Slashdot Mirror
Software Makers Lobby EU Against Microsoft
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.'"
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.
The things Apple continually receives praise for and advertises about, included applications and higher security, Microsoft gets sued over. Yeah, that's fair.
They must know the words "anti-trust" by now. I just hope that the fine which they are given if they actually go ahead with this actually constitutes more than they made on this. There is no excuse for attempting to keeping rival companies at a disadvantage - they already have all the OS market.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Operating systems should be secure and should come with a firewall.
I can understand adobe's reasoning.
"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
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.
It's only going to get worse for companies like Symantec and Adobe. Building software on the Windows platform brings the advantages of a large market. The disadvantage is that Microsoft is not in the business of creating a platform for developers, they're in the business of selling software licenses. The licenses get sold because people are addicted to the platform, not because people can protect it with Symantec products.
And Adobe's complaints really surprise me. OS X has been able to export anything to PDF - a relatively open format - for years, and I can do the same thing on KDE.
Windows is a shaky foundation to build a business on - albeit a potentially profitable one until Microsoft decides to assimilate your functionality.
PDF is a public format(anyone may create applications that read and write PDF files ), OO.org can export to pdf, why M$ should not be allowed to use it?
Microsoft is going to have to learn that it needs to try to work with the companies that make software for their systems.
No. This is a basic fallacy, the "Windows ecosystem", of various ISPs making money off of stuff that runs on Windows. This is not how things actually work.
What actually goes on, is that Microsoft treats the ISPs as unpaid employees working on 'market-testing' projects. Adobe make money off of PDF stuff? Then Microsoft will add PDF tools to their OS next time around. Somebody has a business model around a web browser? Enter IE. And so forth. Basically, if an app becomes popular, Microsoft create a similar app and bundle it into the OS; if it doesn't become popular, Microsoft never lost any money on development. A perfect win-win for Microsoft.
ISPs may have a 'window' (apologies) of time to make some money off of proprietary software for Windows before being ousted by Microsoft. But this is a big gamble to make; I'm amazed that people still try this.
The only sustainable way to make money off of Windows-related software is one of the following: (1) rely on the law to prevent Microsoft from bundling a replacement into the OS (but who can rely on that?), or (2) make a product that Microsoft would NOT want to bundle, but would like to make money off of, separately from Windows (e.g. a database). Yet even in this case, it is clear that your odds are not favorable (witness Wordperfect).
There is a reason that most popular apps for Windows are either Microsoft-written or OSS (IE and Firefox, IIS and Apache, etc.). If the app can be bundled into the OS, you won't make money off of it. So you can only exist if you don't expect to make any money.
Adobe, prepare to have to change your business model.
Get your facts straight. The reason Microsoft created their own file format is that Adobe tried to sue them when they included "Save as PDF" capabilities in Office 12. Despite being the most requested feature in Office by far, Microsoft was forced to remove it and make it an optional free download.
It seems crazy that a dispute between two US companies is being settled due to EU law. The US has very similar laws in this area, yet the DOJ has proven that they are doing nothing useful about curbing MS.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
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".
... I agree on the Symantec=crappy part.
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