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.'"

Comments

Microsoft is doing the right thing

[lukas84]

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.

Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing

[Antique Geekmeister]

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.

Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing

[muffen]

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.

Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing

[Scarblac]

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!

Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing

[irishPete]

-- You need a license to write to a PDF format.

This is incorrect. Adobe says you can freely write software that will create PDF format documents as long as you don't break the spec and give them copyright credit on it.

Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing

[14CharUsername]

And you are free, as a consumer, to not use the bundled products.

And apparently I'm also free to pay for these bundled apps as well. Now tell me why I should pay for Windows Vista + MS Defender and then just not use Defender and but and install Norton? I've already paid for MS Defender why would I buy Norton too?

This is Netscape all over again. What Symantec is complaining about is that Windows Defender will be installed automatically. If someone installs Norton, Norton will have to disable Windows Defender. Now Windows defender is going to report that "virus protection is disabled". This will make users think that their system isn't being protected anymore and will complain that Norton isn't working.

MS can't have it both ways. If windows Defender is a seperate product then it should be sold as seperate product. If its a part of windows then it should behave the same as the current XP security center behaves. That is when you install Norton or whatever then the security center tells the user that the system is being protected by Norton and give you its config options.

MS is basically arguing that Windows defender isn't like the XP security center in that its a separate product so they shouldn't have to allow other companies to alter it. But if its a seperate product why can't it be seperated from windows and sold on its own?

Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing

[jonbryce]

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.

Re:Microsoft is doing the right thing

[RexRhino]

Not only that, Adobe products create PDFs that don't 100% follow the PDF format, just to introduce slight incompatibilites with non-Adobe software. When you create a PDF in an Adobe product, then try to open it in Open Office (which follows the PDF format perfectly), and you find slight changes, most people will think it is Open Office's fault and not Adobe.

See: Irony

[BrianRoach]

"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

It's just going to get worse

[Random BedHead Ed]

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.

Not fair

[radu.stanca]

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?

DOJ is doing nothing so you need the EU

[EmbeddedJanitor]

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.