Microsoft Faces Korean Deadline

nmccart wrote to mention an article on the Yahoo! news service stating that South Korea has leveled a deadline at Microsoft. The deadline is the newest addition to that country's anti-trust ruling against the OS maker."South Korea's antitrust regulator has given Microsoft Corp. the deadline of Aug. 24 to comply with a landmark ruling ordering the world's largest software maker to unbundle some of its products from its Windows computer operating system and pay fines. On Friday afternoon, the Fair Trade Commission said it has sent documents on the punitive sanctions to Microsoft, which was ruled last December to have violated the nation's fair trade laws by tieing its instant messenger, audio, and video software to Windows. The commission also confirmed its order that Microsoft pay 32.4 billion won (US$33.5 million) in the December ruling on the U.S. software giant's unfair business practices."

Comments

IS it worth it?

[realTremens]

what is the cost of changes to OS to South Korean revenue ratio looking like.

Re:IS it worth it?

[eMbry00s]

Unbundeling the programs from windows should not prove hard, especially since most sold programs are OEM-licences and thus don't need to be re-packaged.

this is getting ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

These people just don't get it. We live in the age of the Internet. A web browser is a standard part of any operating system worth its salt now, ditto an IM program and a media player. You cannot treat these programs like word processors and spreadsheets. They are a fundamental part of the computer experience and to ship an OS without them would open the developer up to accusations of having a crappy feature set.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[greginnj]

Exactly, which is why Dell, HP, Lenovo, or whoever should be able to choose which browser, IM player, and media player they install on the complete systems they sell, and not be forced by the OS/kernel maker to include one and pay a penalty even if they don't want it.

Microsoft doesn't sell computers, it sells operating systems and application software. Computer makers should be able to choose which components, if any, they want to buy from Microsoft.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[PPGMD]

Actually, they can, they may not be able to strip every part of the Microsoft product from the OS, but they are perfectly able to install, and make default any of those applications. You can also turn off completely the competing Microsoft program by unselecting "Enable Access to this program." All this is easily done with the OPK tools that any computer company that orders 3 or more packs of Windows, is a Microsoft Partner, or is an MSDN subscriber, and uses Microsoft OEM software.

A total stripping just wouldn't be possible because I find many of the same DLLs are used by the competing programs, for example Winamp though having it's own content playing files, uses the IE files (if I remember correctly) to display stuff in the built in mini-browser (something I never understood). Developers have come to rely on these built in components, last thing Windows needs is dependency hell that you get sometimes with the *nixs.

I know for a fact that Compaq used the OPK, because recently when reimaging a customers machine after a hard drive crash, the OPK menu came up when that machine booted up, Compaq forgot to press the seal button before they sent the image off to mass production.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[Darkon]

not be forced by the OS/kernel maker to include one and pay a penalty even if they don't want it

I haven't RTFA, but how is MS penalising computer makers for including 3rd party IM programs, media players, etc? Only this month I set up a laptop (Sony I think) which included bundled copies of Yahoo Messenger and RealPlayer alongside Windows Messenger and Windows Media Player. Did Sony have to pay some terrible price to be able to do this?

Surely a manufacturer's freedom to bundle Yahoo Messenger with their system != Microsoft being forced to remove Windows Messenger from their OS.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[slimjim8094]

I'm not a buisness expert, but can't you uninstall anything the hell you want from windows ('cept IE, admittedly) and make an image from that disk, and image it to 50,000+ PC's you sell? Also, can you put firefox on that 1st pc, and make it the default before you make the image? They do it with Symantec/Norton Security Suite all the time. And, can't Dell write a program to present the user with choices of defaults to use? "Would you like to use Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Netscape as your default browser?" "AIM or Windows/MSN messenger or Yahoo! Messenger... or Trillian or ICQ or IRC...?"
That would be presenting the user with Too Many Choices(tm). 99% of the time, if you don't know how to install Firefox and make it the default (it freakin' asks you!), or change the default e-mail program to thunderbird (it asks!), then you don't care. And, the 1 percent that's suing only is suing because they know they don't want it, and know how to get rid of it. But they see $$. I have proof of this, too. How much other stuff does OS X stuff in to an operating system? Safari. iChat, iTunes, iWeb, f**king DVD authoring. MS doesn't include half that stuff, and the Mac folks see iLife as a feature. You have to feel sorry for Microsoft.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[greginnj]

I haven't RTFA, but how is MS penalising computer makers for including 3rd party IM programs, media players, etc?

Here ya go, the juicy details of Real's suit from 2003. From this link:

Other charges allege that Microsoft used contractual restrictions and financial incentives to "force PC makers to accept Windows PC operating systems with the bundled Windows Media Player and to restrict the ability of PC makers to preinstall or promote competing digital media players."

According to the suit, PC makers told Real that their contracts with Microsoft kept them from removing or changing the status of a Windows Media Player; promoting RealOne subscription services during the first run of a new PC; and providing a desktop icon for Real Networks. "Microsoft's agreements with PC makers are exclusionary and anticompetitive," the suit concludes.

If boxmakers have 'financial incentives' to keep WMP and not install others, they are paying a penalty if they do so anyway and forego the incentives.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[greginnj]

I'm not a buisness expert, but can't you uninstall anything the hell you want from windows ('cept IE, admittedly) and make an image from that disk, and image it to 50,000+ PC's you sell? Also, can you put firefox on that 1st pc, and make it the default before you make the image? They do it with Symantec/Norton Security Suite all the time. And, can't Dell write a program to present the user with choices of defaults to use?

Sure you can do all that ... technically. The question is, can you do so legally? Dell gets MS Windows images to install at a hefty discount (approx $10 per install, IIRC). To get that rate, they accept all sorts of limitations on the image they use on the machines they sell. (see my reply on another branch of this thread for details). The difference with Symantec/NSS is that MS doesn't (yet) offer a free competitor to those. You can bet that once they decide to drive Symantec out of business, they'll try to introduce similar restrictive clauses to promote MS's Ban-Non-Microsoft-Spyware-but-our-Gator-is-OK product.

How much other stuff does OS X stuff in to an operating system? Safari. iChat, iTunes, iWeb, f**king DVD authoring. MS doesn't include half that stuff, and the Mac folks see iLife as a feature. You have to feel sorry for Microsoft.

WTF?? Apple is one company that sells a combined software-and-hardware product. You can bet that internally, the platform group is making detailed demands on the software group, and those demands get listened to. ( read The Graphing Calculator Story for a hilarious example. ) The comparison with the Dell-Microsoft situation, where one company is trying to restrict the choice of the other, is completely off-point. It's not about what's the 'right' number of apps to have inextricably embedded into the OS -- it's about freedom of choice. That's why us geeks love Linux -- you don't like what Major distro does? Then just walk down the virtual street and choose another, or even roll your own.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[Mistshadow2k4]

Did you know that on OSX if you don't like Safari you can uninstall it? And with virtually all Linux distributions you can uninstall the included media player, chat client and browser if you want. Microsft has fixed their OS so that these programs can't be uninstalled. That's what makes it anti-competitive. Anti-competitive = monopoly (or at least an attempt at one). You're the one who isn't getting it.

Btw, I'm one of many people who doesn't chat so a chat client is most certainly not a fundamental part of the computer experience.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[Darkon]

Microsoft used contractual restrictions and financial incentives to "force PC makers to accept Windows PC operating systems with the bundled Windows Media Player and to restrict the ability of PC makers to preinstall or promote competing digital media players."

In that case surely a better angle of attack would be to force MS to stop their shady business practices. Even if they were forced to unbundle some stuff from Windows, they could just offer 'financial incentives' to PC makers who put it all back again.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[amliebsch]

Did you know that on OSX if you don't like Safari you can uninstall it?

Yes, but it doesn't uninstall WebKit, does it? Likewise, you can uninstall IE through "Add/Remove Windows Components," or by ACL, but people still bitch because it leaves the trident rendering engine.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[Alsee]

Developers have come to rely on these built in components

You have just defined Microsoft's illegal tactic for abusing it's monopoly in one area to impose a monoploy in these other areas and prohibiting anyone else from competing. Software from various other companies come to *RELY* on the Internet Explorer components being built in and have no reason to support Firefox or anything else (which most likely is not present anyway) as an alternative. Exactly how other company's sofware is hijacked to force people to use the IE components and only the IE components.

And if some company wants to integrate meda playbay, they come to *RELY* on the Windows Media components *WHICH CANNOT BE REMOVED*. So they rely on that and do not program in support for any competing media player which is most likely not present. So therefore all of the media files wind up being WMAs and MWVs. And the user is forced to use the Windows version and effectively prohibited from using any other.

And the same goes for any program which integrates with Windows Instant Messenger. Why would some company include support for any other messenger that most likely is not present?

You can also turn off completely the competing Microsoft program by unselecting "Enable Access to this program."

I'd have to double check, but I'm virtually 100% sure that is false. That setting only "hides" it. It still gets called up when any other program calls up integrated media or whatever component it is. Microsoft does NOT permit these calls to be blocked or directed to the user's chosen alternative. Even if you "disable" the Microsoft component you're still FORCED to use it in conjuction with other software.

-

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[greginnj]

MS cant really shut out even one of the major PC distributors, simply because people will buy Dells or HP's regardless what os is on them.

You clearly, clearly, don't know what you're talking about. Ask Walmart how many Linspire computers they have to accept as returns from people who didn't realise that 'computer' 'Windows'.

If Korea really cares that much, why dont they just switch their government software to an alternative.

Why, that's an excellent idea! You should contact the Korean government immed-- Whoops, it looks like somebody beat you to it.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[PPGMD]

And the user is forced to use the Windows version and effectively prohibited from using any other.

Even if you "disable" the Microsoft component you're still FORCED to use it in conjuction with other software.

Nobody is forcing the developers to use that components, they use it by choice, and nobody is forcing the user to use those programs either. Nothing is being forced, people go for the path of least resistance, Microsoft provides that path.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[dabraun]

For YEARS Microsoft provided a componentized browser that 3rd parties could use when building their software while the competition (Netscape) did not. This is why AOL continued to use IE within their software even AFTER they bought Netscape. Netscape was never componentized the way IE was. I don't know about firefox, but the 3rd party dependencies on IE (like Quicken, to name another direct competitor to Microsoft) were created well before anyone else had the foresight to create a browser that could be embedded in any application.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[suv4x4]

"Computer makers should be able to choose which components, if any, they want to buy from Microsoft."

And let me tell you how it works in the real world: a lot of Windows application depend on the media and HTML rendering engines embeded in Windows, if removed and replaced with other ones, said applications will crash, malfunction or at best simply refuse to work on such a crippled OS.

Nobody tells Apple what to do with their OS. Reasoning? Because they sell their own computers, by MS leaves that choice to you? Where's the logic.

Most of the computer manifacturers already bundle their Windows installations with other media players and browsers (DELL actually sells PC-s with Firefox in Britain right now), so it's not as if they don't have the choice if they want to customize their solution.

Thing is, the vast majority of customers hate the crap the PC manifacturers plaster on top of their installs, they are far more careless in doing so compared to the bundled apps in Windows that MS develops.

Plus a modern OS is hardly just a bare core that runs threads on it. It's as a matter of fact a bundle of components working together, bringing rich experience to the people's computers. If that OS has removed parts or swapped parts, then how can it be really said it's the same OS at all?

Should we bundle our own HTML/Media components and codecs with every single damn app we develop instead of relying on the tested and proved components Windows provides?

The fate of this "special" Windows will be the same as Windows N in EU - available, but noone gives a damn about it. Why buy a broken product?

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[Alsee]

Are you unfamiliar with anti-trust law?

It is illegal to use a monopoly in one area as a means of creating a monopoly in a second area.

Microsoft has a monopoly position and weilds monopoly power. Microsoft is not only using it's operating system monopoly to place it's media player and instant messanger onto every new computer, but it is also making them unremovable.

Microsoft is not attempting to compete in the market. They are usinging their monopoly power to change and control the market itself, to effecively exclude competition itself.

Nobody is forcing the developers to use that components

No, but Microsoft is using it's monopoly to control and change the media marketplace itself. They are FORCING their monopoly of new PCs to have their media player and for it to be unremovable. It does not matter if Realplayer is better or if anyone else's media player is better... developers almost *must* support Microsoft's media player because it's the only one on all new PCs, and there is a major disincentive to generalize their support or to specifically support any others.

nobody is forcing the user to use those programs either

Microsoft is using it's monopoly to alter the market for applciations. Essentially all new applications will use Microsoft's media player and will use and impose Microsoft's WMA and WMV formats as addressed above. Anyone who buys virtually ANY programs with media playback will be FORCED to use Microsoft's media player whether they think it is better or worse.

You are effectively saying that people are not forced to buy programs. No, of course they aren't. The issue here is that Microsoft is using it's monopoly to create a monopoly situation in those programs. A monopoly situation where people are forced to buy software imposing Mircosoft's media player and microsofts media formats, or be locked out of the market entirely.

If Microsoft have a better media player and better media formats they are perfectly welcome to EARN a monopoly position on media players and media formats. In a legitimately competitive market place Microsoft would fail miserably if they attempted to offer a madia player that does not play and save in all of the common formats. They would fail miserably if their player did not conform to some standard interface. Developers would develop for that standard interface to be able to integrate with any and all of the competing media players. Devlopers would put their audio and video files in the most general and portable formats playable on any and all media players.

people go for the path of least resistance, Microsoft provides that path.

Anti-trust law says that you cannot abuse a monopoly for the purpose of controling and reshaping the marketplace itself in order to grant yourself a new monopoly in another area. You cannot control and reshape the marketplace for that other area to impose an insurmountable handicap on other competitors. Cannot use your monopoly to carve out a single competition-free path into that new market.

Microsoft must compete fairly to win any new market. If their product is not as good then it should fail. If some one else's product is better then that other product should win. It is harmful to the marketplace and harmful to the public if a monopoly in one area is used deny genuine competition from determining the better product in the other area.

The fact that Microsoft has an operating system monopoly should not be used to prevent free market competition from determining the best media player and the best media formats.

-

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[Alsee]

You did raise a signifigant point about IE, though Microsoft did specifically craft the operating system to make IE and IE only embeddable like that. The OS specifically calls IE, and and does not give interfaces for other browsers to hook in their engines instead.

But to get back to the current issue:

Current media players are pretty much all designed to be embeddable. As I said, pretty much all software will use the monopoly-positioned Microsoft media player even if it is a worse player, and anyone buying commercial software will be pretty much forced into using it, and users will be pretty much forced into WMA and WMV even if it is a worse format.

-

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[PPGMD]

Actually there is nothing in the Anti-Trust laws (at least the US ones) that legally prevent them from having to remove the components, it's if they abuse the monopoly, for example preventing other media players from installing, or making contracts like they did in the early days, that prevent bundling. Thats what Microsoft was guilty of in their previous anti-trust case.

Re:this is getting ridiculous

[Alsee]

The EU and North Korea courts both found them currently guilty of illeagal tying. That they use their OS monopoly to distribute their media player on ALL new computers, that they prohibit PC retailers from removing or disabling it, that they prohibit the end customer from removing or disabling it.

They are absusing their monopoly to impose the media player as mandatorily present and active on all new PCs. That the Windows monopoly is being illegally abused to tie the media player to the OS to establish and enforce a monopoly position for their media player.

Independant software developers will code their software to interface uniquely with Microsoft's media player because of its enforced monopoly presence, and not bother with any standard compatibility for any other media players which may or may not be present. And they will do so even if they consider Microsoft's media player to be notably inferior.

The general public buying that various independant software will be denied any choice but the Microsoft media player, even if they consider it notably inferior.

Microsoft specifically wants it to be unremovable, to enforce an extention of a monopoly position in one area into a monopoly position in a second area, even if PC retailers consider it an inferior product, enen if independant software producers consider it an inferior product, and even if end customers consider it an inferior product.

The sole reason Microsoft's media player is winning there, even if it is an inferior product, is because of Microsoft tying it to their existing monopoly and enforcing that tying.

That is exactly what anti-trust laws are supposed to prevent, to prevent a monopoly in one area being abused to establish an inferior product as a monopoly in a second area.

If Microsoft's media player is removable then there is at least some chance competition may be possible. Some PC retailer could possibly decide that some competing media player is better, and they could install that as the default. End users could decide that some competing media player is better, and remove Microsoft's player and set their own choice to handle all media files. And if independant software developers don't want to piss off their customers with broken nonfunctional applications, their software needs to use the standard interface and the standard media formats be compatible with and properly function with the media player(s) that the end user market has judged to be better.

Even that still leaves Microsoft with a staggering advantage, but if some other media player is signifigantly better then at least it has a *chance* of trying to compete. A *chance* that PC retailers will replace the Microsoft default with the better media player and that it will actually be used. A *chance* that end customers might actually replace the Microsoft default with the better media player and that it will actually be used.

-

Pathetically Weak

[RedHatLinux]

Proportionally, I receive harsher fines for speeding and being a day late having my emissions tested.

Stiffer penalties are needed. Seriously, given the amount of money Microsoft has right now, 33.5 million is not a serious deterrence to bad behavior. While I have not completely thought out the math, that's the equivalent of fining me a couple of dollars for wrong doing.

Re:Pathetically Weak

[Bravoc]

So, I did some of the math,

MSFT reports about $10B /quarter according to their press releases (roughly). Or $40B/year USD. $33.5M is 08375% of $40B

assuming I made $100K/yr, that would be the same as me paying $83.75. If I remember correctly, the last speeding ticket I got ended up costing me about $200. A little over twice that.

Re:Pathetically Weak

[Bravoc]

And I bet you, MSFT's insurance didn't go up either.

Re:Pathetically Weak

[MarkByers]

While this fine means almost nothing to them, if every country threatens to do the same, they will start to take notice.

Re:Pathetically Weak

[vishbar]

RedHatLinux? I've never seen Red Hat speed....

*ducks*

anti-trust?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many more countries are going to claim MS has violated their anti-trust band wagon for a few million dollars and a set of free software?

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[pla]

I wonder if South Korea will be as soft and in-effectual as the EU. Me thinks not.

I wonder if Microsoft considers South Korea a "real" country, or just some some pathetic 2nd-world country, only on the map because of the antics of its neighbors to the north, trying to flex muscles it doesn't have.

"Unbundle messenger... Uh-huh... Suuuuuuure we will. Tell ya what... Go home and pretend we never had this little chat, and we won't 'stratify' our market to make all Microsoft products cost a few million dollars each in your backwater little former US landmine disposal yard".


It would hurt Microsoft a lot to pull out of the EU. Pulling out of South Korea, though? Somehow that doesn't strike me as one of their cash-cow sales regions.

This is an area where revocation ....

[Anonymous Coward]

and software as a service could really shine.

Microsoft could just threaten to turn Korea off.

Re:This is an area where revocation ....

[bigman2003]

Microsoft should just pull out of Korea before it's too late.

There would be a lot fewer problems.

Hell, more Koreans should just pull out before it's too late.

There would be a lot fewer Koreans.

Let's get it out of the way...

[Anonymous Coward]

In South Korea, only old people use Windows.

Microsoft browser tie-ins too strong

[Anonymous Coward]

and to ship an OS without them

It has nothing to do with whether a browser is shipped with their O/S or not. It's to do with deep facilities integration, which results in the machine being largely inoperative if the native browser is replaced with another.

Microsoft could easily have avoided this if they wished, by making the integration done through a separate module which can be used by 3rd party browsers too. They chose not to do so.

Ipod tie

[Anonymous Coward]

http://sybarites.org/2006/02/23/thomas-pink-ipod-r eady-commuter-tie/

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

i hope you were joking.

south korea has a population of 48 million, the 12th highest gdp in the world & high economic growth rates. they also have a lot of technology, which ms would like to run windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea

Bundle alternatives instead?

[Tx]

I get what some people are saying about out-of-the-box functionality, it does seem strange to expect an OS not to ship with default apps to provide standard functionality for e.g. media playing and IM. Are they going to apply the same principles to Mas OS and Linux?

Maybe what they should be doing is making Microsoft include alternatives, or even just a link to a web site where people can do a simple process to install and set as default alternative apps for standard functions. Click here to make Mozilla Firefox your default browser. Okay, I'm having trouble seeing it, but it does seem more sensible than all this unbundling of standard functionality.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[ral8158]

It's leveraging a monopoly to enter into other markets: the very DEFINITION of an antitrust suit. Since Apple is already in all of those businesses, and they don't have a monopoly on anything, really, (You could argue MP3 players, but they don't really have a monopoly, because if they do something stupid people have tons of viable choices) the govt's don't really care.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here isn't microsoft shipping programs. The problem is shipping programs that can't be uninstalled because "they are part of the core of windows"

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[HalAtWork]

it does seem strange to expect an OS not to ship with default apps to provide standard functionality for e.g. media playing and IM.

Actually, to me it seems strange that the OS ships with any apps at all. Whenever I install Windows I always replace the default apps with something better, they're not really worth including at all to me.

The OS should come with a text editor and whatever other applications to manage OS configurations and OS filesystem but that's about it really.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[Antique Geekmeister]

The problem is two-fold: they hide the cost of those add-on packages in the cost of the OS, while other software authors have to be added on on top of the OS. We saw similar problems with Netscape's webservers and IIS in the NT 4.0 workstation vs. server lawsuits.

The other problem is that resellers are prohibited by their licensing from Microsoft from un-installing such components and replacing them with other add-on utilities, or even making the other add-on components the default. Microsoft got caught repeatedly threatening to raise their OS price to vendors if they set Netscape to be the default web client, or even if vendors installed Netscape by default in their OEM bundles: we're seeing similar problems now with Real, Quicktime, and other audio and video components. So South Korea has good reason to complain about this.

What's amazing is that they're making exactly the sort of court decision that Judge White should have made against Microsoft here in the US, years ago. Microsoft absolutely does not want to have any precedents, anywhere, of unbundling their software: if South Korea, it means other countries can, too. Remember that Windows is the core product to sell lots of other Microsoft products: Microsoft uses that Windows bundling to prevent other tools from ever bing installed.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[danielk1982]

One of the things I like about Ubuntu is that it has a default set of apps. Those apps are maintained by the Ubuntu team, and their compatibility is guaranteed. I haven't yet upgraded to Firefox 1.5 because I'm waiting for the next version which will sort out all the compatibility issues. Finally it gives the OS cohesion since the components are no longer a bunch of separate and random applications but rather are part of a whole, and are optimized and tuned accordingly.

A lot of people like this about Ubuntu, OSX or Windows.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and a web browser.

Yes, I mean it. Internet Explorer is better than *none*.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[HalAtWork]

One of the things I like about Ubuntu is that it has a default set of apps. Finally it gives the OS cohesion since the components are no longer a bunch of separate and random applications but rather are part of a whole, and are optimized and tuned accordingly.

I understand this and do the same with Ubuntu as well. However, Ubuntu can select from many applications made by different developers. Often the many applications they choose from can perform the same function, such as Firefox, Epiphany, Konqueror, etc. Also, even though they include Firefox, they also maintain the other browsers in their repositories so all of them are just as easy to manage and work well with the other software.

However with Windows (or OS X), MS will only include MS applications, because it is in their best interest. They may not be the best option, or perform all of the functions you want. For me, they don't, which is why I replace them as soon as I install.

The default set of applications with Ubuntu is sensible and can just as easily be replaced (if not more easily than replacing the default apps on Windows), on the other hand. You can even make a default set of packages to install, and it doesn't have to be the ones included in the default configuration of Ubuntu. Look at Kubuntu and Edubuntu for example. The set of applications can be customized by the end user as well.

That's not to say I wish to see better applications included with Windows, I would still like to see none. It is in my best interest as a customer. Besides that the default applications are not so useful in Windows, if they were made to be useful, then they would start competing with third party application market share, but leveraging the installed base of Windows to get user exposure to the new competitive MS applications.

But just because these new applications would be competitive, it would still not make them the best choice. If people started to rely on these applications because they were included by default, it may be more difficult to get around using third party applications instead of the MS ones because the MS application's functionality (and perhaps file format, etc) would be assumed.

I think the best solution would just be for MS to include no applications other than configuration management and file system tools.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[HalAtWork]

Yes, I mean it. Internet Explorer is better than *none*.

No, because then IE's behaviour might be assumed by OS components, which would render it incompatible with third party applications. IE shouldn't be assumed because it might not be what the end user has installed.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[cyber-vandal]

The rules are different when you're a convicted monopolist who has already got into trouble for using its desktop monopoly to move into other areas. If MS had only 20% of the market and played reasonably nicely with everyone else this wouldn't be a story now would it. When MS start behaving as if the law is something they have to obey like everyone else instead of treating it as an inconvenient business expense then perhaps they'll lose a lot of their enemies.

Re:Bundle alternatives instead?

[penix1]

"You could argue MP3 players, but they don't really have a monopoly, because if they do something stupid people have tons of viable choices"

Maybe you should read this before commenting like above:

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/13/ 1548242

Admittedly it is a longshot but funnier things have happened in our courts...

B.

You must be new here.

[DavidHOzAu]

BTW, You forgot Poland.
In South Korea, only old people sue Microsoft... except in Nebraska!
IN DEMOCRATIC KOREA, government sue YOU!
I for one welcome our new Microsoft sueing overlords.... in Japan!^H^H^H^H^H^HSouth Korea!
In other news, it's raining chairs at Redmond.

1) Sue Microsoft
2) ???
3) Profit!

Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

Re:You must be new here.

[Anonymous Coward]

That pretty much sums up all comments on Slashdot.

sounds like...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you need to slow the fuck down!

"the last speeding ticket I got ended up costing me about $200. A little over twice that."

WAY OT, but still ... nah, just ot

[drachenstern]

has anyone else noticed ZONK seems to be the only person posting stories for the past 18 hours?

questions, comments, did i miss something? or is my browser going lulu on me?

A look into the future...

[themysteryman73]

Microsoft forced to unbundle Explorer from it's Operating System in compliance with international Trade Laws.

Idiots.

[lattyware]

I don't see why microsoft shouldn't bundle thier stuff? What next, none of the security because Norton don't like it? Or maybee they shouldn't be allowed to include themems, because of WindowBlinds? Madness.

Re:Idiots.

[Karzz1]

In the off-chance that you aren't trolling, see this post

Re:Idiots.

[lattyware]

I'm not trolling, I just don't think they are doing anything wrong... If microsoft had it thier way, then they could sell PCs with windows on, and only Mircrosoft-endorsed stuff could be used, which is where they are headed with the Xbox. If you don't like it, switch to somthing else.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[blackest_k]

and which perhaps korea would prefer to run Linux

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/17/ 1324247

Fairness...

[Anonymous Coward]

...should be either one of:
1) bundle the OS with multiple choices of the apps and, at install time, force the user to choose (eg a linux distro comes with at least 5 or 6 web browser to choose from; same for multimedia apps; ditto for IM clients; etc. etc.)

- or -

2) make the OS outlaw.

Ok, ok, just dreamin' :\

Ridiculous

[ton1c]

I'm sorry but i think we are forgetting a few key things here.

Microsoft is the maker of the software, they made it the way they wanted, and they allowed other companies to build software for it.

Why then should they be forced to not bundle their own software on it? They own the software, not the korean government.

If they want to make it more convenient for people without internet to use their computers then there should be absolutely no problem with that, they have the right to.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux user says : Microsoft should not be fined for trying to provide a more complete product to their costumers.

[ Reply to This ]

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't being forced to not bundle. They are being forced to not bundle software that is being sold to Koreans. If Microsoft want to sell in a particular market, they need to comply with the laws that govern that market. Otherwise, you might as well ask "why should the market be forced to include a product that doesn't follow its rules?"

Re:Ridiculous

[DeepHurtn!]

I'm sorry, but I think *you're* forgetting a few things.

They can be forced to not bundle certain items together *in S. Korea* because of a little ol' thing called "sovereignty". Despite the best efforts of transnational corporations, national governments still have certain rights to enforce laws within their own borders. These include anti-trust laws, which is what MS ran afowl of. (And as a side note, yes, anti-trust laws are *very* important in maintaining some semblance of a "free market".) In short: If MS wants to do business in S. Korea, they need to play by S. Korea's rules. There is no god-given right to do business wherever and however one wishes.

This is all particularly important when it comes to software, because the whole idea of "ownership" is pretty shaky. Software is not a thing. Whatever ownership of it there can be only exists through copyright legislation, which *is granted by governments*. So MS's very claim to "owning" that software is completely dependent on the sovereign states you are so willing to dismiss.

It's easy to take your position to an absurd degree: "I made this child pornography; I own it, not the government! Who are they to tell me what to do with it?"

Re:Ridiculous

[HermanAB]

You must either be very young or a troll. MS used unfair business practices to establish and expand its monopoly. In essence, it squashed all competition through exclusive business deals and then raised its prices to exploit the cornered market. You should look at the Netscape, Corel, Novel and SCO law suits to see the pattern. MS has been found guilty of these predatory business practices in several countries. Those countries are now using their anti-monopoly laws to redress the issue and restore a fair market situation. If MS acted responsibly and still established a monopoly situation, then nobody would have bothered them, since a monopoly in itself is not illegal.

Re:Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Microsoft IS the maker of the software. If they wish to keep on selling it in South Korea they'll just have to comply with whatever terms are set forth in the country. Plain and simple.

Re:Ridiculous

[Cal Paterson]

It's easy to take your position to an absurd degree: "I made this child pornography; I own it, not the government! Who are they to tell me what to do with it?"

I don't agree with your arguement, but what I'd really like to address is how poor this analogy is. It IS easy to take his argument to an absurd degree; you just did.

What people don't seem to realise is that large companies like Microsoft actually gain, overall, from regulation of industry. With regulation, what you're really doing is stifling small companies, and this just stops companies forming who wouuld increase the level of competition.

I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but it's not. In the US, there are anti-trust issues with MS, which would probably would be solved by the market if the DMCA was removed. Being able to reverse-engineer MS products would help reduce the monopoly far more than fines and more rules do.

Re:Ridiculous

[slavemowgli]

The rules are different for monopolies - 'nuff zed.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[djupedal]

It would hurt Microsoft a lot to pull out of the EU. Pulling out of South Korea, though? Somehow that doesn't strike me as one of their cash-cow sales regions.

I'll bite...you see, with the US & China tied as #1 for most internet users, South Korea comes in right behind them. #4 is so far below, there isn't much reason to even consider it.

I'm certain MS AND South Korea both have a more accurate view of the world market than you an all the others who joke about how much South Korea matters in this example.

Next, consider just who is actually building all those Dell and HP branded desktops, notebooks and displays (not where, but whom) - then factor in the effect of bundling and how the real expense is the liscense for each unit. Putting a crimp in that business model is like a cats tail under gramma's rocker...only a matter of time before everyone hears the yeowll and knows something is amiss.

Point is - South Korea is not to be taken lightly in this matter. South Korea knows it and MS knows it. I, for one, hope MS both gets smacked silly and learns a lesson. Somehow, tho, I doubt MS will ever learn.

MS to make another "Special" version of Windows...

[linebackn]

And also in the news, Microsoft is to create another "special" version of Windows to address South Korean antitrust concerns. This "special" version will be given a lobotomy and ride the short bus to school much like the European "Windows N" AKA "Windows Reduced Media Edition".

Other third party applications include very advanced technology called an "uninstaller" and have done so for years. This technology is so advanced that Microsoft as of yet is completely unable to replicate it or integrate it in to their Windows OS.

Uninstaller technology would give users and OEMs a choice of which software applications are installed with Windows. When asked to comment head of Microsoft marketing MS. Bob stated "We firmly believe that users do not need this functionality, any kind of choice is too complicated. Everyone should just use the software we provide them and depend on us." The interview was interruped by the defening sound of a compeditor getting crushed.

Please, please, revoke our rights!!! :P

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. You do realize that "revoking a country's Microsoft rights" would be immensely beneficial to the economy and future of that country, and immensely damaging to Microsoft's immediate and future profits?

It would be like the G8 ceasing to "help" the 3rd world through trade, when the flow of resources and money is massively to the benefit of G8.

If only Microsoft would switch off Europe's rights (as well as Korea's) to use Windows, that would be unbelievably fantastic.

is this really news?

[uolamer]

no disrespect to south korea, but this would have been a ton more effective if the whole US thing about breaking up their 'monopoly up' was completed instead of the runner up taking office and whoever it was decided not to do it.

for some reason i doubt microsoft will change their product, even for their country alone..

Choose and pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, Microsoft would charge computer makers a fee to customize (remove/replace components from the standard build). Maybe even to license the terms "Dell Windows", "AOL Windows", "Windows for Google". Microsoft would also start building and selling their own "Windows Authentic" computers to distinguish from all the crowd.

Re:Choose and pay

[greginnj]

Right, because if there's one thing that MS does really well, is build good hardware. If they want to do that, fine, that's called a free market.

Your first sentence describes what they're already doing, and is what all the bundling lawsuits are about. As for licensing, it's a pretty incestuous relationship, but ultimately Microsoft needs the boxmakers more than the boxmakers need Microsoft. The volume licenses MS sells to the boxmakers are a goldmine for the company that they wouldn't want to mess with. So Dell et al. could just decline the "Dell Windows" licensing fee, still buy the MS volume licenses, and refer to systems sold with 'a well-known operating system that runs the majority of today's applications', and most consumers wouldn't even notice that it didn't say Windows. For corporate customers, the Dell sales rep tells you what version OS you're getting over the phone. Next?

Microsoft should nail this one...

[__aaclcg7560]

All Microsoft has to do to avoid antitrust in Korea is to include a Starcraft-clone with every copy of Windows.

Better alternative

[Nichotin]

Why not make sure that these bundled apps are not a part of the vendor lock-in? A good media player included with the OS? Sure, but make the video/audio formats open.

milking MS for all it's worth?

[krunk4ever]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel all these "governments" view Microsoft as a cash cow and are trying to milk it for all it's worth.

Honestly, the definition needs to be redifined. What Linux, Apple and Microsoft is selling (or giving away for free) is not just an OS, but a complete package. Would anyone even bother buying an OS that doesn't come with a media player, a internet browser, or internet messenger in nowadays?

I understand that because of Microsoft's monopoly, it's gives then an unfair advantage of deploying any software they want, but browser, IM, media player are such core software in today's society, I dare you find a modern OS that doesn't have all of them in it. It's not like they're PREVENTING you from installing another software to replace it. By restricting one company from putting these software in, but allowing everyone else to do it, in my opinion, is what's unfair. If they forced every OS to not include a browser, media player, and IM client, I can be more content with that decision.

Just my rant and 2 cents.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[CSHARP123]

Thats exactly right. Nobody disagrees that MS is a monopoly. But govts have to look at today's market and think can MS be competitive without bundling some of these goodies in their OS. Unbundling different items from OS do not offer level playing field. What offers level playing field is stopping MS from making unfair deals with OEMs not to include competitors applications. We all know what a joke EU's ruling about unbundling media player from OS is. I think this needs to stop. US needs to take this case to WTO.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[CowboyBob500]

What the EU and South Korea are worried about is the fact that OEMs have no choice but to bundle IE, MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player etc with their computers which means that competitors in this area cannot compete on a level playing field by having the OEMs bundle their software exclusively. This is the important distinction in the area of anti-trust law. The "exclusively" is the key. An OEM cannot distribute a machine with Windows installed but without IE, MSN Messenger, or WMP. The end user can't even uninstall them.

This does not apply to OSX or Linux. There is no such thing as an OEM for Apple - they make the hardware as well as software so anti-trust law does not apply in this case - you're buying an appliance in the same way as you buy a TV or toaster. And as for Linux, a distributor can obviously bundle whatever apps they like with their hardware.

Bob

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[codepunk]

Oh you mean I could just replace Internet Explorer with anything I want right? I could just go to windows updates then with this new browser and download my updates right? I could install it without having some idiotic messenger icon bugging me every five minutes to sign up right? They use their dominate platform to extend their reach to other markets. This in most countries is illegal and thus the reason they are being fined and being required to unbundle. Yes other platforms bundle software but then again I can 100% remove the components that I am replacing as well.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[krunk4ever]

First of all, you CAN remove messenger and wmp completely from your system (Add/Remove Programs -> Windows Components). The only item in question you can't remove is Internet Explorer. But imagine the fact that you can indeed uninstall IE (if it wasn't so tightly integrated with the file system), do you think these government decisions would change? Does the ability of uninstalling IE even help Microsoft's case and what they're being charged for?

As for you comment regarding updates. Does Apple have "other" options for you to use to detect and download new updates and patches? All I know is they have their own software to do that. I can't go and replace it with something else. Same thing for Suse. They come with YAST and that's what detects and downloads new updates for me. I can't go and find a different software to replace YAST either.

What? You can manually download these updates and install it yourself? Well, guess what, same thing for Windows updates. You can download each individual update from their website, which NOW supports other browsers other than IE.

None of you complaints have any merit besides the fact you can't uninstall IE, but that itself wouldn't help in their Anti-Trust case anyway for the reasons I've mentioned above.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[MooUK]

"It's not like they're PREVENTING you from installing another software to replace it."

Except that it is EXACTLY like that for OEMs. PC manufacturers are often forbidden by M$ from bundling alternative products, and nobody is capable of removing the M$ versions.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[danielk1982]

You can remove Messenger, and WMP.

As for IE. No you can't remove it. Its also used as a file browser.
Can you remove Konqueror from KDE?

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[marcosdumay]

Well, contrary to what you say, it seems that governments are getting tired of MS seeing their citzens as cash cows. And if they need to destroy MS to guarantee the right of people to not be stolen, then, will make it so.

There are still some governemnts out there that work for the people. Well, probably not all the time, but at least for a few moments.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[krunk4ever]

I agree they should not be allowed to prevent bundling of alternative software or give incentive to OEMs for not installing competing software. In fact I find the whole concept where Intel is allowed to give discounts to Dell for not selling systems with AMD CPUs totally wrong and I haven't figured out why the Government isn't getting on Intel's case.

But this case isn't against them making such negotiations with OEMs. It's against them for including software that comes with their OS which is a very round about way to solve the problem you mentioned. Why not fine both the OEM and Microsoft if they find out such a deal has been made, instead of telling Microsoft to cripple their OS.

If I recall, Dell systems has always came with Real Player and Mozilla Firefox has been recently added to the list of software you can get pre-installed.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[MooUK]

"...and I haven't figured out why the Government isn't getting on Intel's case."

That one's pretty simple... it's the the government's best (financial) interests not to, most likely.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[HermanAB]

No, these countries are just taking back some of the money that MS stole from their citizens through unfair business practices and inflated prices.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[Karzz1]

"Can you remove Konqueror from KDE?"

I was wondering the same thing, but then I thought the answer is moot. You can replace KDE.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is moot for Microsoft too, you can replace Windows.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[danielk1982]

You can replace Windows.

I can open and modify Office documents, chat with MSN users (with no hotmail account), and play wmv files with no Microsoft applications involved.

I grow tired of the mentality that Windows is irreplacable. We live in an age when Linux distros can install themselves and configure printers and wireless internet with minimal user interaction(good job Ubuntu). As far as I'm concerned if you're still using Windows, its a choice.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[leenks]

Sometimes you can configure wireless internet. I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 centrino/Pentium-m laptop with the standard intel wireless. Moving between wireless access points is a right pain in the arse, and regularly requires a reboot. Nothing else seems to allow me to connect to a different access point, and after rebooting it connects to the access point immediately.

I've been using various unix operating systems for a long time now, and various Linux distributions for over 10, so I don't think it is me. Maybe I'm missing something obvious but I've had a pretty good look at the problem so far.

Linux is not a choice for a few things still. Audio is still really quite lacking - while tools such as Audacity, Ardour and RoseGarden (and related packages) offer a great deal of functionality, there is still nothing that can compete with any of the major Windows/Mac applications - eg Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, ProTools, Sibelius, Finale... There is no easy to use quality score writing package, or any thing that can handle midi sufficiently, or any way (or attempt) at integrating these things together in an easy to use way.

I'm sure these things will come in time, but they aren't here yet, and as such the Windows and Mac domination will continue. Usability is a key thing here - I would say the available audio applications (and even distributions such as Ubuntu) have a long way to go before they are at a suitable level for musicians. Most of them are technophobes who use computers purely because that is the only practical tool available to them. Many musicians are keen to try linux, but when shown the state of the art apps usually gets the response "but why would you want to use that?".

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[Alsee]

Why not fine both the OEM and Microsoft

Why would you fine the OEM for being a victim of Microsoft's abuse of monopoly power?

And as for merely permitting the installation of other software, that is certainly an improvement but it is hardly a useful remedy.

Microsoft's explicit monopoly strategy is that these other applications are TIED to the operating system and irremovable. They don't mind *too* much if alternatives *can* be installed. That doesn't hamper their tactic for monopolizing the other applications. The way they monopolize the other applications is by getting everyone else's software to start relying on and integrating with the Microsoft application and only on the Microsoft application. If you are writing a program and you want to easily integrate audio or video media playback, are you going to target to program to utilize a variety of other media players that may or may not be present? To generally target the cluster of two or three alternatives that, most likely, NONE of which will be present? Or are you going to utilize the handy dandy Microsoft MediaPlayer that is *ALWAYS* on the system?

Are you going to write your program to interface weth general instant messengers which might or might not (most mikely NOT) be on the system? Or are you going to integrate with the single messenger program that is *ALWAYS* on the system?

The fact the Microsoft version *MUST ALWAYS* be on the system means that the easy answer is to target that and only that. To integrate with that and only that. To rely on that and only that. And thus to FORCE the user to use that one and only that one in relation to that particular program. It means media files are all in the Microsoft WMA and WMV media formats.

The issue is that the Microsoft version CANNOT be removed and replaced with something else. That is the aspect that prohibits anyone else from competing. That is the monopolization aspect that exterminates all alternatives and exterminates all competitors.

-

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[danielk1982]

Linux is not a choice for a few things still. Audio is still really quite lacking - while tools such as Audacity, Ardour and RoseGarden (and related packages) offer a great deal of functionality, there is still nothing that can compete with any of the major Windows/Mac applications - eg Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, ProTools, Sibelius, Finale... There is no easy to use quality score writing package, or any thing that can handle midi sufficiently, or any way (or attempt) at integrating these things together in an easy to use way.

So?

Generally speaking Mac and Windows can't match Linux/Apache combo for hosting and server work. Linux will not completely replace Mac or Windows and vice versa. There will be niche areas where you will need Windows, so you'll need to get Windows. For general desktop computing Linux is good enough.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[leenks]

Don't get me wrong - I use Linux/Solaris on desktops and servers daily, for developing, running desktop software (IM, Email etc) and for servers, and think it is great. In fact, I resent using Windows for email.

I only meant to highlight that using Windows is not a choice for many people. It isn't just the audio world that has this problem - photography (no, GIMP isn't suitable), digital video, and anyone needing to work in multiple "written" scripts (no standard workable input method framework for example).

Also, for servers it depends who you ask about managing Windows / Linux. It is possible to manage large / huge Windows deployments too - with the right tools (one needs the right tools on Unix too of course, but that is always overlooked).

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[tshak]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel all these "governments" view Microsoft as a cash cow and are trying to milk it for all it's worth.

Honestly, the definition needs to be redifined. What Linux, Apple and Microsoft is selling (or giving away for free) is not just an OS, but a complete package.

I couldn't have said it better myself. None of what these governments are doing are good for the consumers.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, money's just a red herring. MS really is anti-competitive. They've even been convicted of abusing their monopoly in USA.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[FurryFeet]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel all these "governments" view Microsoft as a cash cow and are trying to milk it for all it's worth.

It's just you. 33 million dollars is peanuts for Korea's government, hardly worth the trouble. Check out some federal budgets from time to time; what seems like a lot of money to you or me is what they spend on soda pop.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[FiberOPtic]

"Is it just me or does anyone else feel all these "governments" view Microsoft as a cash cow and are trying to milk it for all it's worth."

No I see a soveren contery enforcing its laws.

Don't think Bush has outlawd that yet.

--
more of the fake sig

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[CountBrass]

Really? That's funny because both desktop OSX and xserve come with Apache pre-installed and pre-configured. Perhaps you should, you know, check your facts before trolling?

Re:milking MS for all it's worth?

[danielk1982]

You can run Apache on Windows. Doesn't mean you should. (Actually Windows/IIS is actually pretty good)

I've never seen any business use OSX for anything other than desktop graphic work. Why bother with xserve when you can just use linux?

My point in all this is that each OS will have its niche and there are some areas in which Windows will never replace Linux and OSX and vice versa. Hipsters would be sooner caught dead than with a Windows box.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was parent modded flamebait? His post is the only one here that's dead-on.

Probably

[Rocketship Underpant]

South Korea is a developed country with 50 million citizens, if that answers your question.

Not really fair

[nurb432]

Not that im a fan of microsoft, but the last time i looked i was able to run altenative IM clients or browswers. I wasnt forced to use theirs. Sure it was there taking up space, but it didnt hurt me a bit.

Now, once they start hindering 3rd party options ( again ), then we have a issue...

Re:Not really fair

[ClamIAm]

As long as "Blue E" ==== "Internet" for 90% of the population, I think it's perfectly fair to sanction Microsoft.

Re:Not really fair

[ClamIAm]

Yep, 90% of the computing population is obviously aware of this and consciously makes the choice to use IE over something else. Oh wait. Sounds like somebody hasn't been in contact with "average" people very much.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[cosminn]

South Korea comes in right behind them. #4 is so far below, there isn't much reason to even consider it.

Yes, but out of all the people in SK using MS, how many of them have _legal_ installations of their software?

While China and other Asian countries are very advanced in the use of computers and Internet technology (and if they're not advanced they have the numbers to make it count), how many are legal?

If the market in SK would have, say 1mil customers (totally random number), and out of those only 200k have legal copies, it doesn't weight so heavy on MS...

Just a thought..

I do agree tho that this whole going-after-MS crap is beginning to be ridiculous. IM client??? They're not even in the top 2 companies of IM! Don't want IE? Use something else? God knows people are, and it's not like you're paying for IE (that would probably be a crime :-p). The whole media player discussion I think is also bull - I think you'll find that people use QT more than they use WMP, yet Apple is selling _their_ computers with it, and it's pretty integrated in their system (I don't mind it, so no pun intended).

Now if they would bundle Office with Windows, that's where it'd be wrong...but all these small components...would you buy and OS that comes with a kernel only? (And yes, I use gentoo too ;) )

Offtopic?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mods, you must be new here.

Re:Offtopic?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. If I was going to post something off topic, I would have posted AC. It is hard enough to be an average slashdotter whose comments largely get ignored, regardless of how insightful they might be, without adding off topic comments to the list.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[pla]

I'll bite...you see, with the US & China tied as #1 for most internet users

Which means... What, exactly?

You can get on the internet without Windows - In fact, South Korea REQUIRES government computers to run open source software (ie, Linux), with the business and academic communities resultingly all-but-forced to do the same if they want to get anything done.

So, I repeat my original point - The South Korean market means very little to Microsoft at the moment. While you could argue that Microsoft currently has a lot of room for growth there, at the same time it counts as one of those MS-hostile places for which MS came up with "Starter Edition" in a sad attempt to increase market penetration for no real short-term gain.


Would MS prefer to have the option of selling in South Korea open to them? Sure... Burning bridges very rarely helps make money. But will MS grant more concessions to SK (or any at all) than they did to the EU? No way in Hell.


As an aside, Microsoft already has a totally unbundled OS available - XP Embedded. Depending on your build options, you can produce something very similar to XP Pro, or something so stripped down as to "unbundle" even those nasty anticompetitive drivers Microsoft uses to "favor" to various hardware vendors (the bastards, making my NIC work right out of the box, without needing a CD or a download or compiling a module! How dare they?). And IIRC, the per-device license comes out to less than XP pro (but more than XP home for OEMs?), and explicitly allows (by necessity) for redistribution. But then, source code doesn't count as opening their formats, and removing WMP doesn't count as removing WMP, so I don't know why any governments would consider that option...

It's not the same

[brunes69]

Every Linux distribution I know of ships with the ability to install any of several different media players, or office suites. Linux has inherent choice built in.

Re:It's not the same

[mcubed]

Every Linux distribution I know of ships with the ability to install any of several different media players, or office suites. Linux has inherent choice built in.

And yet, most Linux distributions do ship/install with certain apps "bundled." This is especially true for the distributions touted as "newbie friendly." And these distributions -- not to mention legions of /. wags -- make a point of touting all these bundled apps as proof that you can do anything in Linux that you can do in Windows, with the same ease because these apps are installed by default. Look at the default Ubuntu install, Ubuntu being one of the newbie-friendly distros with a high profile: it comes with a Gnome desktop that includes 1 gui web browser, 1 audio player, 1 movie player, 1 audio ripper, 1 gui file manager, etc. This is a feature. Yes, you can install a different browser, ripper, etc., but you can do that on Windows too.

I think it's a double-standard. South Korea and the EU are trying to cripple Windows because they don't want Windows to be able to compete on a level playing field. Other OSes do exactly the same thing Windows does -- I mean, can you uninstall Finder from OS X? -- but Windows is being singled out.

By all means, punish MS for its anti-competitive behavior and practices. Punish it for forcing OEMs to exclude competing apps from their products. But don't cripple a product that millions of consumers like.

Michael

Re:It's not the same

[aaronl]

No; where do people get this ridiculous stuff? MS and Windows is singled out because MS is *violating law*. Apple, Red Hat, Ubuntu, etc, are *not violating law*. There is no double standard, and there is no government conspiracy against MS or Windows. As I said, MS keeps getting sued and punished because they continue to ignore the laws of the majority of the countries they are doing business in.

Distributions do not produce Linux. They also don't usually produce the software that they're shipping as part of that distribution. They do not benefit because more people use GNOME or Amarok or Firefox. They ship the versions of software that they want to, and they can change what software they ship at will. They tend to make the defaults be the most popular, or most capable, applications.

Likewise, you can choose which software you use. You could run a business that sells computers, and you can install, say, Ubuntu on those machines, and you could change the applications that are on the system before you deliver it. You can decide that the default web browser will be Lynx, and that you won't ship Firefox. You can decide that the kernel will no include Fibre Channel drivers. Hell, you can decide that you won't ship X-Window at all! You can swap around things however you want, and then sell machines with that on it.

MS' licensing for OEMs stipulates that they *may not* remove default Windows components, or install software that competes with those components. If you bothered to read up on the topic, you would see that this is a requirement that MS forces, but no other OS company does. As MS has a monopoly on the market, and they are outright preventing competing software from being delivered on machines using their OS, they get to be in the unique position of illegally abusing their monopoly, and subject to many fines and sanctions. They are doing something that *nobody* else is doing, and they are being punished, in accordance with the laws of several countries.

MS doesn't compete on an even playing field. Where do you get the idea that they do? They have a *monopoly*, part of that outright means that *everyone else* is not on a level playing field with them; everyone else is at a disadvantage, no matter the quality or price of their products.

To quote you: "By all means, punish MS for its anti-competitive behavior and practices. Punish it for forcing OEMs to exclude competing apps from their products."

That is precisely what these countries are doing. MS' bundling of applications on the monopoly OS, and subsequent flooding of the markets of those applications, destroys the ability for others to compete, and so is anti-competitive. Should MS decide, at some point, to compete fairly, they will stop getting regularly sued by multiple countries for violating their monopoly, fair trade, and business practice laws.

Re:It's not the same

[Trelane]

I think it's a double-standard. South Korea and the EU are trying to cripple Windows because they don't want Windows to be able to compete on a level playing field.

Anti-trust regulations exist because a monopoly situation is not anywhere near a level playing field.

So yes, they could force the playing field to slant, but it'd not be making the playing field un-level; it would (ideally) make the playingfield level, since it wasn't level to start with .

But don't cripple a product that millions of consumers like.

There are a myriad of ways to decouple various Windows components and yet allow for a full end-user experience. Removing Windows Media Player, for instance, need not cripple the end-user multimedia experience, provided Microsoft helps create a framework in Windows to allow other media players to be drop-in replacements (and make full use of their functionality, which means that there needs to be an open standard, not just "do whatever WMP does").

The only problem is that, given their monopoly status, such open standards are not in Microsoft's interests, and so they will (and are) fight(ing) it tooth and nail.

If you find that un-bundling WMP is crippling Windows, then place the blame where it belongs--with Microsoft.

Re:It's not the same

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Yeah, that's some amazing logic you got there slashbot. It's wrong because it's illegal and it's illegal because it's wrong. Have you ever heard of the term "begging the question"? You should look it up.

You and others like you.

Re:It's not the same

[mcubed]

As I said, MS keeps getting sued and punished because they continue to ignore the laws of the majority of the countries they are doing business in.

Indeed. The question is not "should MS be punished?", the question is "is this the right punishment?" Forcing a company to redesign its product -- one that has been hugely successful -- is not the right approach. It is a double-standard. When Apple is forced by some government to license FairPlay to rivals in the digital music business, then I'll believe standards are being applied fairly.

You could run a business that sells computers, and you can install, say, Ubuntu on those machines

and

As MS has a monopoly on the market, and they are outright preventing competing software

Um, you don't see a contradiction there? If MS has a monopoly and can "prevent competing software," then how can I run a business that sells computers and installs Ubuntu? Either one or the other can be true, but not both. Sure, Windows is effectively a monopoly, just like the iPod is effectively a monopoly, even though people are free to buy computers without Windows or alternative audio players. But the way to remedy those situations is not to force the companies to cripple their own products. The way to remedy them is to force them to stop abusing their monopolies. MS should not be allowed to prevent OEMs from installing separate media players or web browsers, it shouldn't be allowed to dictate terms that punish OEMs who do pre-install alternatives to Windows' components like WMP and IE; but neither should MS be forced to remove it's own media player or web browser from its product. It just doesn't make sense. You're saying to a company, "You are no longer allowed to sell the best product you can, because you misbehaved." That's a loss for consumers. What you want to do is stop the misbehavior and let others complete fairly, not cripple one company's product so that others look better.

MS' bundling of applications on the monopoly OS, and subsequent flooding of the markets of those applications, destroys the ability for others to compete,

I don't buy that. Back when I used Windows, it took me all of a day to realize I didn't like WMP and to install an alternative. And from the beginning I used Netscape because that's what I'd used at work ... it didn't take me long to move from Netscape to Mozilla and eventually Firefox. Just because MS supplies certain tools doesn't mean you have to use them -- that's true on OS X (where I use Camino instead of Safari) and almost any Linux distro.

The point is ... everybody bundles. The solution isn't to prevent MS from bundling, it's to prevent MS from locking out its competitors on Windows boxes.

Michael

Re:It's not the same

[mcubed]

There are a myriad of ways to decouple various Windows components and yet allow for a full end-user experience. Removing Windows Media Player, for instance, need not cripple the end-user multimedia experience, provided Microsoft helps create a framework in Windows to allow other media players to be drop-in replacements (and make full use of their functionality, which means that there needs to be an open standard, not just "do whatever WMP does").

You're right. The problem is that this is how MS wants Windows to work. To my mind, that's a stupid design; to my mind, open standards are the way to go because they allow maximum flexibility and choice. But that's my way of thinking. It's among the reasons I don't use Windows anymore. If I can make that choice as a consumer, so can others. I don't believe in the government dictating that choice for me, nor for MS. The proper remedy is to make sure the marketplace can function, not to dictate software design. Let MS stew in its DRMed juices; let people find the available alternatives. Or, if they are perfectly happy with Microsoft's design decisions, then so be it. There's no accounting for taste, but there ought not to be a goverment mandate for it either.

Michael

Re:It's not the same

[aaronl]

I don't disagree with you that this solution is not the necessarily the best possible way. You have to consider what solutions are available, and which of those solutions are possible to enforce. The best way really would be to have an abusive company, such as Microsoft, stop abusing their position. However, is there a way to force that to happen?

What you suggest as the necessary fix, and the one that you are probably correct in, is really a social problem. The people running the company are willing to do what we are considering to be "the wrong thing". To have them stop doing the wrong thing would require those people to change their minds. That isn't something you can cause to happen with law, or with government force.

This leaves less than ideal methods of dealing with the problem. Much like sending someone to prison doesn't fix the crime, or necessary cause them to not commit a later crime, to impose a fine, or similar, may not necessary cause the company to begin to "behave". So, these governments have attempted to find a way to deal with the situation that they can actually impose.

Microsoft broke the rules in these countries, and that carries a penalty. The governments of these countries decided that penalty is to force Microsoft to alter their products in an attempt to correct for their predatory practices. Unfortunately, the threat of this action hasn't caused Microsoft to behave itself in the slightest. They continually attempt to go around government sanctions as if they were meaningless. Now they are being hit hard because of their repeated actions.

Apple may be brought up on charges at some point for illegally leveraging a monopoly on downloadable music. At this point, I can't see that happening... there are many other ways, and ITMS is still not the dominant method that people use to obtain music. They do not have a monopoly on music, just one form of music distribution. Having an antitrust styled case against Apple for this would be difficult, anyway. Being able to carry around music on a little portable player just isn't important. These governments aren't exactly likely to want to bother to bring a case against Apple for this, unless they get bored, or Apple attempts to start tying other important products into it.

Re:South Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Microsoft considers South Korea a "real" country,

They can buy southkorea for a months worth of profit. They might consider buying that country instead of agreeing with the terms.

kim

Bundling != abusing a monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

People can claim all they like that a web browser is a part of all modern OS's, media players are not and Microsoft's monopoly gives an unfair advantage to their formats.

ANTITRUST 101: You are not allowed to abuse a monopoly in order to expand your business.

Re:Bundling != abusing a monopoly

[mabhatter654]

Exactly! Like in another post about new AT lawsuits, 6 of the 10 new "reasons" to buy Vista are knock-off versions of products that have 2-3 companies making a tidy living from. Let's look at MS latest conquests: They bought a cheap no-name AV company that also made Linux AV, canceled their deals with McAfee and now they are using that to run the others out of town. Look at Spyware, they bought Giant, which was a minor player, now want to bundle it and of course that will take out the people making real money. That's MS modus aperendi... they wait till a market is developed, buy the cheapest player, then bundle the tech making the long-term players loose their businesses. McAfee is already in financial trouble, and Norton is not soon off.

Microsoft enjoys being a relitive monopoly for PC OSes... realize that only two product lines support the entire company... Office products and OS products! Everything else they do is for the sake of taking away business from other people's companies and costs their shareholders profit!

Frankly, the whole bundling thing is nonsense though. What really needs to happen is what the EU is trying to do... take away the secret advantages they keep between products for themselves. The countries really need to take the state of Mass idea and accept only published specs for their software protocols like any other contract. That has the function of eliminating MS as a competitior unless they adopt standards like everyone else's. Any real "punishement" of microsoft has to also address OEM agreements, buying competitors to kill them, and remove that big pile of cash [even if it just is forced to be paid to stockholders] so they have to act, not pay their way out of trouble.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[Trelane]

You can get on the internet without Windows - In fact, South Korea REQUIRES government computers to run open source software (ie, Linux), with the business and academic communities resultingly all-but-forced to do the same if they want to get anything done.

Why are the business and academic communities resultingly all-but-forced to use Linux if they want to get anything done, provided the government mandates Linux use?

Sued for wrong reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it is good that Microsoft is getting sued for their bad behaviour.
But I think they're getting sued for the wrong reasons.
Of course they should bundle their software with their operating system, it makes convience for users, and users probably want their OS to come out-of-the-box with useful software for Instant Messenging, Audio and Video.
And of course they should not need to include software from competitors in their products.
In that aspect they're not doing anything wrong (imho).

The wrong thing they are doing is vendor-lock in, breaking file formats, refusing to use open standards, etc. And for that I think they should get sued into oblivion.

Windows DYI Edition to go on Sale in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

In an unprecedented move, Microsoft announced they would begin to sell the Windows DIY edition in Korea, which include 256 different bytes and instructions about how to assemble a version of XP from copies of these bytes). Eric Leng explains "This gives customers a freedom of choice they have not enjoyed before".

Re:Windows DYI Edition to go on Sale in Korea

[dfgchgfxrjtdhgh.jjhv]

they're going to open the source? great news!!! ;p

Re:Windows DYI Edition to go on Sale in Korea

[Karzz1]

"and instructions about how to assemble a version of XP from copies of these bytes"

You will never see MS release the source to Windows. Ever.

Re:Windows DYI Edition to go on Sale in Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Ken Thompson did.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[mustafap]

I'm rather surprised too. I live in the uk and am making a fair statement about our 'EU Overlords' pathetic efficiency.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[sg_oneill]

Hows that any different to the US, or Europe?

Koreas not some backwoods little peasant country. Its as advanced as Japan and the USA and has a fairly decent western standard living style.

4th highest GDP. Mull it over man.

Regardless, when a country fines a company like microsoft 40 million odd dollars, it doesnt actually have a choice not to pay it. The court has the perogative to just *take* it, being that its a fine and all.

If you trade in a country, you follow its laws or face fines , jails or exile.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's where I stopped reading also. Then I checked the nickname, and surprise, it was the same guy siding with microsoft on the issue with the EU. I could say he was new here, because the answers to his points have been given over and over in here, to the point I was bored enough not to karmawhore and answer. Then my eyes drifted a bit righter and fell upon his UID. Then I just dismissed him as a troll, or an honest working MSFT stock holder. You gotta root for the home team...

No

[Anonymous Coward]

In South Korea, only old people plays Starcraft.

Everyone plays World of Warcraft now so you should bundle WoW instead. Well that will surely make the Windows a DVD ONLY version.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth? -- Forget it.

[FridayBob]

Is it just me or does anyone else feel all these "governments" view Microsoft as a cash cow and are trying to milk it for all it's worth.

Forget it. Microsoft has been in court for monopolistic business practices for as long as I can remember. They wrote the book on software bundling and how to use it to destroy the competition. Microsoft continues to do this, despite all of the lawsuites and the fines they've had to pay, simply because they've always gained more from this practice than they've ever lost because of it. As long as they remain the dominant player in the market and continue to do things this way, we can expect to see them as permanent fixtures in courts around the world. The courts are only doing what they're meant to do, but compared to Microsoft's profits, the fines involved will always be inadequate, even though they may amount to hundreds of millions of dollars.

Honestly, the definition needs to be redifined. What Linux, Apple and Microsoft is selling (or giving away for free) is not just an OS, but a complete package. Would anyone even bother buying an OS that doesn't come with a media player, a internet browser, or internet messenger in nowadays?

Oh, so now we should view Microsoft's bundling practices as normal?? FYI: those technologies were all developed by other people and companies, and now what do they have to show for it? For instance, did Netscape deserve to die just because the folks at Microsoft decided Windows should come with a pre-installed, competitive, native browser? You would think differently if Netscape had been your baby. There are probably lots of folks out there who are still too scared to market their ideas for fear that Microsoft might "pull a Netscape" on them.

To be fair, one could argue that for a manufacturer to produce an operating system -- today or even ten years ago -- without some kind of a browser to start with would in effect cripple it. However, if Microsoft had stopped doing any major development work on their bundled version of Internet Explorer, for example by leaving it simple (HTML 2.0-4.01 compatible), modular, as secure as possible, and making it just good enough to allow the user to go out and download a proper replacement (which might be better version of Internet Explorer), then I don't think anybody would have complained. The problem is that they went out of their way to make their bundled browser the "Best browser in the world" (haw), with the specific intent to kill Netscape and thereby strengthen their market position.

Comparing Microsoft's bundling practices to a Linux distribution is ridiculous. Commercial Linux distributions are collections free software packages compiled almost exclusively for the benefit of the user, while Microsoft bundles its software together with Windows almost exclusively for its own benefit, mostly by screwing the competition.

... It's not like they're PREVENTING you from installing another software to replace it. ...

Of course not. If that were the case, Firefox would not be the #2 browser. But it is the reason why the vast majority of Windows users never go looking for an alternative browser or media player or whatever. This is what killed Netscape. This is what stifles innovation.

... By restricting one company from putting these software in, but allowing everyone else to do it, in my opinion, is what's unfair ...

Nobody ever said Microsoft should not be allowed to make browsers, media players, chat software, etc. for their own operating systems, or even give these packages away for free. The point is that it's unfair for them to include this software pre-installed with Windows. When they do that, the average user is simply very unlikely to ever go looking for any alternatives. That's the only reason why crap software products like Internet Explorer and Outlook are still the perennial favorites.

And while we're

Ooohh ... very scary!

[ScrewMaster]

Thirty-five million dollars, eh? Wow, what a horrendous penalty. That'll throw the fear of God into Gates and Ballmer for sure. No doubt about it, their days are numbered.

Re:milking MS for all it's worth? -- Forget it.

[nightgeometry]

I agree completely - well, mostly :)

The one thing I do disagree with though (at least in part) is:
Of course not. If that were the case, Firefox would not be the #2 browser. But it is the reason why the vast majority of Windows users never go looking for an alternative browser or media player or whatever. This is what killed Netscape.

To be fair, Netscape 4 was a dogs dinner of a browser, and IE 4 was actually distinctly better. It stills pains me to say that though.
(not an MS fanboy, actually an Apple fanboy if anything)

Human Choice.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the ruling is solely on the bundling of their software, then the Korean government has no hold. Yes it is annoying that Windows and MS's other OS's come standard with the media player and their IM et all, but that is their right as a programming corporation. However, if one wants to use alternative applications many are freely available for downloading. If they want to use an OS that does not come with any other applications, then they should just run UNIX boxes or other terminal based OS's and stop complaining.

Now I understand that the US software grants tend to make other programs and OS's less tempting, but people have to realize that Microsoft is Not the only way of doing business. I myself am not a fan of windows, and have elected to run several other Open Source OS's. At the expanding rate of the Linux Community, both user terminals and massive file servers, the corporate world can just as easily run Linux as Windows. The fact that they don't is not Microsoft's fault. It comes down to choice.

Re:Human Choice.

[sn00ker]

If the ruling is solely on the bundling of their software, then the Korean government has no hold.

Well, actually, the Korean Government can do whatever the hell they like. Who will Microsoft appeal to? If the Koreans decide that Microsoft must sacrifice a goat beneath every full moon in order to continue trading, Microsoft have no choice. This is not an issue of fair trade practice, that MS could take to the WTO. This is a country dictating the terms under which a product may be sold there, and that is a nation's sovereign right. Microsoft can put up or piss off, those are their choices. They have no right of appeal, and nowhere to which they could appeal.

Re:Human Choice.

[Anonymous Coward]

" If the Koreans decide that Microsoft must sacrifice a goat beneath every full moon in order to continue trading, Microsoft have no choice."
"They have no right of appeal, and nowhere to which they could appeal."

Heheh .. what a naive little being.

Who are they going to appeal to ?

Try US government ..

They can and will fuck with Korean industry and I bet SK would roll rather quickly facing 40% duty on, say Hyundai cars.

Re:South Korea

[colinrichardday]

Wikipedia estimates South Korea's 2005 GDP at slightly over $1 trillion (US). No, Microsoft can't buy it with a month's worth of profits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Kore a

You can remove Windows Messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

You you can remove Windows Messenger. From Add/Remove programs click "Windows Components" and scroll to the bottom. There it is.

Windows Media player is in there too.

if i recall correctly

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft told Korea last year that if they punished them, they would pull out of Korea.

Re:South Korea

[FusionDragon2099]

Think about this. North Korea is not very wealthy, but they're capable of wiping Seoul off the map. If Microsoft was serious about giving a "screw you" to Korea, they'd buy NK and tell Kim Jong-il to fire at will.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[blackest_k]

Hmm do I smell Mod abuse, surely my parent comment is informative or inciteful refering to an earlier story on slashdot about the South Korean government mandating that a city in South Korea use Linux.

Isn't it pretty obvious that both storys indicate a determination on the part of the South Koreans to weaken the grip of microsoft on thier infrastructure. Either they are looking for a cheaper deal with Microsoft or they really do want an IT infrastructure which isn't dependant on paying Microsoft.

Companies such as Samsung are already big players in the hardware Market place. With countrys such as japan threatening to levy import tarrifs of 27.2%
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/ 2006/01/21/2003290105
Strengthening South Korea's posistion in the software market surely makes a lot of sense for South Korea.

If South Koreans can buy domestically produced hardware at a significantly lower price than the rest of the world then widespread use of a free alternative operating system increases the competitive advantage of low priced quality hardware.

It also makes sense that if your going to use windows then push for the lowest price you can surely?

Karma generally works on slashdot so hopefully whoever metamoderates my previous post will see it wasn't the work of a troll and score it fairly.

If I were MS...

[daeg]

If I controlled MS, I'd stop releasing software in South Korea. MS has enough other massive global markets to cut the profit from South Korea. Don't like my software? Fine, I won't sell it to you. Also, after my obligations to XP and 2003 are done for support contracts, I will stop supporting software in any form, including tech support, licensing, and security patches. Oooh you like the new version of Office? Too bad, so sad. That being said, I don't see what the problem with them including stuff with their OS is. Nothing at all prevents you from installing additional software! The included software is CRAP and should be easy to market around. OEMs are already free to bundle additional software with Windows, including setting them as the default applications...

Re:If I were MS...

[lachlan76]

One of two things would happen then:

1. Big switch to Linux
2. Changes in copyright laws to allow people to just use it without buying

Re:If I were MS...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Changes in copyright laws to allow people to just use it without buying"

Dream on.

Imagine what would happen to South Korean car industry if they were to go that way ...
In fact, if they (and EU) keep fucking with Microsoft there are ways to fix that - given a fullblown trade war between EU and USA , EU would simply collapse.
If you want to know why check for example difference between US and say German economies.

Re:South Korea

[colinrichardday]

Deal with Kim Jong-il? Does Microsoft trust him not to launch one at Redmond after the check clears? If he's crazy enough to nuke South Korea, why wouldn't he be crazy enough to nuke the US?

:-P

[rathehun]

In South Korea...only Microsoft faces deadlines!
R.

Actually.

[Ivan Matveitch]

The WTO settles disputes that arise among its member states rather than those of individual firms.

Anyway, the very same controversy is playing out today as the US and the EU dispute the permissibility of GM-crops bans.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[blackest_k]

Thanks you made me laugh, sad thou its the sweetest thing you have said this year.

why thou...

Placze do pustych scian, co za wstyd
Bylam z kims jakis czas, niewazne juz
Czuje, ze wokól mnie nie kocha nikt
Czuje, ze zawsze juz bedzie tak.

Modular Windows

[st3v]

Instead of making 100 different versions of Windows, why doesn't Microsoft make Windows more modular? For example, being able to choose whether or not to install Windows Media Player, MSN Messenger, etc. I know its not hard at all to do this, as I remember in the Windows 9x installations, there were more applications you could choose to not install during the OS setup. If Microsoft can do this, stupid charges like this against them would be useless.

Re:Modular Windows

[POTSandPANS]

Yeah, I remeber that, I also remember unchecking all of the "Online Services" that came with windows 9x to save me having to delete them later. Somehow, they all ended up being installed anyway...

Yeah right, you failed economy? Kindergarden level

[SmallFurryCreature]

MS is scared shitless about the idea of even a single town (read up on munich and MS counter AND counter offer when they learned they were not the only bidder) going to an alternative OS. Can you imagine an entire country especially an economic powerhouse like South Korea?

Everytime some goverment somewhere even dares to think about going opensource MS moves in with special deals to keep them inline.

What would happen if MS indeed decided no longer to sell to South Korea. Well apart from the question of legallity. Companies do not rule the world yet even if you seem to think so and can't actually ban people from buying their products.

Even so, say it could happen, then what would South Korea do? Well either keep its old windows. That would be bad enough. Imagine if every company every goverment that did business with South Korea needed to keep sending its office documents in the old format that South Korea can use. MS is already pissed off that consumers won't upgrade fast enough making the latest office useless as you still need to send docs in the old formats supported by Office of the last century. Imagine now if an entire country says Oh, an XP document, nice, resend in in 98 format please.

And they would have to resend the document in a format that the South Koreans understand. The real world is not the silly place you seem to think it is. If you deal with multinationals or goverments you accomadate the other EVEN if you think your the more powerfull party. In short, you will communicate with the South Korean goverment/businesses in the format they can handle.

Even worse if they went opensource. Imagine if all those businesses suddenly deciced they would only communicate in open document formats. Then it could easily spread.

It is the story of IE. Not so long ago IE was the only browser that many sites would be tested on. Use something else and a lot of sites would simply break or even refuse to load. So IE had to be used. And because everyone used IE sites only tested against IE so you had to use IE. Then something broke and IE's market share has decreased. By a fraction and yet MS response shows how scared they are of even losing 10% of a market. IE7 is going to copy everything the other browsers did because no longer can MS just rely on the fact that you need to use their browser to view site X.

MS certainly doesn't want the same thing to happen to its OS and Office markets.

No, if any country actually does ban MS from use by the goverment and large businesses then you can be sure that Bill Gates himself will be flying over to smooth things out. Just check the countless examples of MS responses to goverments considering opensource solutions.

Your view of the world suggests to me your a 12yr old windows script kiddy who idolizes Billy because he gave you free porn popups.

Maybe you will grow out of it as you learn about the real world but in the meantime get an account on myspace instead and leave slashdot to those who got a clue.

And the deadline is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Buy something or get out.

Re:South Korea vs EU?

[pla]

Then I checked the nickname, and surprise, it was the same guy siding with microsoft on the issue with the EU.

Whoah, you mean... I actually adopted the same stance on two very similar issues in two different topics? How DARE I show logical consistency on Slashdot?

Sorry, lost my head there, I won't do it again. Just give me another shot - I promise, next two posts on the GPL and the RIAA, I'll support emasculating evildoers who only comply with the spirit but not the letter of the GPL, and then in the next breath say we have a right to steal music and the RIAA can suck it.


Yes, Virginia, I believe the governments of the world have gone too far against Microsoft (even if the US government didn't have the balls to carry through on its threats - And no, those ideas don't contradict one another). Whether or not MS has truly reformed yet, they've adopted a MUCH more friendly attitude (Why not? IBM has started playing the good guys, with a much longer history of evil than MS has even existed). And as for abusing their "monopoly" - Have you any idea of the size of the fish involved here? Microsoft may dominate the software world, but the world will keep moving without their products. Compare that to OPEC, which openly colludes to keep oil prices and demand as high as possible; and without their product, our planet cannot naturally produce enough food to feed even half of the current human population.

Oh noes, I have to choose to manually install Firefox and not to run WMP and Messenger. But I might not HAVE ANY FUCKING HEAT because oil costs too much and that seems just fine?

Seriously, some Slashdotters need a sense of proportion.