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The Future of Innovation At Stake?
Neuropol writes "Next week, Microsoft will launch a challenge against the European Union's highest court. The European Commission will need to decide if they are to overturn the EU Court's 2004 Anti-Trust case ruling. Amid arguments over the usual suspects like Windows Media Player, one of the key points of the CNN article that caught my attention was this quote from a EU Commission lawyer stating that Microsoft aims 'to eliminate the openness of the Internet, to proprietize the Internet, the lawyer said, adding the groundwork will be laid in Microsoft's forthcoming new operating system, Vista.'"
Microsoft aims 'to eliminate the openness of the Internet, to proprietize the Internet, the lawyer said, adding the groundwork will be laid in Microsoft's forthcoming new operating system, Vista.
Well if that's the case then we have nothing to worry about.
Key article quote:
and:Seems Microsoft, et. al., especially Balmer are back to their old swagger when they talk so boldly about "conquering". Remember Ballmer, during the US DOJ investigation was the one who said "Janet Reno can go to Hell."
(And, before any business experts go off on "a company's business is to make money by conquering a market", remember, Microsoft is already convicted of abusing its monopoly position to introduce an imbalance in other markets. This is exactly the position Balmer takes so boldly in his interview.)
Amazing.
"In the upcoming years we'll conquer the Internet."
If MS does manage to 'conquer the internet', that would be like the Catholic church successfully conquering that irritating 'printing press' when it first showed up. After, it was being used to print unauthorized material that was distributed by a network of individuals via unauthorized channels, worst of all information critical of the holy mother church. The horror.
The more they tighten their grasp, the more of the internet will slip through their fingers....
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Windows is just like drugs, kids. All you have to do is say "no."
Like life, creative people will find a way. Some of the most brilliant and creative people I have ever met are Open Source people who, against the odds, have successfully taken on the giants and done so well. Red Hat, MySQL, Firefox...just to name a few. Talking about new and creative products, one only need look to SPLUNK.
The only people who see innovation as dead are those who don't thin it is possible to create. I'm not creative...I'll admit that. But I don't think everyone will throw in the towel, and I think some of the best is yet to come...from the Open Source community.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
This latest Microsoft argument reminds me of one of my favorite things in the whole world.
And that is watching someone get so mad that not only do they stop making sense, but they lose the ability to even form grammatically sensible sentences.
Seeing someone, or in this case, company just fucking lose it is a rare and wonderful sight to see.
Microsoft aims 'to eliminate the openness of the Internet, to proprietize the Internet, the lawyer said, adding the groundwork will be laid in Microsoft's forthcoming new operating system, Vista.'
That has been their goal since the inception of Microsoft Network. They saw how lucrative Prodigy and Compuserver and AOL were and wanted to get in on the action. The problem was that they were too late and those services were already on the decline in favor of more open Internet access. "You mean I can send a message to by friend who has Compuserve even though I am on AOL?"
Basically, they have been trying to bring the world back to the "bad old days".
until you have to get a job, that is.
:)
yeah there's some non-windows computer jobs out there, but they are very few and far inbetween.
good luck
So what? Worst come to worst, geeks have to cobble together something out of IP over Avian Carriers (Heh, if that thing comes in handy, I'll eat... a slice of bread) and Sneakernet. Best case is Mother Microsoft overexerting itself and dieing. If THAT happens, I'll eat a live pig. (Note, that I'm being sarcastic. that would get me into trouble with PETA and my doctor :P )
Last year, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer told Germany's Manager Magazin: "We needed the first years to conquer the PC and those following to be ahead in the server business. In the upcoming years we'll conquer the Internet."
Conquer the internet? Are you serious? Why do you keep making these stupid proclamations? Are you some kind of delusional freak, Steve?
***DUCKS FLYING CHAIR***
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Yes, bundling Media Player with Windows gives MS an unfair advantage givent their market penetration. However, Windows does not prevent you from downloading any media software you want and using it. This is the same intellectualization people use when they talk about offensive books or TV programs. Yes, these things are readily available, but if you don't like their content, you can always refuse to read those books or watch those programs. And so it goes with Windows: use Media Player or don't -- you have a choice.
In the end, it isn't about Media Player, per se, but Microsoft's domination of the software market. However, all the EU is doing is poking Gulliver with their Lilliputian sticks. Unless the EU plans on banning Microsoft entriely (and how could they!), they will never be able to put enough of a chokehold on Ballmer and Company to seriously dent their market share.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
What exactly is Vista going to do that other people *cough*.mac*cough* haven't already done?
If it's one thing you can't accuse microsoft of it's coming up with that many new and innovative net technologies.
I think this sounds a lot like the EU lawyers trying to play the "LOOK OUT IT'S THE BOOGEYMAN!" defense. If they have solid evidence on MS then present it and uphold the anti-trust rulings. Don't try to claim that by not taking a pre-emptive strike of some kind legally against Vista that you're going to doom the internet.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
the words "innovation" and "Microsoft" weren't used together to imply that MS was actually innovative. I applaud the EU for seeing that MS stifles innovation and isn't an innovator itself but a fast follower at best. Hopefully they can do what the US failed to do due to payoffs, erm I mean campaign contributions.
Its a great thing that they try to do something with them in Europe. But until they have their budies in the US government that is willing to back them up even at political level (sending letters to the EU), and they can pay many, many goverments to use ONLY their products and even push them in the school system changes will be really slow...
Perhaps you meant proprietarize, to bring proprietary to the internet?
You should quitize using izes... you are havizing no needize to verbalize a noun all the time...
signatures are for fools with hands
I have always wondered how they have survived.
Frankly, I can't imagine what else the EU lawyer means by "proprietiz[ing] the Internet."
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
Microsoft aims 'to eliminate the openness of the Internet, to proprietize the Internet, the lawyer said, adding the groundwork will be laid in Microsoft's forthcoming new operating system, Vista.'"
For those who don't know, he's probably referring specifically to WinFX APIs including XAML that allow you to download and run an app through IE. So it's a clever attempt at replacing/renaming ActiveX and making the web a Windows-dependent app delivery platform. It will be sad if they succeed, since the formerly platform-independent web will become little more than a content house for IE-delivered Vista apps.
"Sufferin' succotash."
This case is still going on? Hasn't it been like 12 years or some-such-retardly-long-time?
I can picture the headline now... "Microsoft defeats EU, forces them to use Outlook as punishment..."
... at which point I will turn back to playing DNF on the Phantom ...
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
Personally, I became concerned when I learned that Microsoft had rewritten the TCP/IP stack in Vista/Longhorn and added some of their own protocols.
s /cableguy/cg0905.mspx
For those who do not understand, the TCP/IP stack in almost all OSes is based on the original BSD stack. The protocols all have specific rules. Every part of the OSI Layers serves a specific function. It works and should not be monkeyed with.
It is scary when Microsoft decides they can do something better than the IEEE. Anyone remember WINS? How well did that work? It seems they learned their lesson. Now, instead of trying to compete with TCP/IP, they are going to rewrite their own needs into the protocols. This is very, very scary.
Here are the boring technical details.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/column
Be afraid, be very afraid.....
RTFG - Read The F#$%ing Google!
Why do you think so little code is being written in the remote villages of Africa. Surely the people there can innovate just as well as anyone else. (Painfully extracts tongue from cheek.)
More to the point, it is easy to point to societies where innovation just doesn't happen very much. The conditions are wrong.
If conditions change, the amount of innovation will change. Microsoft would like to make it impossible to create software unless they get a cut or all of the action. That's akin to the kind of friction (corruption) that keeps many third world economies poor. Basically, through taxes and corruption, many countries make it impossible to make a profit. Guess what, the economy tanks. Same thing with Microsoft. They can kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
They may continue to p0wn the client space, but I don't see IIS gaining on Apache any time soon.
Besides if organization/group makes the Internet proprietary it will be the SBC, Verizon, etc with this "tiered" Internet scheme. Sure MSN is an ISP too, but IIRC they don't "own the pipes," which makes it harder for them to leverage their position.
Linux : Hotrod
Microsoft seeks to proprietize the Internet? I can't believe it.
Oh wait, sure I can: http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/
If you care about standards, you should take the time to read those.
Why trust the EU to get this right and then not go after SuSE and RedHat for bundling only one or two players and integrating them into KDE and GNOME?
Because KDE and GNOME are not in a monopoly situation.
There appears to be some confusion over the definition of "forthcoming". It's unlikely you'd say for example "the forthcoming heat death of the universe."
The other violation under review next week involves the Commission's finding that Microsoft made certain its own work group server software ran better with desktop and laptop computers than that of rivals.
..."Microsoft aims 'to eliminate the openness of the Internet, to proprietize the Internet, the lawyer said, adding the groundwork will be laid in Microsoft's forthcoming new operating system, Vista.'"...
Yeah, good luck on that one. Considering most DNS/web servers run *nix/Cisco and Apache (respectively) I do not see how a desktop OS could 'proprietize' the Internet...there are too many server admins out there that are *nix junkies. If M$ somehow does stop networks from talking to each other, it will defy the essential definition of the Internet. Then the world will go back to the 1970's before Arpanet joined everyone together.
Victory shall be mine!
How is it a monopoly if they bundle *two* players into a product? I would hardly call open-source software a "monopoly".
The problem with this argument is that your trying to artifically say what a product should be. If a company chooses to expend effort (cost/time/etc) then that's their choice.
...
I mean if you take the 'anti' bundling argument to the logical nth degree you could hear someone say:
1) No OS should come with threads - processes are enough, and bundling in 'threads' is an attempt to stop good hard working folks from selling their thread implementation.
2) TCP/IP stack? What! With the OS? That's anti competitive! Your stopping all those other good hard-working folks from selling their own protocol stack! Your putting them out of business! You big nasty evil corporation!
I don't want governments deciding what someone can put in a product. That's a slippery pathway to doom.
If you applied the bundling argument to car manfuacturers: What! Your including a stereo with the car? That's anti-competitive and your putting all those good hard working folks who make and install
Ultimately the market will decide - that's a market economy. If a company invests too much effort putting what I as a consumer consider useless/unimportant features into a product and thus have to charge more for it to cover the costs associated I can go use/buy the product which is just the lean metal.
Now if a company is purposely making other software not work with theirs, and lying about why then that's a bit rough for the small company, but ultimately they may pay the price of not selling more units of their product which used to work...
It's a tough tradeoff.
This is idiotic... let's say the EU gets their way and MS has to rip out media player, IE, etc. Now what are people going to do? Buy something else?? If they don't put IE in the OS, people will either download IE or Firefox. If they take away media player, people will download media player, quicktime, and MAYBE the free version of real audio. Now what the hell has been accomplished?? I realize everyone loves to hate MS, and I have my share of issues with them, but honestly, hasn't packaging all the stuff WITH windows made running a PC cheaper? I remember when Netscape was like $40. IE is the reason we don't have to pay that anymore, so go ahead and "put your hate on", but I'm all for getting free stuff.
In the immortal words of Socrates, "I drank what?"
It's not a monopoly because the players aren't their player.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
more importantly, to the best of my knowledge, neither xine or mplayer are affiliated with suse or red hat. xine and mplayer are both open source companies, and they are also the best available products. they also support a number of different file types while not introducing new, proprietary file types. if either xine or mplayer did design a new file type, it would be trivial for other players to support this. they do not have any 'inside information' as to how gnu/linux works.
also there is, to the best of my knowledge, not a single company which sells a proprietary media player for the gnu/linux operating system (though maybe i'm wrong here). consequently, nobody is loosing sales because of the bundling.
howie
ISPs are demanding Microsoft to pay extra fee to use internet as a delivery method of their service.. ..
Troll me if you want, but whenever I see headlines like this, I can't help but think how utterly ridiculous it is. Innovation will never stop, no amount of commerical or govermental control will stifle the human imagination. Good luck to any entity that tries.
Half the time I'm right, the other half you're wrong.
The future of innovation has been at stake since the day Microsoft became a public company.
Well if the information presented at Mix 06 is any indication, MS is actually in the process of opening up even more of their new technologies, even if it is a bit self serving.
5 9106.aspx
The old days when they actually made non-windows counterparts to their technologies or allowed them to be easily used on non-MS technologies seem to be returning. Maybe someone is smacking Ballmer's business minded MS ONLY mentally back to the curb at MS. We can only hope, as they have a lot of bright people and if they start playing with the rest of us, things will get better for the entire industry.
To reference one of the items of Mix 06 and specifically refute the comments by the EU, here is a link to some of the new technology specifically on the web that will not be Microsoft locked, even though it is MS developed.
http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/archive/2006/03/23/5
The EU is grasping at straws, truly. It is more a battle of USA technologies vs EU countries' technologies, and MS is seen as USA technology. I can understand the EU wanting to give some of their technologies a chance in their own markets, but the strange thing is the open source distributions and 'alternatives' to Windows being used are predominately USA products. Whoops...
There is NO possible way MS can control the internet. PERIOD. Everyone here at SlashDot is proof of it. If there is anything we should fear on the internet is censorhip and govt sponsored censorship.
Look at Yahoo, and EBay in China, they have not only went along with the censoring of words like 'human rights' but Yahoo also is very willing to turn over people that break the law in China, of which a person was recently disclosed to the Chinese Govt., and arrested for trying to publish documents on democracy.
Shame on Yahoo and EBay, especailly Yahoo, they not only circumvented personal privacy, but cost someone in China their life. And to me, that is a bit more scary than another round of rumors about Microsoft trying to control the Internet, which we know is NOT possible.
Even with the dominance IE saw over the past 8 years, it is still quite rare to find a site that only works in IE, and even Windows Update is moving from IE requirements.
Never underestimate the ability/need of *nix geeks to replace some perfectly-functional *nix setup with a barely-working Microsoft Windows Certified Partner Solution, when thier PHB tells them too and they dont want to get fired ...
....
Ok, I have to go hide between the server racks and cry now.
So you admit that rather than being an objective thinking person, you're a knee-jerk doofus. And you only have the stones to admit it as an anonymously. I'll bet you're a republican.
Anyone....anyone? Well it's apple so I guess when they do it it's just cute...
Could chocolate be quiet and let me finish?
ActiveX
Propriatory extension on the internet (web) that requires the propriatory OS and browser to work.
...all the EU is doing is poking Gulliver with their Lilliputian sticks.
If, as you say, Microsoft is Gulliver to the EU's Lilliput, then something is seriously fucked up the world. Since when do the interests and influence of a single corporation outweigh the interests and influence of a Nation State - not even a Nation, a body of Nations? But that's the crack that MS is selling, and they're smoking it themselves. From Wired:
A close friend of Gates' recalls a dinner with him and his then-fiancée (now wife) Melinda French back in 1993. "We were talking about Clinton, who'd just been elected, and Bill was saying blah, blah, blah about whatever the issue was," this friend remembers. "Then Bill stopped and said, 'Of course, I have as much power as the president has.' And Melinda's eyes got wide, and she kicked him under the table, so then he tried to play it off as a joke.
Microsoft is damn lucky that the US elected a friendly administration to close their antitrust case. They could have had their balls chopped off. And should have. Their first judge was so disgusted he couldn't keep his mouth shut; turning the suit over to a wimp.
Now it's the EU's turn. Tell me why, exactly, the EU should bend over for Microsoft, instead of the other way around? Tell me how the wealth of Microsoft stands up the combined wealth of the EU collective. The EU should bitch slap Microsoft for being the self-interested anti-competitive egomaniacal sneaky underhanded boundlessly greedy curs that they are.
Microsoft - "Your passion, our permission"
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Not only that - but KDE and Gnome and Linux aren't owned by any one. Don't like how something's implemented? Switch distribution or write your own. Can't really see that happening with Vista.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Special limited exclusive commercial rights for ideas has been around a few centuries.
By now, we ought to have a good idea of how well it works and under what circumstances it works best.
Compared to the 18th century when patent terms and copyright lifetimes were dreamt up, the pace of innovation today with so many innovators who are able to communicate so quickly, it seems to me that the duration of special patent and copyright protection ought to be much shorter. After a few years, "IP" should drop into the public domain.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Microsoft bundles its media player with Windows and 'gives it away`. In the process locking out other companies out of the market who have to charge as they don't have a desktop monopoly. How does this translate into the future of innovation at stake? Quoting from the article ..
"Microsoft and its critics agree that the future of innovation is at stake"
Only in the marketing department at Redmond. Zonk, do you seriously that "innovation" will suffer if Microsoft is forced to remove its media player.
Having microsoft's patented, DRM encumbered, proprietry media formats preinstalled (or dl'd on demand) by default on the majority of home PC's is unfair. It's creates an artificial imbalance in the market, more content will be produced for MS formats by default. Antitrust law says that Microsoft are not allowed to leverage their monopoly position in order to expand into a new market. It's important to me (and you - even if you don't realize it) that content is availiable in formats that Microsoft does not control.
All Microsoft have to do is abide by the rule of law, thousands of normal companies manage it every day; basically Microsoft need to stop whining.
The failure of the Catholic Church to suppress printing is hardly the result of some kind of law of nature. The Islamic world, in contrast, *did* reject the press until the 19th century. Similarly, the Chinese, who invented moveable type centuries before Gutenberg (and the Koreans who developed metal type) followed a very different path.
The press in Europe arrived in a culture already in flux. There was great conflict in the Church, the Renaissance had begun, and feudalism was giving way to the market. Initially, the Church seized on the press as an instrument to strengthen its power; after that, the relationship was always complex.
The point is, the triumph of the press was not a natural or inevitable outcome. Things could have turned out very differently, as they did elsewhere. Who is to say we are more like 15th century Europe - a backward civilization in flux, Islam - a sophisticated culture beginning its decline, or China - powerful and advanced but turning inward? The Internet could easily be closed just like radio before it.
In the case of the Internet, I believe we are making our choice now. The technology will not make it for us.
Microsoft has a long history of "proprietarizing" things...
Remember HTML (iframes, activeX anyone?), CSS (buggy, and IE-only properties), the attempt to bloat the Java VM, etc...
Now, when MS announces "improvements" to standart technologies, I feel more than a bit concerned. And I'll be very suspicious about their "next-gen tcp stack", as with their "RSS extensions", and pretty much everything that worked well before MS put their fingers in it.
Actually, Microsoft is free to rewrite their TCP/IP stack as many times as they want. It's not an attempt to undermine standards, or take over the Internet. It's an attempt to optimize performance on the local machine, and expose more functionality to developers. What's wrong with that? It will probably help people write faster BitTorrent clients. You should be happy about it!
The network protocol will still conform to all established IEEE standards, just like the original BSD stack did. Otherwise, they couldn't call it a "TCP/IP stack".
I disagree that a monopoly is a market failure. The ultimate goal of a business is to maximize market share, with the peak being 100% or full monopoly. In general, a business increases their market share by one of two methods: competing on price or through barriers to entry. Barriers to entry include quality of product and service, bunding, technology, economies of scope (cross selling) and economies of scale. Notice how that I am excluding law on purpose. Governments can distort the market and create artifical and unbreakable barriers to entry.
If a business can beat other business in price and quality and/or they can put up high enough market based barriers to entry (like in order to compete you need $500 billion worth of technology and equipment or through bundling), then a natural monopoly has been created. Therefore, a natural monopoly is not a marker failure, rather it is just one company beating everyone else in the market.
In addition, certian types of products and services lend themselves to few providers. The wired telecom services industry is a good example becasue of the high cost of building and maintaining the fixed asssets involved (wires, poles, ect). For example, even after the government breakup of Ma Bell, M&A in telecom is on the rise again. Why? Because the business environment lends itself to few providers.
Microsoft built and maintained its monopoly in OS through marketing and ease of use. However, a natural monopoly is hard to create and even harder to maintain. Evidence is found in Microsoft itself, as it is being attacked from all sides (net search by Google and Yahoo, OS by linux, browser by firefox, enterprise by a host of vendors, security exploits by hackers and criminals alike).
If Microsoft cannot restablish its barriers to entry, most seriously the security quality of its OS, its natural monopoly will fold on the desktop as it has elsewhere (for the same and other reasons).
Even so, the os market will never be a commodity market (100 plus OS PRODUCT vendors, Linux service vendors maybe since the product is free, but Linux is still a single product). I would be suprised if there are more than five operating systems products that are ever used. Like telecom, I feel like the business characteristics of the OS market lend itself to only a few product providers: the Open Source community, Microsoft, and perhaps one or two others. So at best, I think you will get an oligoploy in the OS market, just like oil, telecom, and others.
What if none of these other viewers will allow you to view the content produced/consumed by WMP? How much of a choice do you have then? I don't think that anyone cares if MS adds a piece of software, but what they always do is add a piece of software that uses a secret, propritary, copyrighted, and/or DRM'ed data format to ensure that no one else can compete by simply building a better media player.
NFS/SMB: If nobody can connect to your server who will use your filer?
MSIE: If you can't view the "best viewed with MSIE" web pages who will use the browser?
MS Office: If you can't read the file who will use your word processor?
WMV: If you can't view DRM'ed data who will use your player?
This is how MS "competes". They block everyone else by first leveraging their OS monopoly to gain market share for the new product, then they ensure that the new product has a secret format so that competitors spend all of their time reverse engineering the protocol. Or better yet the data is cryptoed and a law gets passed that makes it illegal to even try.
This strategy has worked well for MS, their products don't need to be innovative, they just have to be OK. As long as they don't completely suck, enough people will use them that they can kill off competition with their MS only "enhancements" (read cryptoed data format, unpublised behavior). Look at MSIE, upon achieving market dominance, they completely stopped development. No popup blockers, no tabbed browsing, no gestures, bad CSS support, etc., etc. Did everyone start using Firefox? Nope, MSIE still worked ok and coupled with the occasional site that proclaims "You are using an unsupported browser, please go away", people are unlikely to move to a different browser.
Microsoft Innovation? That is about the biggest oxymoron I have heard! Microsoft has already made inroads into making the internet a Windows only affair. There are web pages out there that will only work with Internet Explorer running on Windows. There are even more pages that provide fewer features if you are using anything other than the IE/Windows combination. Most of these pages would work with other browsers and platforms except for the fact they were created with Microsoft Content creation tools.
I think the biggest offender was a page on Microsofts own site. It was a page for users of other browsers and platforms to lodge a complaint with the U.S. Anti-Trust enforcement. For quite a long time the page was only viewable using Internet Explorer on Windows, which if you had those you would be less likely to complain. They did eventually fix the page but for a long time it was impossible to use for the people it was created for. Was this just an oversite on Microsofts part or part of their plan. I would normally say an oversite but with the zeal both Gates and that sweat monger Balmer have shown for owning the internet I have to wonder.
This is far from news. Quite some time ago (1997, I believe) Nathan Myhrvold - at that time Microsoft's "strategist" - claimed that Microsoft felt it wanted (was owed in some sense) a fee for every internet transaction that involved any Microsoft tools. Ideally then, from Microsoft's viewpoint, every transaction would involve Microsoft tools and they could make a profit on every internet transaction. This may not be their official public stance these days, but then again...
Patently false, you're making a classic "soft-libertarian" error.
What's MS base its business on? Software? Windows? Office? WMV? DOC? APIs?
Let me spell that correctly for you: "Intellectual Property".
What is Copyright? What is Patent Protection?
A (limited) grant of monopoly power over a good by the government. Nothing more, nothing less. Copyright (and patent protections) are not some inalienable right. They are grants of monopoly power by the government. Period.
Microsoft is indeed a monopolist. But instead of having a monopoly on say, your slashdot comment (which you indeed do), they have monopoly power over the Windows OS, and all related IP, giving them a dominant position in the field of computing.
Don't underestimate the power of intellectual property. In this day an age, I do not understand why copyright/patent protections last more than a few years. Originally, the concept was developed to "promote the arts and sciences" on a limited basis. Indeed, monopoly is government inteference in the market; the idea being to subsidize the production of new ideas on a time-limited basis.
Now, I'm not arguing the elimination of that monopoly, but I do believe that since ideas/technologies can be disseminated and capitalized at a much faster rate than, say, in the 19th century, copyright/patent shouldn't last that long. Maybe 3-5 years.
Imagine Microsoft's position now if copyright only lasted 3 years. XP would be out of copyright (not SP2, though). Office 2001 would be out of copyright. FAT, SMB, and a variety of other MS protocols would no longer be patented protected. Think of the implications.
Microsoft is a monopolist. They hold monopolies on a variety of markets. The basis of these monopolies, however, is not their market dominance and generally back-stabbing business strategies (they're an intermediate step). The base of their monopoly is intellectual property protection, a government GRANT of monopoly, for 75 years past the death of the creator.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Like the DNS and LDAP servers at my job.
They worked flawlessly for _years_. Why do we need M$ products for things which worked well?
Well, because our PHB told us so.
And what does he understand about this?
Maybe nothing, maybe he understands enough.
But that does not make a difference, because the, erm, "gentleman" believes in having a sole provider.
Can you believe it?
And, no, he will not be fired for this. Guess why...
>> ... but I'm all for getting free stuff.
No, you are not.
You are all for getting chained to a heavy iron ball for a plate of free lunch.
Yes, liberty costs. Yes, freedom costs. But if we all share the burden, costs are divided among many and freedom-free software becomes virtually inexpensive.
I disagree that a monopoly is a market failure. The ultimate goal of a business is to maximize market share, with the peak being 100% or full monopoly.
What is good for a company does not have to be good for the market. So a monopoly is a market failure, even if it is the highest level of success for the company that has the monopoly. A healthy market is one with lots of competition, which brings rapid innovation and falling costs. A monopoly is quite the opposite, since the monopolist does not have to innovate, and can raise prices almost at will.
"However, Windows does not prevent you from downloading any media software you want and using it."
That's not the point. The point is that most people won't bother and because Microsoft is bundling it into its monopoly product it unfairly tilts the playing field. Abusing a monopoly position is illegal and something Microsoft has already been convicted of multiple times.
"This is the same intellectualization people use when they talk about offensive books or TV programs"
Out of who's ass did you pull that?
"In the end, it isn't about Media Player, per se, but Microsoft's domination of the software market."
No, in the end it's about Microsoft abusing its monopoly position to extend its power into other areas.
"However, all the EU is doing is poking Gulliver with their Lilliputian sticks. Unless the EU plans on banning Microsoft entriely (and how could they!), they will never be able to put enough of a chokehold on Ballmer and Company to seriously dent their market share."
I think you under estimate what fines can do. And if this level of punishment doesn't impress Microsoft the EU can raise them to a level that does.
Abusing a monopoly position is illegal.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
First they have a go at M$ for daring to bundle Windows Media Player onto their OS, argueing that by bundling the software microsoft were stopping competition taking advantage. That was crap if I ever saw it, it was the EU sueing microsoft so EU companies could gain a better foothold in the media player market, (please understand I'm not suggesting thats a bad thing its just something should increase its share cause its better not because the government says so.) Now I was a big fan of Itunes but to be honest most other media players generally don't come upto scratch, the Divx player (until recently) wasn't that great, I have hated the 'Real One' player and everything else doesn't seem to scratch in versaility when compared to WMP (for me and what I use it for.) Now the same could be said of Internet Explorer, in fact I would say installing IE as part of the OS is anouther great example of M$ stopping competition, do people use IE or do they use the better programs that exist, well the growing firefox following suggests people go with what they percieve to be best. Now the EU are complaining that the documentation M$ gave isn't good enough, and that they are trying to control the internet and further more are only looking out for themselves? Well who would have thought it a company trying to look out for its own interests? Anyone stating that you can control the internet doesn't have a clue how its run do they? Yes you can have the monopoly on servers, you could even force your own backwards standards onto people but control it? Honestly there are time I wish the EU would disappear into a hole along with the CAP.
Most people dont have the knowledge or inclination to look for these applications.
How come they have the "knowledge and inclination" to look for TV sets, refrigerators, cell phones or automobiles, managing to choose between several alternatives based on features, design, price, etc? When it comes to computer software, suddenly it is assumed that no one has the knowledge to choose from more than one alternative, a bit like the election in the former communist bloc. There you could choose between the communist party and the communist party.
With a lot of applications bundled with the operating system, most people are not even made aware of that other (possibly superior) alternatives exist. Since they don't know that alternatives to the bundled applications exist, they cannot make informed decisions about what to use.
xine and mplayer are both open source companies
I seriously doubt that MPlayer is a company. Usually, a company provides some product or service in exchange for money. You don't see very many companies with a "Donate" button on their websites. And I could find no information about how I could buy MPlayer or MPlayer support on the MPlayer website. And Xine does not seem to be a company either, as no such information could be found on its website. It has a sponsors link which, like the "Donate" button, seldom appear on corporate websites.
This is well-known and old talk but
strangely rarely mentioned --
The problem is the OEM contracts that
(at best) discourage and (at worst)
prohibit major pc makers for shipping
the OS the customers wants (be it Win,
Linux or others, or simple naked pcs).
As along as these contracts are not deemed
anti-competitive, people will consider win
as part of their pc and will have little
incentive to choose.
I disagree that a monopoly is a market failure.
;) Look it up.
... as long as there are standards in place to ensure interoperability you can have have lots competitors without any major issues.
Then you'd be wrong
The ultimate goal of a business is to maximize market share, with the peak being 100% or full monopoly.
True, but a properly functioning market would make that pretty much impossible. That is why a functioning market called: "self-regulating".
In addition, certain types of products and services lend themselves to few providers.
Agreed. Natural Monopoloies are a separate category from other monopolies, principally because natural monopolies *are* the most efficient way of providing those products/services.
However, natural monopolies must be regulated by law because the market can't regulate even natural monopolies by itself.
However, a natural monopoly is hard to create and even harder to maintain.
Quite the opposite, a NATURAL monopoly is easy to create, and maintain because its the most efficient way to deliver the product, if a product is a good candidate for a natural monopoly the market will force it to become one.
The OS market only has any tendancies towards being a monopoly due to OTHER artificial legal considerations -- particularly intellectual property, copyright, and patents.
Take those away and every tom, dick, and harry could start make some changes to windows, add firefox or itunes, and start hawking it as an alternative to Microsoft.
There is NOTHING natural about Microsofts monopoly. It was created thanks to laws creating *artificial* barriers to entry, and it must be regulated by further laws.
The market can't fix this one on its own.
Even the idea that the OS market inherently favours only a few players is flawed. The only reason this is remotely true is because people want interoperability. And the EASIEST way to acheive interoperability is to have as few players as possible -- if there is only one kind of car its easy to ensure a product works with all cars. However, there are other ways to ensure interoperability and that is having OPEN STANDARDS. There are dozens of mail servers and mail clients after all
Man, a guy throws ONE chair according an internet rumor, and he never lives it down.
Can't we get back to making fun of him for jumping up and down screaming "Developers!" like a drunken football fan?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Tough. "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." MS and its fans whine like
They really killed Netscape to make a point, to show off how powerful they were/are. Point made. Any well they don't own they wish to poison: Java. Had justice been served properly after the last US anti-trust trial MS would have gotten the death sentence: breakup. They earned it. Listenting to MS and its slaves whimpering about how hard they have it--while sitting on and accumulating mountains of unencumbered cash--makes me want to puke.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
If MS made cars, they would probably cost 3-10 times what a Ford does, and would come with a EULA, instead of a warranty, because it would be as reliable as a Yugo.
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
I think the whole thing is ridiculous. People don't want to download their own media players and browsers.... especially when they have to pay for them. Windows XP doesn't come with DVD decoders by default you have to go off and buy a codec and install it. Just last night I wanted to watch a DVD in bed with the gf, so I spent 10 mins searching for a free codec for windows media player to enable me to play dvd's on my computer, I finally gave up and downloaded VLC, so now I have two media players installed. I don't want two media players, I just want one that plays everything under the sun, no hassles. This won't be the case with Windows Vista... and hurrah for that, I DONT WANT the freedom to have to spend more money on functionality that should be stock standard. All it will do is to allow an OS competing against Microsoft (that isn't constrained by litigation) to bundle all the features PEOPLE WANT, and take the place of Windows. So instead of Microsoft, we'll have some other company in the exact same position as Microsoft. So whats the point of this other than to punish Microsoft and anyone out there who actually prefers Windows to Linux or OS-X ?
A couple of points in response.
1) Microsoft is not a narual monopoly, it is aided by government patents and copyrights, a market distortion. I agree with other slashdot posters that in the 21st century, pattents and copyrights should be shortened to restore their purpose: to promote innovation by allowing time for return on ivestment in exchange for releasing into the public domain.
2)A natural monopoly is not a market failure. Rather, as you say, the market makes it so. My post is about the fact that every business strives to make itself into a natural monopoly by having better technology, quality of service, lower production costs, ect so it gets all of the market share. In otherwords, every company strives to eliminate the competition. Our challenge is to make sure that they do so with business tools i.e. not killing people, stealing things, and other such actions. This is government primary law enforecment responsibility
3) A natural monopoly is indeed hard to maintain because in the long run, everything is vairable including the barriers that make a natural monopoly. As technology improves, products and servies that were too costly to be delivered by more than one player effectively suddenly become oligopolies or commidities and the natural monoploy is gone.
4)in the absense of open standards, the product characteristic of interoperability lends the OS market to a few products and the potential for a wealth of service providers. Open standards are effectively a market disruption in the fact that they make interoperability a non issue. However, open standards only make business sense in one of two cases:
a) to stabalize an allready commodity (such as application servers) market where interoperability is desired by the customer
b)when a natural monopoly already exists for other reasons than interoperability. In this case, the open standard can actually contribute to a natural monopoly or oligopoly becuase it makes it eaiser for customers to conform to your standards, thus increasing and maintaining your market share.
Let me start off by saying that in my post I explicitly said that I was excluding legal from the analysis of "natural monopoly." The point of my post was to challenge the notion that just because a market has relatively few players or even one player it allways the result of fowl play, cheating, or other things.
Microft is not a good example becuase their monopoly comes about, as you say, by IP rights, which is a govenrment distortion. However, it is not impossible for such a situation to occur naturally for a given span of time.
So the whole point is that a natural monopoly is possible and it is the natural goal of every business. A competitive market without government distortion makes very hard to do and even harder to sustain as in the long run, since all factors are variable. This is why democracies work well with free markets, because they market government distortion variable as well.
As for patents, I agree with you that certian products and services lend themselves to shorter patent and copyright lifespans and the 19th model is no longer adequate. What is needed is a tiered patent and copyright system where the type of product or service, the profit potential, and the upfront cost incurred in its creation are all factors in the length of the patent or copyright being issued.
Good comments overall though. I enjoyed the discussion!
I think its important to distinguish between a "natural monopoly" and a "monopoly". There is nothing natural about Microsofts monopoly. Microsoft is not creating or maintaining a natural monopoly. It is just creating and maintaining a regular monopoly.
In response to point 3, you are correct, the conditions that are conducive to a natural monopoly can disappear as the result of technology. The natural monopoly created as a result of all the copper telephone wires started to unravel as cellular and voip over cable arrived, and may disappear entirely if we achieve p2p wireless mesh networks... so I think we agree here. Except that microsofts monopoly was never natural in the first place.
Finally open standards are not really a market disruption in the sense that that they are only preventable in the first place if there are IP laws in place. Thus the REAL market disruption is IP law. Without those companies cannot enforce "vender lock-in" via technology because there is nothing stopping competitors from simply reverse engineering, or outright copying what they need to make it interoperate.
The only reason your car works with aftermarket exhaust systems is because there is nothing the manufacturer can do to stop ANYONE from taking it apart, seeing the interface, and forming an alternative that will connect in the appropriate places. Exhaust systems aren't "open standards", but the interfaces can't be protected either.
We've already seen a few examples of manufacturers that try to incoporate unneeded "software" into such systems to "sign and authorize" devices to try and lock alternatives out via the DMCA, EULAs, patents, copyright etc. Using IP to lock-out interoperability is only going to get worse as time goes on.
EU does not like liberties and free market ideals lightly and there are many philosopical minded people in its governing bodies. Case is a foregone conclusion - they will whack MS down. That will not be the end of it either.
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