here. However, the EU decision obviously provides no remedy to Apple or Real or whoever if Microsoft is allowed to continue selling the goods as a bundle, especially since doing so imposes no additional cost to them other than packaging costs (the marginal cost of the Media Player code on an XP CD is zero). If they were out for anything other than Gotcha!ing a big American company, they would force MS to sell the two pieces of software separately, or at least make MP available as a free download.

Of course, Microsoft doesn't want people to pay just for the parts of Windows they actually use - it's 200 bucks for the whole kit and kaboodle. For that reason, they don't offer XP-N at a discount, even though they might make more money by doing so.