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.'"

Comments

where's the urgency?

[xIcemanx]

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.

Old dog, old tricks.

[yagu]

Key article quote:

"What Microsoft is talking about is freedom for them to innovate, not others," said lawyer Thomas Vinje, representing a group of competitors that will speak at the hearing."

and:

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."

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.

It's been their goal all along

[El Cubano]

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".

Proprietize?

[boog3r]

Proprietize? How is Microsoft going to bring propriety to the internet?

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...

WinFX

[Overly Critical Guy]

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.

Re:Old argument

[Billosaur]

Am I the only person who remembers accusations that Microsoft released a patch to Windows that caused Real Player to malfunction?

Real Player has always been able to malfunction well enough without Microsoft's help -- they just enhanced the process.