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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
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.
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.
It was something you could explain to a judge.
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
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It was relevant to the antitrust case because it generates platform lock-in.
For two perfect examples, you have to look no further than some major software out there. I will give two examples of software that we have implemented at my workplace. Maybe you'll recognize these (major, multinational) companies?
Cognos 8 Business Intelligence: Works 100% with IE. Works for report consumers with Firefox (with some loss of functionality). However, Report Studio (one of the report-authoring tools) doesn't work on anything but IE. There's no reason it couldn't be implemented with standard AJAX-type code.
BMC Software Service Desk Express (baby brother to the "Magic" helpdesk software that is very common): Works *only* on IE, doesn't work at all on other browsers.
Yes, part of the problem is these software vendors coding for IE-specific things. However, if they knew that most of their customers are probably using something else, they would code their products to support open standards. However, because MSFT has such a huge marketshare of browsers due to antitrust practices, third-parties code to support that, thus tying THEIR customers to MSFT as well.
It's a circular loop, but one possible only because MSFT used their OS dominance to push a certain browser 'standard'.
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?
The fact though isn't that they included the web browser but rather that the browser is irremovable from the OS, and when its filled with security flaws its a risk for offices and businesses with the employees knowing nothing other then Word and Outlook go on IE when Firefox is installed and end up getting the computer infested with spyware. It is the same thing with the Media Player in the EU, theres no problem with them including it, but when it can't be removed, its a problem.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
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
No, no.. wait, to have a win-win situation, all computers should come with 500GB disks loaded with a selection of 10 different OS, and the user can pick which to launch on startup.
Aaaah, nothing like a simple and easy to use solution! Win!
I can think of at least one OEM that bundles a browser other than Internet Explorer.
"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
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.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Such a solution does not go far enough. For it to work all browser makers that wanted their browser pre-installed on Windows would have to be allowed to have theirs included. Of course bundling IE and Windows is only one of the dozens of abuses of MS's monopoly.
Inefficiently and slowly addressing the abuses one at a time is simply not going to work. The only solution I have confidence in is removing the monopoly so that MS has no ability to abuse it. Break MS into at least two companies with full rights to all the patents and code in Windows. Forbid those two companies from any collusion or even private communication. When both of them are fighting for market share with one another, they will give consumers versions of Windows that finally do what consumers want, instead of what will gouge the most money from them. Restore competition and the industry will recover. Barring that, government corruption and a glacial legal system will never fix this market and technology will continue to improve slowly and in a broken direction.