EU Launches Yet Another Antitrust Probe Into Microsoft

Connor writes "The EU has announced a new wide-ranging antitrust probe into Microsoft's practices of bundling software with Windows, as well as whether its products interoperate sufficiently with competitors' products. 'The first area of investigation will concern interoperability of some of Microsoft's products, including Office 2007, the .NET Framework, and some of Microsoft's server products.' The other prong of the investigation is a response to Opera's antitrust complaint, but will look at other products, too. 'The Commission will also look at desktop search and Windows Live as well in addition to other products. The EC says that its investigation will "focus on allegations that a range of products have been unlawfully tied to sales of Microsoft's dominant operating system."'"

Comments

Re:Oh, No, Not again!

[calebt3]

Could it be that they were designed for eachother That is exactly the problem. Windows needs IE. They used to be independent products, so there is proof that Windows doesn't need to need IE. MS could just as well kept them separate.

Re:Oh, No, Not again!

[catxk]

"Could it be that they were designed for eachother?" Yes, it could be. It could also be that they design software in a way that unlawfully or unethically discourages the use of other software. Lets see what they find out during the investigation. Microsoft is a powerful company, and as such, just like powerful politicians, they should be under constant investigation.

Re:Oh, No, Not again!

[Flipao]

Oh no! Did a company make products that go well together? Could it be that they were designed for eachother? Seriously, afterwards, let's launch an antitrust case against playstation because their platform doesn't play wii and xbox games. The problem is not simply that they make products that work well with each other, it's also that they do it while owning the desktop OS business.

Not to mention their attempts to squeeze the life out of open formats like ODF.

Also, it shows the EU has the balls to stand up to MS and their anti competitive practices, something the US has been unable to do for a while.

Re:enough?

[dvice_null]

> Does anyone else think enough is enough?

They have laws and they try to force everyone to obey those laws. Every time Microsoft has done something that would be illegal in most countries, it itself has said that it will obey the laws of the place where it operates. So Microsoft should be quite happy with this. EU is just helping them to obey the laws.

Microsoft has a lot of business and they might have broken several laws. Should rest of these crimes be forgotten simply because they were already judged?

I have no doubt that EU will handle the issues professionally and Microsoft will only get what it deserves. If they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.

This is stupid

[Pojut]

And I will tell you exactly why I think so. Microsoft releases a retail version of Windows. Included in this retail version of Windows is Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer.

Number 1. Both of these are FREE PROGRAMS. You can download any version of IE and WMP for free directly from Microsoft (and yes, I am aware they don't retain older versions for downloading). You won't see Internet Explorer or WMP sitting on Best Buy's shelves.

Number 2. After installing windows, the first two programs I install are Media Player Classic and Firefox. Both free, legal alternatives. If someone is upset with Microsoft including those other two programs in there, don't use them. Yes, they take up a minimal amount of disk space...but if you are complaining about 50-100 MB of disk space when you can get a 1 TB drive in a 3.5" model for roughtly $250-$300, you are just looking for something to complain about.

Number 3. Those who don't know any better obviously don't care that they come included...and if they do care, they will do the research required to download and use something else.

Number 4. LINUX AND OSX!!!! It's not like Windows is the only game in town...it is perhaps for gaming, but that is not Microsoft's fault...you wouldn't try to sue Sony because your PS3 can't play an Amiga game, would you?

All I'm saying is that this is complete and utter stupidity. People that use windows don't care that they are using windows. If they care enough that they are using windows, they will look at what the other alternatives are. "But...but...but...I HAVE to use office, it's what my job uses!" That's your company's fault for using Microsoft products...no one forced them to. Just like no one has forced you to use Microsoft products.

I bet IBM can remember what this feels like.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 50's, 60's and 70's IBM was repeatedly beat up on by antitrust people. The result was IBM couldn't ship a computer with an operating system pre installed. It didn't really mean that the computer wouldn't have an IBM operating system (since no one had a viable alternative available), it ment you had to buy the OS seperately. This practice continued into the era of the PC. Early IBM PCs were sold naked. This gave Microsoft the opportunity to sell MS DOS instead of the IBM labeled version of MS DOS. IBM's competitiors were able to sell computers with OS's installed but not IBM. Eventually this was changed, but not until IBM had been critically wounded in the market they created.
Microsoft may face the same future. They may be forced to sell a naked OS while their competitors will be selling an OS with lots of goodies bundled.
Is this a good thing? Who knows. Personally I think it may be a good thing.

Re:Good EU!

[jZnat]

Linux doesn't come with any applications. Go ahead and download the Linux kernel at kernel.org, and tell me, do any versions of the Linux kernel provide any additional applications? Nope.

It's a Monopoly

[Doc Ruby]

Microsoft is a monopoly. It's been operating as one for over a decade. It's been declared one even in the monopoly-friendly US for 7 years. I hasn't changed, and is even worse globally like in the EU. Its monopoly comes from bundling across the IT product line, extending even beyond software. Until it's broken into individual OS, app, development, network, content and hardware corporations which don't make preferential deals with each other instead of with any other competitor to each other, it will operate as a market abusing monopoly. Why shouldn't it? And why should the EU put up with that, when Microsoft isn't even an EU corporation?

I just saved the EU a lot of money. Now, if they skip the probe and start barring monopolies like Microsoft at least from doing business with the EU governments, they might actually save the EU's people some money, and get some better products out of a more actually competitive environment.

Ironic

[misleb]

This is ironic because one of my bigger gripes about Windows is that it does not bundle *enough* software. And the software/utilities they do include are generally subpar, IMO. I usually have to spend a few hours gathering all the little pieces of software that I need for Windows to be generally useful as a base. Need a PDF reader, PDF writer (print to PDF), better archive file handling, CD/DVD burning, updated drivers, telnet/ssh client that DOESN'T feel like it was coded in 1986 and never updated, etc. A lot of it has to do with XP being so damn old, of course, but even back when it was released the bundled utilities were mostly useless. OS X (and Linux to a greater degree for obvious reasons), on the other hand, comes almost completely ready for general use (minus major apps like Adobe Suite) out of the box. I hardly have to download anything to get OS X going. And then there's iLife, which I don't use.

I wonder if/when governments are going to start going after Apple. OS X is 10x "worse" than Windows when it comes to bundled software. I use "worse" lightly, of course, because I actually want bundled software.

-matthew

Re:Oh, No, Not again!

[drinkypoo]

That is exactly the problem. Windows needs IE. They used to be independent products, so there is proof that Windows doesn't need to need IE. MS could just as well kept them separate.

This is a ridiculous statement. Cars used to be separate from air conditioning too; people used to have to add a window evaporative cooler to their coupe back in the forties. Just try convincing the majority of people that cars don't need air conditioning! (If you go back even farther, cars used to regularly come without heaters, too, so we can do this all day...

EVERYONE uses a web browser as an OS component today. No, really! Sun has been doing HTML documentation for a long, long time; they used to bundle Netscape 2 for the purpose of reading it (and websurfing.) Microsoft, of course, has been doing it since they integrated Aieee! Apple, naturally, uses HTML fairly liberally.

Naturally, no one else uses it to the extent that Microsoft does, to the point where folder views contain HTML. But why should Microsoft not be permitted to do this?

Microsoft bundling IE wasn't the problem. Microsoft forbidding their customers (OEMs) to bundle other web browsers (and other competing products) was. Your statements make it clear that you do not understand the problem.

It's the monopoly stupid

[mlwmohawk]

None of your points relate to the monopoly status of Microsoft. If there were valid competition, i.e. vendors *had* to work with standards because those who did not would LOSE business.

Microsoft's monopoly control makes it bad. With greater than 90% of the personal computer market, it does not need to work with others in order to continue to do business. In fact, the normal feedback processes of capitalism are inverted with monopolies. To maintain their position they must push against a level playing field.

The argument "no one forced" the purchase of Microsoft products is patently and provably false. Go to Best Buy or Staples and buy a P.C. laptop without Windows. Just go ahead and try. The barriers put in the way are amazing.

Comcast won't support you on a P.C. if you don't use Windows, so you are forced to have a version of Windows in order to get support.

coercion is a form of force.

Re:It's the monopoly stupid

[Pojut]

The argument "no one forced" the purchase of Microsoft products is patently and provably false. Go to Best Buy or Staples and buy a P.C. laptop without Windows. Just go ahead and try. The barriers put in the way are amazing.

Comcast won't support you on a P.C. if you don't use Windows, so you are forced to have a version of Windows in order to get support.

And last time I checked, Best Buy, Comcast, and those laptop manufacturers are seperate companies from Microsoft. They could just as easily sell all their computers without Windows.

Of course, the next step in that argument is that no one would buy them. Going along that line of thinking, who is at fault here; Microsoft, or the people and companies that continue to buy and use their products?

Re:It's the monopoly stupid

[mlwmohawk]

But once again, who made Microsoft a monopoly? We, the consumers. 90% of us use Windows. Unless Bill Gates went to the home of every Windows user that you know and held a gun to their head unless they used his products, people CHOSE to give Microsoft THEIR money...Microsoft didn't take it from them, it was given BY them

You really misunderstand what it means to be a monopoly. Consumers had little if any choice in what they wanted to buy. Blackberries only work with Microsoft Exchange. Why? Because Microsoft's monopoly allowed them to set a standard without any industry buy in. Now, they've defined the standard and if blackberry users what to use their email, they best have Windows exchange.

That is how monopolies work. You don't have a choice, you have to buy the monopoly to use something else.

Re:enough?

[Fweeky]

To me this sounds like the creators of Opera are not happy their market share isn't has high as they'd like, so they hopped on the "blame Microsoft for the world's problems" bandwagon and are hoping the Socalist leaning EU will give them some handouts. The antitrust complaint is primarily about Microsoft's atrocious standards support; standards which Microsoft themselves had a hand in creating are almost invariably poorly supported, with both little coverage and massive bugs which basically go unfixed forever. In the mean time, web developers end up wasting huge amounts of time and effort working around problems, often to the detriment of support for other browsers. If Microsoft actually had to compete in a market for web browsers they'd never get a look in; they'd actually have to make a token effort to keep up with the rest of the industry.

Instead they're abusing their position and holding the industry back. I think every web developer on the planet would like to see them get a kick up the backside . It would make a change from swearing at them in CSS/HTML/JS comments.

The bundling issue I'm more ambivalent about; making them unbundle WMP didn't exactly achieve much, but perhaps the processes surrounding it were more valuable than the unbundling itself. Still, I hardly agree it's got anything to do with Opera wanting a "handout", whatever the fuck that means.

Re:A New Reality For Microsoft

[Amorymeltzer]

There is a certain, and strange, Microsoft fanbase that is roughly of the mindset of "Microsoft is always teh winner". Well, Microsoft WAS the winner as far as pretty much everything computer-related was concerned for almost all users. The past ten years or so has seen hugely increased Apple adoption, as well as a number of products that are distinctly NON Microsoft that are beginning to compete. Google, Firefox, all the rest. Instead of the giant Microsoft conglomerate, there are a half dozen or so specialized competitors that, while never coming near to combating Microsoft, can whittle away at one specific aspect of their overall package. MS is still the evil empire, but far larger portions of the users are beginning to realize that there are other options. When there was nothing to compete with, there was no problem. But now that the little guys are around, it's an issue when Microsoft stomps down on them.

Re:Oh, No, Not again!

[drinkypoo]

This is NOT AT ALL the argument used against Microsoft, and I wish you would pay a little more attention. You are clearly an unreasoning Microsoft-hater. I am a reasoning Microsoft-hater, but I won't talk about why I hate them right now, only about why trying to claim that they should not be able to bundle IE is stupid.

First of all, your assertion that you can simply remove Firefox from Ubuntu Desktop is incorrect. Oh, you can remove it... but you must remove the package 'ubuntu-desktop', which depends on firefox! This will result in autoremoval of a lot of other packages (if you are doing autoremoval) and the failure to track some updates to ubuntu.

Second of all, Microsoft does not force you to use Internet Explorer for anything but HTML help and where it is embedded into applications. You can turn off web folder view. Of course, you still have to use IE to use Windows Update, but frankly, that is an entirely reasonable restriction.

Third, it is actually possible to embed gecko in the place of IE, although some applications will crap on it. The fact that they do not work the same in all situations is reason enough for Microsoft not to make it too easy to do that - they do not go out of their way to make it difficult.

Your main complaint seems to be that having IE on your system makes it potentially less secure. But making an insecure OS is not (yet?) a crime.

IT IS POSSIBLE TO REPLACE IE WITH ANOTHER BROWSER. It is possible to trap the loading of the embedded IE component and load embedded gecko instead. I have personally patched applications to do this (I don't know if the patcher is still around and/or still works, though) and had them work. However, that browser must behave just as IE does! Similarly, it is possible to replace any and all air conditioning components in any car with those from any other car, but if you expect them to work properly they must work the same way the originals did. This is no different from IE in windows! The car manufacturer does not tell you what you need to know in order to change compressors, either. They do not tell you what the bracket bolt pattern is, so that you can have another fabricated. They don't tell you what the belt thickness is. You have to figure these things out for yourself if you want to alter the system. They don't go out of their way to stop you, although they WILL void your warranty if you start tampering with things!

So basically, you have utterly failed to show any way in which Microsoft can reasonably be restricted from bundling their own software. Once again, the problem was never that they bundled their own software, but that they forbade OEMs to bundle ANOTHER web browser, remove any icons that their install process created, et cetera. THIS was the anticompetitive behavior. Part of the legal response against microsoft was to force them to unbundle certain applications, as a punitive measure. It was not because it was felt that bundling was wrong, but that it was felt that microsoft was not responsible enough to bundle. The truth was VERY different; the right that Microsoft cannot handle is having a monopoly position and being in a position to dicate terms to OEMs. If Microsoft was going to be prohibited from doing something, it should have been one of these things. The USDOJ should have broken Microsoft up into pieces when it had the chance, but as you probably know, the Bush administration effectively pardoned Microsoft by way of Ashcroft.

Re:Whats wrong with including apps anyways?

[uglyduckling]

The reality is that they can't, and that's the difficulty of abusing monopoly powers - you can end up in a situation where the monopoly business can't do everything that the non-monopoly competitors might be able to do. Not only have Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer and Media Player with Windows (which is fine), in the past they have abused their monopoly by penalising companies that install competing browsers and players when selling machines (which is an abuse of monopoly). If Microsoft had left the market open by allowing OEM sellers to do as they please, they probably would have been able to continue bundling so long as it was possible to remove the bundled software and use something else.

Now that abuse of monopoly powers has been established, some sort of remedy is needed if e.g. Europe feel that competition in web browser and media player markets is desirable. One remedy is the 'default programs' tool that is included with Vista and was added in a service pack to XP. Probably the fairest solution would be for Microsoft to provide a freely distributable ISO (they could call it 'Genuine Advantage Pack :-)) on their website with all the software they would like to bundle with Windows, including trial versions of Office etc.. It would then be up to OEMs (e.g. Dell) whether they wished to supply that CD, pre-install the software on the computer, or use some other third-party software as they saw fit. That would be a level playing field and not disadvantage consumers in any way.

Re:enough?

[KDR_11k]

Opera complained that IE implements standards so badly that it made many web designers code to IE's broken renderer instead of using the standards everyone else uses. If IE wasn't bundled with the OS that broken renderer would have murdered its marketshare long ago.

Re:The World

[oliderid]

European Union (the confused, sluggish super power) and China (the unified and aggressive super power).

Beeing European and living in the so called European capital: Brussels. I can assure you that the European Union won't become a super power anytime soon.
The European union is a bunch of independant states with strictly no common foreign policy and a real difficulty to define even the most basic common interest & strategy.Part of this mess are countries live with grandiose illusions (Uk, France), others with a difficulty to accept themselves (Germany), lost in domestic affairs (Italy, Belgium,Spain), eager to enjoy their hard won independance (Poland), focus on regional conflict (Greece), or simply not interested (Netherlands, Denmark, etc).

When I see the current trends, I don't see any European common foreign policy in a reasonnable future.
What would worry me if I was American would be: China and Russia in some ways...India in the long term, the rest (particularly Europe) is sleeping.

Re:Whats wrong with including apps anyways?

[jorghis]

The key difference here is that in a car you need to be able to remove the old cd player in order to put the new one in. With windows you can just install firefox, change your default browser and you are good to go even though the old browser is still there. (and dont complain about disk space, in this day and age the amount of space IE takes up is negligable)

The reason you cant totally remove IE isnt because MS is secretly hoping you will change your mind and start using IE again. Its because windows needs an html renderer to function correctly and they are trying to prevent the users from shooting themselves in the foot. There is nothing sinister going on there.

Re:Whats wrong with including apps anyways?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

And how on earth are they supposed to include the apps their users expect without "using your OS monopoly to out-compete other app vendors"?

By offering them as free downloads and by convincing OEMs that your product is the best so they should install it for their users... you know the same as every other software vendor on the planet that doesn't have a monopoly to abuse.

RTFA

[babbling]

Microsoft are not getting busted for merely including these programs with Windows. That's only one half of it.

The other half is that the web browser bundled with Windows does not follow "fundamental and open" standards for how web browsers render pages. Essentially, Microsoft is getting busted for trying to subvert the commonly accepted web standards and replace them with proprietary IE-style web standards.

Same goes for the Office file interoperability, although that seems to not be mentioned in the ars technia article, but is mentioned in this one.

Andrew Tridgell certainly can

[TopSpin]

Microsoft has had to license a mass of proprietary protocol documentation.

Re:Oh, No, Not again!

[wish bot]

Uh, if Microsoft had a monopoly on web browsers, or if the existence of IE caused Mozilla-based browsers (or others) not to work, then you might have a point.

Come on Drinkypoo - you're old enough to have seen loads of "IE" only web sites thanks to gems like ActiveX and IE specific bugs. These aren't as common now days, but you still find it all over the place. Loads of the Google labs tools start as IE only, or still don't support Safari. Our office uses some shite intranet system that requires ActiveX. Things are slowly changing, but the EU's point is that you shouldn't be able to subvert a 'standard' by supplying almost everyone in the world with your browser/email client/other_tool AND THEN making it impossible for any other tool to inter-operate or co-exist with it. Fair enough!

Re:mod parent up

[unapersson]

Consumer choice? So I can go into a high street PC store and choose what OS I want on my PC? That's news to me.

Re:Whats wrong with including apps anyways?

[howlingmadhowie]

imagine you had one car manufacturer who made 99% or all cars. they do not produce navigation systems, so there is a thriving market for these and many companies compete in this market. then one day the car manufacturer decides to include a navigation system with its cars and make it use a subtly different sort of map. suddenly, everybody who buys a new car already has a navigation system and so doesn't need to spend money on one from another company. gradually, the maps you get in the shops fit the navigation system most people have (the one from the car manufacturer) and cannot be read properly on navigation systems from other manufacturers. all other manufacturers go bankrupt and the car manufacturer now has control of the market.

to understand why the car manufacturer did this is difficult. what does a car manufacturer gain by controlling the navigation system market? very little. however microsoft had a huge amount to lose by not controlling the web browser. the writing was on the wall that the web browser could become the perfect vehicle for distributed applications and microsoft had to make sure that only happened on its terms.