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Microsoft Faces Fresh Antitrust Complaints
Rob wrote to mention a Computer Business Online review piece about new anti-trust action against Microsoft on both sides of the Atlantic. From the article: "Other examples of anticompetitive behavior cited by Tangent include bundling of Outlook with Office and Active Directory with Windows Server, as well as the bundling of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Server with its desktop and server operating system respectively. Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment on Tangent's complaint, other than to acknowledge that it was being reviewed, but was more forthcoming in responding to a fresh complaint lodged with the European Commission by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS)."
can someone explain to me why people care about windows media player being bundled with windows? i could maybe understand internet explorer, maybe. but wmp? what?
if i'm not immortal, what's the point of living?
...te?
Don't you have to buy Office and, thus, buy an office suite? One that would, presumably, include email and calendar functionality?
Can't you purchase Office modules separately? I was sure I had seen boxes of Word, Excel, etc. a few years back.
Like any good slashdotter, I have my complaints with Microsoft too, but this is getting out of hand. Active Directory? WTF are they thinking?
1st post!
-- If we don't stand up for our rights, now, there will be no right to stand up for them later.
It's amazing how people critisize MSFT about having so many vista versions. Stuff like this makes it super obvious why they have to release so many versions.
Bundling software isn't anti-competitive behaviour unless there's something else going on, like forcing computer manufacturers to bundle that software with their computers.
Nobody is forced to use Active Directory when they set up a Windows server, although most people do because it makes sense. Honestly, as someone who's not worked with large linux networks, I'm not sure what the alternative would be. However, lack of a viable alternative, or even lack of a popular alternative, doesn't make Microsoft wrong for packaging Active Directory with their product.
Bundling Outlook with Office may be slightly closer to anti-competitive behavior, but I still think it's a BS complaint. I know plenty of people that choose to use Netscape Navigator, Eudora, or Thunderbird for email, even though they own the Office suite. Wouldn't complaining about Outlook Express make a little more sense, since it's packaged with the OS?
This reminds me of people playing the race card... it's done even when that complaint isn't accurate, and as a result makes people less likely to believe when there's a REAL issue.
What's next... claiming that inclusion of MS Paint is anti-competitive?
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
out of hand to the point of sheer stupidity. Certain gripes I can see as far as the bundling of IE with Windows. To start a complaint about directory services being bundled with server software is lunacy. Outlook being bundled with M$ Office? Oh the humanity! I wouldn't expect to pay $500 for a full office suite without a fully functioning email client/calendering system. Enough is enough. Now that it has gotten to this point any further "legitimate" claims will be dismissed as frivolous and unjustified.
The only valid point that I thought the article made had to do with Word documents. It's no secret that interpretting Word documents is haphazard at best (just look at OpenOffice) and that standards need to be documented more thoroughly. Almost everything else in that article seemed like nit picking, and for once I feel bad for Microsoft.
They can't win: if they include Windows Media Player with their OS they get sued, if they don't include it they get hundreds of thousands of complaints from users and even more Microsoft bashing than before. If they include Active Directory with their OS they get sued, if the don't include it they get thousands of complaints from administrators and even more Microsoft bashing than before. The list goes on and on. As for Outlook being bundled with Office, I think that since Office is a suite consumers pay for (either in retail channels or through OEMs), Microsoft should be able to include what it wants to. Outlook is part of the suite, plain and simple.
Next week's top story: "TextPad Sues Microsoft for Bundling Notepad with its Windows Operating System"
-William Brendel
WHY does everybody keep talking about Microsoft monopolies, then talking about Explorer, Outlook, and... everything but the OS?
Nobody is forced to use Explorer (even if it is a part of the OS). Nobody is forced to use Outlook, Active Directory, or WMP.
What we ARE forced to put up with as software engineers (if we want to actually sell any units) is their OS! Mac users and some expert PC gurus running Linux aside, Microsoft has a monopoly on the OS market. If we in the US are so anti-monopoly (and there's a lot of precedent -- Standard Oil, Ma Bell etc), why haven't we broken up this one by making the OS open-source and allowing MS to continue as it pleases with its other products (which don't force anyone to use them.)
I can't be the only one to see this -- but I just don't get why people keep talking about the big, bad Microsoft monopoly -- then looking right PAST the one thing they *do* have a monopoly on. It's all very confusing to me.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
So let's see, we're complaining now because Windows comes with more programs for us to use? What the hell is wrong with these people? I've seen too many anti-trust suits like this.
I could rant, really; but I'll put this simply enough: It's nice when you get software bundled with the system; it's anticompetetive when the system is designed to detect competing software and prevent it from running properly. Until the second case is true, this is all bullshit and these lawyers need to find a new hobby.
Next week, Canonical gets sued for shipping Ubuntu with Firefox instead of Opera; Novell gets sued for shipping GNOME instead of KDE; and the XFCE guys sue everyone because nobody uses their desktop environment.
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Maybe, but it still doesn't force you to install Outlook. I seem to recall that the installer allowed you to install, provisionally install, or not install each component separately. So you could by the cheaper version which included the programs you don't want and just unselect those components during the install.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
There are a couple differnces between Apple and MS bundling software. The biggest being that Apple is an OEM who is bundling software with a computer, thus needs to provide a "complete" experience. MS is theoretically providing software that OEM's may or may not bundle with a computer. So when MS "bundles" things, it gives OEMs less choice in what software they bundle for their customers. IE/Netscape is the classic example of how this works out.
First, in no way shape or form am I a Microsoft customer or sympathizer. I do not have a need for, nor do I like any of their software that I have used to date.
However, things like Outlook with Office and Active Directory with Windows Server, as well as the bundling of Windows Media Player and Windows Media Server with its desktop and server operating system respectively.
Outlook with office? Why can't I get an extra piece of email and calendar software with an office suite? By no means is anybody required to purchase Office. There are alternatives. Even if Office is bundled with a PC, it is always an option, not a requirement.
Active directory with Windows Server? OS X has directory services, to some degree so do Linux/UNIX systems ass well. I've heard that AD is actually the best of that type of thing, I just have never had the need to use it. What else does the exorbinate price of Windows Server come with, and what is it supposed to do? If its just sharing files, won't any CIFS or SMB solution suffice?
Windows Media Player and Windows Media Server coming with desktop and server OSs iTunes comes with OS X, and is freely available for Windows as well, along with Winamp, and a plenty of other media players. If in 2006 a computer does not come with a basic media player, that is a crime, including one is not. Media Server with a server? QuickTime Streaming Server comes with OS X server, and plenty of other similar products can be found for UNIX/Linux, etc.
Now, if the EC wants to complain about OEM muscling, the Windows tax, the vendor lockin, lack of standards compliance and/or making Microsoft "standards" and document formats known, and other valid monopoly complaints, that is fine by me, but including standard tools and services with their OSs is expected.
...because they haven't been legally found to be a monopoly, thus they get to play by different rules. That's the way the law works.