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Software Makers Lobby EU Against Microsoft

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sandbox-diplomacy dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Adobe and Symantec are lobbying EU regulators for action against Vista, the Wall Street Journal reports. Adobe is calling for Microsoft to be barred from building into the OS free software that competes with Acrobat. From the article: 'Adobe and Symantec have told EU regulators that Vista has put them squarely in Microsoft's cross hairs. Symantec is concerned that Vista will direct consumers toward a Microsoft-designed security console, or box that shows what level various security functions, such as an Internet firewall, are set on. The rival company wants to be able automatically to override the Microsoft template with its own design and features, as it has been allowed to do in the past.'"

18 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft is doing the right thing by lukas84 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Actually, i'm with microsoft on this one.

    Symantecs OS invading suite of crappy tools just sucks.
    Integrating PDF generation into applications and office suites ist also a MUST.

    Microsoft is doing the right thing here. And i won't whine for symantec, they just made all the veritas products more sucky.

    1. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Whine for them or not, Microsoft has a long history of putting in poor-man's versions of commercial tools to undercut competitors in ways that are illegal for such a monopoly to do. Symantec and Adobe just got handed the same deal that Netscape did, and the authors of the commercial TCP stacks for Windows 3.x.produ

      Andn as far as PDF conversion goes, it's been free as part of PDFcreator for ages. Adobe's commercial versions are in fact more fragile, bulkier, produce less reliable PDF, and have a terrible tendency to stuff your system with "features" that you never asked for. The free PDFcreator, riding on top of Ghostscript's history of robustness and reliability rather than pursuing "business plans" that break features, has been outperforming it in automatic print services for years.

    2. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by muffen · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Actually, i'm with microsoft on this one. Symantecs OS invading suite of crappy tools just sucks. Integrating PDF generation into applications and office suites ist also a MUST.


      Symantec wasnt only complaining about their own software, but _all_ security products. They are saying (true or not is a different story) that no other security software except microsoft's own will run well on vista.

      Integrating PDF into apps is a must? Seriously? It took me less than 10 secs on google to find three different free solutions that would add a printer able to create PDF's... but you're with Microsoft on this one... lets lock everyone down to one format that only runs on windows, instead of using PDF which is available on lots of OS'es.

      MS rarely makes the best apps but lots of people use them because they are there, with Windows. I dont like it. I dont like IE and I really really dont like MSN for example. Lets hope it doesnt happen again, I am definately _not_ with Microsoft on this one.
    3. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by Scarblac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So Symantec's tools suck. Fine. But if Microsoft is allowed to integrate an equally sucky version into its OS, it'll win by default, and we'll be stuck with suckiness forever.

      Let Microsoft bring out their own software, very welcome! But as a seperate product, sold in a box. If there's special hooks for it in Windows, they should be openly documented.

      Then, both Symantec and Microsoft will have an actual reason to make a _good_ product!

      --
      I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
    4. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by smittyoneeach · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Will someone in England please weigh in on whether it is ironic that MS is in trouble in the EU over free use of PDF, whereas MS engaged in pretty much the opposite behavior in MA over ODF?

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    5. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by Daishiman · · Score: 2, Insightful
      You seem to be "for Microsoft" simply because the software lobbyists in question make crappy software, in your opinion.

      Well, let me say I'm not the greatest fan of Symantec or Adobe, but the truth of the matter is that, as the illegal monopoly that it is, Microsoft should not be redistributing the kinds of software it wants to distribute with Vista. Of course Adobe's not exactly in need of charity here, but thousands of ISVs just might not considering developing on a platform which, while proprietary and limiting, is the de facto option for 90% of the users.

      The most important matter in this is that Microsoft will never make any efforts towards making open standards out of whatever files, protocols and procedures their software will make. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish indeed. And that hurts the entire software ecosystem.

      Lastly, this will only help to kill whatever motivations there were for Microsoft to develop adquate interfaces for integrating with other products. Once you have your "Microsoft API of shiny stuff" you can forget about using it outside the context of .NET or whatever technology du jour MS wants to impose.

      There is absolutely no reason, for example, to clamp down Vista's security module. Or have you not heard the Unix world's Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM), Java's SecurityModule class, or hundreds of other modular examples that suffer none of Windows's vulnerabilities?

    6. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by cosminn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Symantec wasnt only complaining about their own software, but _all_ security products. They are saying (true or not is a different story) that no other security software except microsoft's own will run well on vista.

      So far that is crap, I've been able to run other security software on the Beta/RC builds of Vista. And if other security products won't work, it will be because of _them_ using undocumented API calls, which MS is under no obligation to support.

      Not to mention, what Symantec is really upset about here is that their entire business model is under threat.

      Integrating PDF into apps is a must? Seriously? It took me less than 10 secs on google to find three different free solutions that would add a printer able to create PDF's

      1. My parents wouldn't have been able to do that, at least not in 10 secs.
      2. ALL other competitors are allowed to have FREE Save-As-PDF functionality (OO, OSX, Writely). However Adobe doesn't want MS to offer PDF support for free. Because of that now it'll take a stupid patch to enable PDF support, as well as XPS (which MS took out also). This is total crap from Adobe.

      ets lock everyone down to one format that only runs on windows, instead of using PDF which is available on lots of OS'es.

      From 2., MS took out XPS support from O12 and will be included in the same patch that enables PDF functionality. They were under no obligation to remove it, they did is as a sign of good faith. They would've probably been sued later because they're promoting _their_ format, but I think they could've fought that battle, since Adobe wants to charge people money for functionality already avaiable for free.

      MS rarely makes the best apps but lots of people use them because they are there, with Windows. I dont like it. I dont like IE and I really really dont like MSN for example.

      I'm with you on this one. Until IE7, I've used only Firefox/Opera on Windows boxes, I don't use MSN for anything, and in all honesty I don't really use Windows. It's my choice, and there are options. Do you honestely think that even if you could remove IE, for example, from Windows, OEM manufacturers would remove it?? If you wouldn't have IE shipped with Windows, how would you get Firefox easily?

      Look at Apple - can you remove Safari? Heck no. I don't like it, so i use firefox/camino.

      I am definately _not_ with Microsoft on this one.

      That's because of a grudge on MS, not because of logical arguments. As much as I bitch about MS, I hate Symantec and Adobe more for the shit they've done with their products, and MS is in a lose-lose situation.

    7. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by jonbryce · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you tried to sell an operating system today that required a third party TCP/IP stack at extra cost, nobody would buy it. The hassle of installing all sorts of extra bits to make your computer work is very much a thing of the past.

      People need to remember that competition law exists to protect competition, not to protect competitors. Thanks to Microsoft's desire to keep one step ahead of the competition in those areas which matter to their customers, customers have benefited from easier to use software, both from Microsoft, and from alternative os suppliers.

    8. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by tb3 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Thanks to Microsoft's desire to keep one step ahead of the competition in those areas which matter to their customers, customers have benefited from easier to use software


      Why you haven't been modded +1 'funny' for the comment is beyond me.
      --

      www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance

    9. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seconded. If you make a standard open (PDF) you should expect people to integrate it with other apps. Adobe have shot themselves in the foot with this.

      If you publish a free recipe for cheese, you should expect the telephone company to start illegally bundling it with your phone service too, huh?

      This isn't about open standards, this is about illegal, anti-competitive bundling to drive competitors out of a market, regardless of whether or not they have a better product. Which is better PDF or XPS? Which one will you be forced to pay for creation tools with every time you buy a machine bundled with Windows? This is a clear cut case of MS breaking the law.

    10. Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And OS X. Oh, and OpenOffice.org.

      In this analogy Apple is the supermarket and the Open Office team is the convenience store. They can bundle anything they want because they aren't a monopoly providing you a monopoly service. If Apple bundles PDF and you don't want it, buy a Dell or a Lenovo. If the Open Office team bundles PDF, buy Wordperfect or download Koffice. If MS bundles it, you're screwed, because most software only runs on Windows and it is not practical (economically) for most people to switch according to the ruling of the courts in the US and EU.

      If I publish a recipe for cheese I expect people to do what they like with it unless my licence says otherwise. Find me the clause in the PDF spec licence which says it can't be integrated with an OS.

      Show me the clause in the PDF license that says I can't save it to a CD-ROM and then stab people in the head with it over and over and over again until they are dead. It doesn't need to be in the PDF license it is encoded into criminal law in the Sherman Antitrust Act that you cannot tie a monopoly product and a product from another monopoly and there is 100 years of precedent that says bundling is a form of tying.

  2. So M$ bad Apple good, eh? by MuNansen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The things Apple continually receives praise for and advertises about, included applications and higher security, Microsoft gets sued over. Yeah, that's fair.

    1. Re:So M$ bad Apple good, eh? by nine-times · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not an incoherent position. I would claim very strongly that OEMs should be free to bundle whatever software they like. If Dell wants to offer a security suite and PDF generation program bundle, pre-installed on delivery, I don't think anyone would complain. In fact, Dell does exactly that. The only difference is that Apple makes the software that they bundle with their systems.

      Make no mistake-- iLife is commercial software. Last I checked, it was $80. Apple has also had a history of bundling non-Apple commercial software when they thought it was suitable.

      Microsoft, on the other hand, has forced Dell to bundle additional Microsoft products on Dell machines, as well as making attempts to prevent Dell from bundling alternatives to Microsoft software. That's quite a different circumstance. One instance is a company deciding to use their own home-brewed software in their own devices, while the other is a company using its market position to force other companies to use its software and only its software.

  3. See: Irony by BrianRoach · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Security" software companies only exist becuase ... windows didn't have or provide adequate security. Or due to bugs in the OS which were exploited. They're basically parasitic entities.

    Now MS is trying to fix this with Vista.

    So basically, the logic being put forth is: Our business model is based on your inability to put out a secure product. Your attempt at putting out a secure product is going to break our business model, and thus our business.

    - Roach

    1. Re:See: Irony by muffen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's more like: Oh, Security Software vendors are making lots of money, lets see, we block everyone except ourselves from accessing certain parts of the OS, buy a cheap AV vendor and integrate their software into the OS, charge a yearly fee for keeping it up to date, and then everyone will have to use ours because all other security vendors won't be able to run properly.

  4. Waste of resources by toounknown · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The most frustrating thing to me is that Microsoft cannot even get the basics of their OS working right. All the security holes, inefficiencies, bloat etc. keep getting worse, yet instead of working on the real problems, they continue to tack on more proprietary stuff to suck in consumers. The UI problems with Vista are bad enough. If you include the nasty slow network stack (3rd parties are now offering network cards to bypass the mess to improve performance), nag-ware as opposed to proper security, etc. I think Microsoft is going to loose more than the respect of software developers. Looks like just another closed platform.

    --
    Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
  5. Re:Symantec has no argument by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Adobe said PDF is an open standard and anybody can make a reader/writer for it if they want. Now that Microsoft has, they're trying to renege on that and say it's proprietary? Doesn't work that way, Adobe.

    PDF is an open standard. Anyone can make a reader and writer for it. The recipe for cheese is open too and anyone can make and sell cheese. So you don't mind if the electric company (a monopoly) raises your rates by $20 a month and gives you some slightly sub-par cheese do you? And you don't think cheese sellers have any legal right to complain that the electric company is abusing their monopoly to put them out of business do you?

    PDF is an open standard. MS is welcome to make PDF creation tools and XPS (PDF competitor) creation tools. They're even welcome to bundle those tools with the mice they sell, or with Halo 3. What they are not free to do is bundle them with anything they have a monopoly on, including Windows, just as they are not legally allowed to bundle anything else with Windows for which their is an existing market. It has nothing to do with how open the format is.

  6. DID YOU READ THE ARTICLE??? by xanders · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Did anyone who responded to this article actually READ the damn article? MS isn't offering PDF creation in Vista - AT ALL!!! They should, as *nix and OS X have done for years, all OS's should have Print/Export to PDF built into the OS. HOWEVER, MS is planning on releasing Vista with an MS homegrown "PDF Killer". As the MS Office suite moves to XML based file formats, they are building a PDF-Like file export into Vista called XML Paper Specification (or XPS). So all you happy like MS lovers chiming in on this little article, and how MS is entitled to include PDF in Vista since it's an open standard are going to be in for a bit of a surprise when your files come out as "MyHomework.xps".

    But then, anyone with half a clue is going to be using OpenOffice anyway - and exporting to PDF wont be a problem. Suck on 'em apples Micro$cum! I don't have a problem with MS adding features, and improving file formats. I have a problem with MS forcing your hand and making it difficult to choose something other than MS only solutions. That's what all the anti-trust legal battles were about, and Redmond keeps pushing forward.

    It's always fun to see how people are willing to get all riled up about things they won't bother to understand.

    um, but yeah ... I agree on the Symantec=crappy part.