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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."'"
Can anybody tell me what MS has actually been forced to do as a result of anti-trust lawsuits? I don't mean what they have been told to do but rather what they were forced to follow through with. IIRC, they still haven't paid a hefty fine imposed by the EU a long time ago.
I normally am happy when bad things happen to Microsoft, but I was Antitrust-Probed by aliens once, and I know how it can feel.
"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.
Don't be crazy anymore!
How long is it going to be before Bush sends US diplomats to intervene on Microsoft's behalf again?
I think people are so use to the past decade of Microsoft getting away with pretty much anything they wanted and effectively walking away from any legal or government intervention that it is hard to grasp that that is no longer the case. Microsoft is getting a lesson right now from the EU like someone who just got pulled over for a speeding ticket and speeds off and gets pulled over again. The fact that you just got pulled over a few minutes ago means absolutely nothing.
There is a certain, and strange, Microsoft fanbase that is roughly of the mindset of "Microsoft is always teh winner". They might not even like Microsoft products but somehow identify with the company as somehow being badass and that "Bill Gates will just buy his way out of this with pocketchange LOL!" type sentiments.
Tough times ahead for that crowd. Look for much crying about how life isn't fair from them.
This is just great! If we get Internet Explorer, Windows Mediaplayer, Windows shell (GUI) and few others ripped off from Operating System, we would get a great platform.
No, this dont mean that Microsoft could not sell them or develope those. Just that those users who dont need a Microsoft own webbrowser or a WMP. Can remove them. OEM manufactures can install Opera or Firefox or OTHER webbrowser instead IE and VLC or any other mediaplayer instead of WMP.
How many remembers what is definition of Operating System?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
"An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking and managing file systems. Most operating systems come with an application that provides a user interface for managing the operating system, such as a command line interpreter or graphical user interface. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software."
And what we have left if we remove all applications what dosn't remove any of these definition parts? Just pure OS.
It would be much better if a Microsoft would become as two corporation, other to build and sell basic OS and other to sell all other software like WMP, IE, Office, Games, Outlook etc etc. Together user could get windows as it is now and every one would be happy.
And those who needs just windows OS, would get Operating System and nothing more. They could install just their games to it or software what are needed and use computer happily.
> 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.
My blog
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.
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make install -not war
nothing - so long as in the process you are not leveraging a monopoly - the problem isn't including apps, it's using your OS monopoly to out-compete other app vendors
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Economic strength is reason that the United States it the world super power; military is over-rated and a result of economic strength. American assets are priced in US dollars and as the dollar drops so does the value of the country. Additionally, a huge amount of America's debt is owed in foreign currency and as the dollar drops the debt's value increases proportionally; again making America poorer and therefore weaker. Also, as the dollar's value drops against world currencies (particularly the Euro) foreign reserves are switch from being dollar based to being Euro based; again diminishing the economic might and influence of the United States.
At this point in time the US is so dramically richer than any other state in the world that it doesn't really matter - how ever over the next decade we're likely to see the rise of two new super powers that rival the Unites States: European Union (the confused, sluggish super power) and China (the unified and aggressive super power).
The last time we saw the Unites States challenged it was by the USSR and Japan. The USSR was fundamentally flawed by actually being a totalitarian state which are inherently flawed over the long run. Japan wasn't as flawed, but it inflexible work force (worse than Europe's) has severely limited its ability to compete. In both cases the US system simply out spent and maneuvered them. I don't think the US will be able to do this again unless China's one-child laws begin to damage their economy with the upcoming population drop and Europe's reformist governments get voted out.
As for the article and topic on hand: good. M$ needs to be pushed to be competitive and not just handicapped by overly relying on their OS monopoly. Their censure by the EU will only work to improve the US economy (in the long run) and the EU consumer. Kudos to the EU for having the balls to do this and showing up the US government.
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
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?
Living With a Nerd
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.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
I'm not saying that MS was not guilty of antitrust violations. I am asking though what are the merits of the new accusation? Is it the same accusation, or is it different?
One of the charges is the same thing MS was convicted of in the US, but has not been charged with in the EU. Previously the EU convicted them of abuse in the server OS market and audio player software markets. They are now looking into web browsers (which they've been convicted of in the US) and other, unnamed markets.
Frankly, the market has change SIGNIFICANTLY, for better or worse, than it was in the mid 90's. Consumers expect browsers included in the OS.
Back in the day, consumers expected to have to rent a standardized, rotary phone from the phone company, not to be able to buy any phone from the store. It has nothing to do with what is legal or best for the market.
Yes, OEMs should be able to include other browsers with their systems.
Sorry, not good enough. OEMs need to consider MS's software on an even playing field with other software, with no incentive to include o not include it other than the merits of the software. The market needs to be a level playing field for everyone, or the law is being broken. OEMs should include or not include IE because they think their customers will prefer it based on its merits, not based upon artificial problems introduced into competitors (broken standards in use). If IE is included, OEMs may simply leave it and not bother making the choice and consumers will suffer and developers will still target IE because they know it will be included, while they don't know if a different browser will be. They have to bundle all of them or none of them or the market will still be broken.
it's hard to argue that with competitors doing well in the EU: adoption of FireFox ranges from 20 - 40% in some member countries
Yes, and a lot worse in other EU countries. So you consider say 30% market share, versus 60% market share when the one with 30% is faster, has dozens of features the other lacks, is more secure, and properly reads pages while IE does not, and has been that way for many years. I'd say when it takes MS six years to implement something as simple and widely acclaimed as tabbed browsing windows, that competitors are not doing well to have only 30% of the market (and that 30% is pretty generous).
If Opera were doing as well, I would imagine that they wouldn't complain.
You completely mistake Opera's market. Opera makes most of their money selling an embedded browser of phones and the like. They sell fewer browsers because they can't handle all the pages broken to work with IE and can prove that in court. They do fairly well in that space, but are still losing largely to embedded IE based upon artificial problems, not real problems with their browser.
If IE were really so abusive these days, would they have such viable competition?
All of their competition has to give away their browser just to enter the market since everyone is forced to pay for IE's development when they buy Windows. As it is, most of the big competitors were started by frustrated users as a way to get another option since no business felt entering the market against an abusive monopoly was worthwhile.
Can you tell me one good reason why MS should be able to force every windows machine to ship with IE, but the Firefox team and Opera can't force every Windows machine to ship with their products? MS does it simply because they have a monopoly and no one stops them from leveraging it. As a result, we all suffer. IE 7 still doesn't implement 8 year old standards every other browser has complied with basically forever. Moreover, there is evidence this is an intentional attempt to keep the Web itself crippled so that people can't bypass their desktop OS monopoly using web based apps. You don't see the Web itself being crippled and held bac