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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)."
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.
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
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
Well the problem with the existence of windows media player is somehow an oddity. Windows OS needs some kind of media player for preview purposes. I know, It's just something flashy, but what do you see when you enter a folder, highlight a movie and a small preview with stop and play appears. It's flasy and of course sometimes usefull. Of course there might be programming interdependencies with IE and Windows Explorer that we don't know yet. From here to a full fledged player is just a simple step. You only have to put on the player engine a nice interface and 'voila you have a player, BUT, it's not bundled, it's integrated, it is part of the OS itself. The same thing is with the Internet Explorer. Hell, Windows Explorer is in fact containing IE in itself, or viceversa. Microsoft Windows is not an OS its a package. I agree with EU only at some points. MS has to make the code available such that integration with 3rd party software is much easier, but you should not force out parts of the system. Going on like that we will return to DOS shell's. Why ? because there is Total Commander as file manager, there are other windows game's providers, there is Winamp and Co, we have alternatives to anything, so what remains from the package, a simple core. MS does not sell that. On the other part if the customer is getting an OS that has media capabilities incorporated, why should he buy InterVideo software for playing DVD's, or why should he bother downloading the free BSPlayer. Common users will not do this step and thus 3rd party software providers are having a hard time fighting MS. Still if another media software provider wants to sell more of its products then he should make it better, more performant and flashier. Mozilla has done it, even forcing removal of the IE.
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.
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.