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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."
A number of states have moved to extend antitrust judgments against Microsoft
Ah yes, the old "embrace and extend" has come full circle.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
For the record, between IE, Firefox, and Everything Else, just because OEM's ship the default browser doesn't mean that there isn't anything else available - it means more often that people are far too lazy to look.
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
DC = !a state
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Hmm, it's amazing what they'll make a state these days.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Despite the delusions of Mayor Adrian Fenty and Pretend-Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington D.C. is a city, not a state.
That's why it doesn't have congressional delegates or a Governor.
The rest of the article is similarly well researched and written.
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.
I've always thought it was strange that the focus of a lot of the anti-trust case was the "bundling" of Internet Explorer.
Who gives a shit? The only other browsers worth using, Firefox and Opera, are both FREE. How is bundling IE with Windows hurting them? They don't make any money from their browsers anyway!
Plus, the REAL problem with the MS/Windows monopoly (and I don't think it is a monopoly, really, but that's a different argument) is that they don't document the Windows API completely.
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.
Nice! abuse MY right to be free of unfair business practices in the name of your right to choose. You are that idiot that believes the little blue e on your desktop actually IS the Internet, aren't you?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
What with this and the releases of Gutsy Gibbon and Leopard, this is turning out to be a bad month for furniture.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
I think it's probably more about the software that you don't have the option of downloading because MicroSoft made sure that company doesn't exist.
The issue, as I understand it, is not that there aren't other browsers available but that the consumer must go out of their way to get the other browser and avoid the bundled IE in their OEM systems.
Dear anonymous coward NeoCon:
Commonwealth has nothing to do with communism or communal wealth distribution.
According to Wikipedia:
==The original phrase "common wealth" or "the common weal" comes from the old meaning of "wealth" which is "well-being". The term literally meant "common well-being". Thus commonwealth originally meant a state or nation-state governed for the common good as opposed to an authoritarian state governed for the benefit of a given class of owners.==
Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts are all officially designated as a commonwealth, and Puerto Rico is also described as a commonwealth of the US.
Trying to jingoize words to fit a fascist/fundamentalist right wing political simplification based on what you think they might mean just makes the world a stupider place. Please stop, our country is already stupid enough without your contributions.
What You Expected, What You Got.
Is being slightly self-contradictory like being slightly pregnant?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The issue is MS making the OS DEPEND on IE and ignore anything the user wants. If I remember rightly, during the anti-trust case, Gates & Co. lied to the court that IE was needed to run Windows (it wasn't at the time). The next patch/hotfix/release it was, as they quickly embedded it.
That's funny I didn't know they made Internet Explorer for OpenBSD. Perhaps I am less of a geek than I thought.
Creative Demolition
IE killed off netscape by forcing OEMs to bundle IE. They used their monopoly to strong arm OEMs and charged higher fees to OEMs who didn't do EXACTLY what they wanted them to. Those who bundled AOL and netscape were punished. That's illegal in anti-trust law, and Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. That's where the bundling thing came from.
Bundling isn't right now hurting opera or Firefox, it's hurting the OEMs. The OEMs can't complete by providing, say Firefox and advertising that their bundle is more secure than their competitors. Dell could chose firefox and HP could chose opera or whatever. They can't because MS is still stronarming them.
And you are either highly misinformed or completely deluded if you think MS isn't a monopoly. 90% of the desktop OS market IS a monopoly under every developed nation's laws, and to anyone with any common sense, period.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Yep its a very good thing the government has this authority to do this. Or else you would not be able to download and execute the software of your choosing.
If Microsoft had its way, nobody else would be able to developer software for Windows, all software would be subscription only, and nobody else would be able to read their file formats.
"Trying to jingoize words to fit a fascist/fundamentalist right wing political simplification based on what you think they might mean just makes the world a stupider place. Please stop, our country is already stupid enough without your contributions."
Am I the only one that sees the irony of that paragraph, vis-a-vis the "fascist/fundamentalist right wing" bit. From Wikipedia: "Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state." This seems to follow more closely with a socialist viewpoint than with the free-market ideology of the American right.
The parent's point about the GP's lack of understanding, however, is right on the mark.
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
OEMs don't want to waste time installing three different programs that do the same thing. So if IE is forced to be removed, browsers now will have to pay OEMs to be placed on as the browser.
I don't see having three different programs as being a problem. All an OEM would need to do is create one disk image with all three then use it to clone it on each hdd installed on a PC, "do once, use anywhere". If OEMs aren't already doing this, minus the three different programs, then they need to work on improving their workflows.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Its not really a good idea to impose restrictions on a company for "what they MIGHT do".
Ie they "might be able to" leverage the next version of Windows to push people toward silverlight. Kinda dangerous ground.
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?
Or, imprison the corporation itself. If I break the law, they lock me up, and I cannot do business with the rest of society. Do the same to the corporations. Send the sheriff out to lock the company doors, and prevent them from doing business for 6 months, a year, or whatever sentence they would give me.
Yes, it would be devistating to the corporation, just as devistating as it would be to me if I were locked up for a year.
Yes, those that work for the corporation would be hurt, just like the people who work for me. (if I were wealthy enough to hire people to do my bidding)
Yes, it would hurt the economy if all, or even a significant portion of corporations got shut down, just as it would hurt the economy if all, or even a significant portion of people were imprisioned.
You can bet that the corporations would get their act together right quick if the penalty for breaking the law was the same as for a real person.
I would say that one of the big problems we have is that corporations are considered to be 'people' when it is convenient, and not 'people' when that suits the needs of those in making money off of them.
Most people cant or wont make a choice to download something else...
Some are lazy, some don't even realise anything else exists. Leave it too long, and so many websites will be locked into proprietary ie-only extensions that you lose the ability to choose completely.
Plus, you saw what happened, without competition ie never got updated so the entire web stagnated for years (and is still doing so)
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I can think of at least one OEM that bundles a browser other than Internet Explorer.
the political compass is 2-dimensional*. 1 dimension is personal freedom, the other is economic freedom, and the axes are turned 45%. the top (or you could call bottom) middle is 100% of both, and the bottom middle is 0% of both. socialism is at the bottom left. technically, fascism is the very bottom middle, but it's often used to describe the bottom right. the free market right is either the middle right or the top right.
*you could even add a 3rd and forth dimension for political freedom and state sovereignty, but few do.
"Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state"
Perhaps you are unfamiliar with extreme right wing fundamentalist talking points:
- Don't criticize the administration or you are "supporting terrorism."
- Broad wiretap spying programs on citizens is important for nationalist security.
- Torture and indefinite imprisonment of the accused, with suspended Habeas Corpus, is critical to nationalist security.
- Limiting the right to travel around and to/from the country and imposing a Nationalist biometric ID program.
Centrist Americans in both the Democratic and Republican parties have historically found all those ideas repugnant. You are right to say those ideas have historically been associated with extremist socialist states such as Stalin's Russia, but they are also associated with with the Axis fascist countries and fundamentalist religious states. Authoritarian political ideology is not unique to a particular extreme end of political spectrum.
The US isn't in danger of falling to a communist revolution. It is, however, already knee deep in a cesspool of a fascist torture/spy/police state that considers individual rights and societal interests (freedom of expression, access to health care and education) subordinate to the needs of corrupt corporations that largely run the country. Corporate welfare, a government run media (Fox), and wartime profiteering are not American ideals.
The American right and conservatives in general are not represented by the NeoCon minority. Small and effective government and free markets have little to do with the torture/spy/police state fascism being advanced by NeoCons in their efforts to set up a fundamentalist religious state and declare war on other fundamentalist religious states throughout the world, partnered with welfare-state corporations like Haliburton and Blackwater.
What You Expected, What You Got
Government should NOT be our personal nannies. If these people are too stupid to learn how to use even Windows then they get what they deserve. I am so sick and tired of laws being determined by the lowest common denominator.
Since when does Ubuntu and OSX have IE installed? Dell and Apple are both OEM's and they both use alternative OS'es which has alternative browsers. Just because it's not running windows doesn't mean it's not competing with IE.
Regardless, There's a definite rising trend of market share in alternative browsers, especially FireFox. Most likely the OEM's are not including Firefox (as well as other free software, such as Openoffice) because the Mozilla Foundation isn't willing to pay the OEM's (unlike Google, AOL, ETC) to install it on pre configured PC's.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
That is simply incorrect. Corporations live off the recognition of the government. If the government revokes their charter, then they are dead. If the government recognizes them as a Corporation, then it lives on. Cutting off of it's revenue could simply make it destitute. The same as cutting off the ability of a real person to make money for six months could make them destitute. So, that is no excuse for the government to give one entity preferential treatment under the law over another. Hell, many companies run in the red for years. That is certainly not the same as cutting off a real persons food supply for years.
Better yet, prevent retailers from bundling operating systems with new computers
A BIG problem with this is that most people when they buy a new computer they just want to plug it in when they get home and have it work out of the box. Maybe it would help if a new computer came with different OSes came on disk. A Windows disk, maybe two or three different versions, and disks for different versions of Linux and BSD. However I seriously doubt most people ever want to install an OS unless they call tech support and the tech walks them through reinstalling Windows.
Hey, perhaps that's an idea that might work, OEMs shipping computers with these disks then allow the user to decide which one to use. When booted up the first tyme a screen asks which OS the user wants. The user selects one then it asks for the correct disk and installs the OS.
FalconShould there be a Law?
with Slashdot.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The government isn't choosing your browser. They are preventing Microsoft from choosing your browser. They are leveling the playing field, and forcing people to actually make a choice, instead of going with the flow. You're not being told which web browser you can and cannot use. I see where you're coming from, but you should clutch your idealism with slightly less intensity -- this is a good thing, even if it doesn't meet the strict interpretation of capitalism.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
for the hammering Microsoft takes on Slashdot, we all know what Microsoft's next quarterly financial report is going to look like. we all know why "Apple' is no longer "Apple Computer." Apple sells a half dozen or so configurations of the Mac that either meet your needs or they don't. that is a profitable strategy, but it is not a strategy that dramatically increases your market share.
My internet is upside down :(
It looks like this
I am in awe.
Surely there's nothing wrong with providing basic functionality out of the box? Besides, how many ways are there to download Firefox without opening IE (on a fresh Windows installation)?
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Instead of the states taking ineffective legal action, how about this: "msft knock it off, or we won't buy your stuff. We'll use mac, or linux, or whatever. Then we'll insist on all documents in non-msft format: odf, pdf, whatever. Then we'll insist on firefox only as a browser. And all multi-media must also be in a non-msft format - no .wma or .wmv."
Could you imagine how msft would react? Lawsuits take ten years, cost $100 million, and get you nowhere.