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Microsoft To Fight Korean Verdict
DocHart wrote to mention a BBC article covering Microsoft's appeal against their recent Korean ruling. From the article: "The KFTC continued to investigate Microsoft's practices, despite the firm paying Daum $30m in November to end their dispute. The ruling of the KFTC echoes a similar 2004 judgement by the European Commission, which also found that Microsoft was abusing its market domination. Microsoft's rivals have since accused the firm of dragging its feet over unbundling its software in Europe, something Microsoft denies. "
Because the unbundling can't be done. Believe it or not, some people actually exclude some of their users, relying on the point that microsoft bundled products are on 90% of all systems world wide. same with wmp. This lets microsoft leverage its monopoly to gain market share in other fields like media. Simply anti-competetive.
Bundling in and of itself is not a bad thing. Having a monopoly in and of itself is legal. However, when you use your monopoly to gain leverage from bundled products in order to eliminate competition, that is a bad thing; and that is what Microsoft has been found guilty of doing.
And, most importantly, you can choose which pieces you want to install, and only have the ones you want. They're just on the distribution as a courtesy.
There is a difference between saying "here is your OS, and by the way, we've included scads of optional stuff you can install or not as you wish" and the Microsoft position of "here is your OS, we've also given your our media player, conveniently given you links to drive you to MSN and Passport, and given you no way to choose not to install them".
Those components come with the base OS and need to be separately uninstalled, if it can be uninstalled at all.
In the article, they say "Korean customers can easily download rival systems", well, why not put the competitors on equal footing and allow you do download the MS offerings if you want? They defend it as saying that people wouldn't know how, or it's too much hassle; but tout it as a perfectly good way to get the competitors products -- the difference is the competitors don't have the same luxury of shoving the apps down the user's throats when they install the OS.
Meaning they get to ensure that since everyone is going to have their OS, that the user should be presented with their (often crappy) apps first. Want to include 'em in your distribution and make them truly optional components go ahead. Want to make them installed and entrenched from the get go, not a good plan.
If users had to always find and install the apps they needed ( or at least choose them ), they would understand that the defaults provided are neither required, nor always 'best of breed'. When people get the MS stuff by default, they just assume they have to do it.
I totally agree you should be able to buy a Windows operating system without getting the implied Microsoft bundled applications, which keep causing secutiry issues for people who don't otherwise know better.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Is MS really that evil that they are breaking laws all over the world illegally using their defacto monopoly?
Yes. In many places (including the USA), a monopoly has extra rules it must follow to avoid abusing it's position.
Is MS really that evil that they are breaking laws all over the world illegally using their defacto monopoly?
They were convicted of breaking the law in America.
The court trial in which they were convicted of breaking the law in America never reached the remedy/punishment phase. A new political administration simply quietly terminated the antitrust case with some handwaving before it could complete, with no real-world steps taken to stop Microsoft's existing antitrust violations or prevent them in future.
So Microsoft broke the law in America, was convicted in a court of law, and no one ever did anything to make them stop breaking the law. So is it that surprising that they're breaking the law in the rest of the world as well?
I don't see why Microsoft apologists keep falling back on this talking point of claiming that these fines and such are all about the money. If Microsoft would obey the law, they wouldn't have to pay these fines and settlements and whatnot. The power to end these fines is in Microsoft's hands. Microsoft prefers to pay fines and settlements rather than obey the law. What terrible extortionists these horrible statist states are, making Microsoft pay money until they stop doing illegal things. Who do they think they are? They're almost acting like they think they're autonomous countries with the power to pass and enforce laws within their own borders.