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EC Reviews New Complaints Against Microsoft
Rob tells us that while Microsoft may still be fighting against existing antitrust sanctions the European Commission is already reviewing new complaints made against the software giant. From the article: "European Commission spokesperson, Jonathan Todd, confirmed that the competition commission is considering the complaints but said that no decision has been taken on a course of action, adding that the commission does not have to wait for formal complaints to take action against a company it suspects of anti-competitive behavior."
The European Commission do seem to keep pluggin on this. However, I was under the impression that their first ruling was supposed to have put this to rest.
I know they already issued a financial punishment to Microsoft (which Microsoft could undoubtedly afford) but seeing as this has 'come back' again, you'd think they would arrange a punishment which would actually hurt Microsoft - to persuad them to Be Good(tm)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Unfortunately a better product doesn't alway guarantee success.
No, they have the hurdle of compatability (an ever moving target) before they can even compete.
Product A (lets call it office) Is real nice, but expensive.
Product B (lets call it open/star office) is pretty good, but free/cheap.
Product C (lets call it santa's magic office suite, because it doesn't really exist) is better than both other products and free/cheap
If company X has all of there stuff in product A's proprietary format B and C can be irrelavent even though they are valid/better options, that is not competition for the best product, it is momentum of living on past success.
The problem is the small/medium guy needs Office compatability at a 99.5% level to work smoothly with the big guys who need it at a 100% level because of legacy apps and docs.
right now product B is around 90% compatable (can share information, but presentatin may be different), but that is not good enough in a lot of places.
The dominance in Office is used to slow adaption of Linux, by keeping a proprietary changing format. Also, MS was forced to make Office Mac if I am not mistaken, but would probably be hard pressed to stop since OSX users are in the unenviable position of having less good choices for non-MS office suites than Linux users.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
A "better product" is both successful (ie. popular) and technologically up to date.
The owls are not what they seem
Because even if they get sued for 1 billion and have to alter their products for the EU nations costing a further 1 billion they would have to be completely insane to give up such a large market to the competitors , never mind the profit loss they would suffer which is well in excess of 2 billion .
Plus if they did remove the product and people still wanted to use it then there would be far less complaints if people just downloaded a pirate version
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
A better product is one that fills needs faster, cheaper, easier, etc. But sadly people doesn't see that. They usually want something beacuse they saw it on tv or ads. That is why marketing is so important, it doesn't matter if your product is the best of all. If it's not well marketed then it have a low possibility of succed.
Well, it can still be "better" in itself, as in having more features, better features and be more stable. And it will all be irrelevant if it isn't near 100% compatible with the monopolist. This is the reason OpenOffice has to spend time and effort chasing Microsoft all the time.
If Microsoft could again make a super-proprietary format that only they could read, and not having regulation in one form or another stopping them, it would probably make sense, economically. And this is the reason it is important to preserve free competition in the market, to regulate the monopolists. If you can't do that, someone could end up "owning" the market without anyone being able to realistically make a dent in their market.
That's not really free competition either.
Microsoft is not known for having complete and accurate documentation of any of its APIs or file formats. If you want the absolute truth, you go to the source code. Think about it: if there were a discrepancy between what the documentation says, and what the code does, which one do you think will be considered "in error" in most cases?
It's rare that "specifications" are considered authoritative over "implementation" -- more common that "specifications" are written retroactively based on the implementation when people realise that the source code is an unreadable mess, but they still need to know what it does at a glance.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
I hate to say this, buddy, but there are cities in the US with huge unemployment areas, your education system is suffering & while you have good quality healthcare, no-one on a minimum wage can afford it. So I think we cancel each other out on those bits...
We need cash, lets rape the Americans; they only gave us electricity, phones, internet, cars, planes.
Yes, quite possibly. But the longbow (a weapon that, like the aircraft, revolutionised warfare) was a French invention (I believe), the jet engine was British, Airbus will trounce Boeing & you handed over your car industry to the Japanese, just like we did. Oh, and let's not forget that what brought the Internet out of the realm of academics into the eyes of the general public was the World Wide Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee who was *BRITISH*.
Oh and gratitude, screw it, who cares that they lost 10,000s, of 10,000s of young men bailing us out of two world wars last century, we don't like Bush now.
Erm, what about the equal numbers of European young men who died in those same wars??? And Australians, Japanese, etc. etc.??? Or were their sacrifices any less just because they weren't American? I find your statement offensive & ignorant....
Gratitude, that's not trendy, "evil Americans" is.
I've nothing against most American people - hell, I was in the US when 9/11 happened & I wept for the dead as much as any of the US citizens around me did. However, whilst most governments are just plain corrupt, the Bush administration is *EVIL* & your politicians are nothing but puppets to the corporate lobbyists. That's why anything that stops your evil corporations in their tracks is a *good* thing for the rest of the world.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.