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Seven States Extend Microsoft Antitrust Judgment
Technical Writing Geek writes "A number of states have moved to extend antitrust judgments against Microsoft until the year 2012. California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia are all contributing to the decision, and have released a report on the factors that lead to the extension. 'The report laments the state of OEM web browser bundling, saying that no major OEM currently distributes a browser other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). This is important due to the rise of new middleware platforms (such as Adobe's AIR and Microsoft's own Silverlight) that can create rich, OS-independent, web-based applications.' The report is slightly self-contradictory, but raises some valid points."
So the totally ineffectual measures that've been taken to punish Microsoft for misusing its illegal monopoly to eliminate or marginalize its competition are going to be ineffectual for a longer period of time? That'll show 'em.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You cannot punish a corporation the same way you punish an individual, because they don't care about the same things. There's only one thing a corporation values, so there's only one thing you can take away from one: market share. Pass a measure forcing Microsoft and its subsidiaries to halve their advertising budget for, say, five years.
The states' report seems to imply that Microsoft will try to find a way to tie Silverlight to IE in the future, and leverage the 80 percent market share of IE on the desktop to try and edge out competitors like Adobe AIR. In our view, it's more likely that Microsoft has learned to accept the reality of a web application future and simply wants to make sure that it is the driving force behind its development.
+1 Insightful
Microsoft is hedging their bets. If their cash cows are really threatened in the near future they need a backup plan. I think they're not sure how they would profit, be it software-as-a-service or infrastructure or development tools. But they know they need to cover as many angles as possible to survive long term.
Developers: We can use your help.
many people use IE happily if only because they are not even aware of the existence of firefox and opera
:)
i'd similarly wonder how many mac OSX users use firefox instead of safari
for everyone to have a win-win situation, the OEMs need to start pre-installing firefox AND opera AND safari in the windows boxes. OpenOffice can come too
The logical solution then is to order Firefox be preinstalled on all copies of Windows, OEM or otherwise. If Microsoft doesn't like it, then promise them a new series of monopoly trials in which Microsoft will be cut to ribbons and the pieces only permitted to communicate with each via some incredibly inefficient government branch with 35% too few staff and with a turnaround on a question like "what will the default shape of the new UI button be" taking an average of 35 weeks to be answered.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Perhaps it's only a little ironic that some states keep fighting the Microsoft Monopoly yet force their own (state) employees to use Microsoft products. This is true of California (and probably most states). How much do they really care to bust the monopoly if they can't even wean themselves from the convicted monopolist?
A modern OS should come bundled with whatever browser the seller of a given machine wants to install or uninstall.
That includes Firefox, Opera, MSIE, or whatever else the OEM desires. The choice should be with the OEM.
The problem many of us have with Windows preinstalled on machines is the fact that IE is always present in those cases and the other browsers are never present. That creates a tremendous bias amongst nontechnical users towards MSIE and the way it behaves.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
But the latest browser is removable.
I am absolutely *not* an expert on Vista and maybe my information is old, but last I heard I'm pretty sure your statement is wrong. As I understand it Microsoft does *not* let IE be removable, that they merely have an option to install a SECOND browser and partially "hide" that IE is still installed and still active and that it does still seize control away from your selected browser in a variety of cases.
If you have a link that IE can actually be *removed* I would be most interested in seeing it.
But even if IE is now fully removable, there is still the anti-trust violation of Microsoft tying IE to Windows and contractually prohibiting OEMs from actually doing it, to replace IE with some other browser.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.