Windows 7 Eyed For Antitrust Violations

Preedit writes "The committee that oversees Microsoft's compliance with the 2002 antitrust settlement now has its hands on Windows 7. The Technical Committee is checking to see if the software meets the settlement's terms. Among other things, it's looking at whether Windows 7 favors Microsoft apps over third party programs, according to InformationWeek. The story also notes that Vista SP1 includes a number of changes that were added to satisfy the committee. For instance, it eliminates several browser overrides where Vista ignored users' default preferences and automatically launched Explorer. Windows 7 is due sometime around 2010."

Comments

I Think Windows Lacks Features

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

It's really too bad they didn't add enough features in Vista, and need another version to do this.

I look forward to the 1,500 new options that will be available in group policies. I think I will understand most of these before Windows 8 is delivered.

Meanwhile, what do I do with this Glass Turd?

Re:I Think Windows Lacks Features

[gstoddart]

Meanwhile, what do I do with this Glass Turd?

Polish it, of course. :-P

Cheers

Re:I Think Windows Lacks Features

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I think that there should be a Software Industry "Glass Turd" award - for the most over promised, under delivered, and basically mis-applied software product of the year.

I know it's a tall order - like ID-ing the ugliest warthog.

The name "Glass Turd" is, of course, a loving reference to Windows Vista. Polished to gleaming, transparent perfection! "It's so pretty, I feel bad about hating it..."

The runner-up could get a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, installed on the computer of his choice. The Winner would have a copy of the same, installed on the computer that the winner used the most!

Who cares

[Brian Gordon]

We're just going to hack it anyway to run whatever 3rd party apps we want.. the EU is really going overboard IMO with forcing microsoft to make their OS how the EU wants it made. If microsoft wants to make Internet Explorer the only app that can access the internet, that's their prerogative.. nobody has to buy Windows. Even if there was no excellent free alternative, which there is.

Re:Who cares

[downix]

Actually, that is the whole crux of the EU arguement, Microsoft DID force people to buy Windows... in particular PC manufacturers. If you wanted ANY machines with Windows, ALL of your machines had to be Windows. You wanted any Office software, it had to be MS Office or else no Windows which means no PC's.

Amazing how people blatantly ignore this.

Re:Who cares

[Citizen of Earth]

If microsoft wants to make Internet Explorer the only app that can access the internet, that's their prerogative..

False. Governments have the right and the duty to protect the relatively free market from abusive monopolies.

Re:Who cares

[AKAImBatman]

I wondered why it's so wrong if the Microsoft OS works better with its own software?

If Microsoft had solid competition, there would be no problem. The issue as it stands is that Microsoft has a monopoly on the Operating System business. Because of that monopoly, Microsoft can crush nearly any competitor they want in other areas by ensuring that their own software works better than the competitor's software. Examples of this include:

- Windows Media Player provides a superior Windows experience than RealPlayer

- IE provided a superior browsing experience on Windows over Netscape Navigator

In both cases, Microsoft effectively wiped out those company's markets by giving the software away for free. Which meant that Real and Netscape could no longer charge for their software.

Now one can argue that Microsoft produced superior products to both company's offerings. And there would be truth to that statement. The problem is that Microsoft ensured that there will never again be competitors in either space. Microsoft effectively wiped both markets out of existence and forced consumers to accept higher costs for Windows to subsidize those markets. Even worse, there is then zero incentive for Microsoft to innovate in either market. So consumers pay higher prices when no new development is happening in those areas.

While some balance is returning to those markets thanks to Apple and Open Source, the damage done has been extremely negative for the industry, with the WMV pseudo-standard and the IE pseudo-standard locking out competing OSes for nearly a decade. From an economist's point of view, the OS, multimedia, and web-browser markets would be a lot farther along today if Microsoft had never managed a stranglehold on these markets.

Re:Who cares

[QuantumRiff]

You MUST run iTunes
Hmm.. My ipod I sync with Amarok (on ubuntu). Sure I can't download podcasts and stuff from the itunes store, but it will play any supported media on my player (mp3's).

My Fiancee has a laptop running windows 2000. Her brand new ipod nano requires version 7.4 of itunes, which won't run on windows 2000. She is doing fine using Winamp!.

Your logic is completely backwards. If i want DRM'd content from the apple store, I must use itunes, and an ipod. If I don't want to access that content, I don't! Just like if I want DRM'd content from Microsoft for a zune.

If I want to purchase MP3's legally online, I go to amazon.com, purchase the .mp3 file, and load it onto the player of my choice (including ipods)

Re:Who cares

[downix]

If Apple were to make it so that the iPod could only play Apple-only MP3's, which could only be produced from Apple-only rippers and could then only be used with Apple-only computers, you might have an arguement. But no, the iPod might need iTunes to work, but that is a cross-platform product so defeats your arguement here. Infact, Apple's made sure that the iPod is as flexible as possible, going out of their way in many ways to work with other peoples products.

Re:Who cares

[wizardforce]

nobody has to buy Windows. Even if there was no excellent free alternative, which there is.

then why is it that you need to go out of your way to get anything else than a windows pre-loaded machine? why is it that 95% of the software that is made only works in windows leaving any other OS to use WINE + the performance penalty? why is it that IE makes up over 70% of the browser market even though 1) it is the least standards compliant 2) only after IE7 did it finally have tabs/popup blocker both having been standard in other browsers. MS uses their desktop monopoly to wedge themselves into the top spot elsewhere as well. they don't compete on quality, they are simply "just there" and "good enough" to the average consumer. were the situation reversed, that is to say that if Firefox were installed by default and ingrained into the OS internals, IE would be the underdog.

Re:Who cares

[Speare]

Governments have the right and the duty to protect the relatively free market from abusive monopolies. Governments don't have rights. They have powers.

Re:Who cares

[Wordplay]

Actually, it probably does. Encouraging the sales of one product through the market share of another is only illegal when you have monopoly power. Otherwise, it's simply good software business strategy.

That's really the conflict here. The things that Microsoft does, in and of themselves, aren't heinous at the face of it, and lots of other software companies do similar things. It's only when you consider the entire snowball effect that the implications become clear.

Re:Who cares

[andy9701]

- Windows Media Player provides a superior Windows experience than RealPlayer

You make it sound like that was actually hard to do.... ;)

Re:Who cares

[Deanalator]

I will never understand why open source enthusiasts get so angry when Microsoft starts giving things away for free. Has anyone ever stopped to think that this antitrust thing is the reason windows is such an underpowered POS? Maybe this is why they aren't able to give away decent developer tools, standardized antivirus, or a decent package management system.

Mircosoft does a lot of bad things, but giving away software is not one of them. Their competitors (various open source projects) give away much higher quality code for free. Every time Microsoft tries to add a new feature, they get their asses sued off by every company that hacked in that new feature before, and are now charging ridiculous amounts of money for it.

I dislike Microsoft because they do not play well with standards bodies. I think that's lame, and they need to learn their place. On the other hand, if they actually started shipping a fully featured OS where I didn't have to pay a ton of money for all the additional bell and whistles, I would seriously consider switching to windows.

Re:Who cares

[ChrisA90278]

The rules change when you become a monopoly.

Let's use a example. I'm selling water in containers on the street corner. Some one wants to buy a bottle from me but I say No, if you want to buy my water you have to also buy a set of water glasses from me and this bag o ready mix cement too. You walk away laughing.

Now lets say I'm selling water but lets say the no one else has water for sale. I'm a mono[oly water seller. Now I bet you would buy that set of glasses and the cement.

The above is very clear cut. The real world is not but still it shows why the rules change. Being a monopoly gives a seller to much power over a buyer so most places try to place limits on mono[polies to limit their power.

Re:Who cares

[scuba0]

Mircosoft does a lot of bad things, but giving away software is not one of them.
Oh, so you think that all software that Microsoft is not charging you for is free?, it is not! Every customer that buys Windows is paying for all applications that follow with. By locking their customers in with their built-in software which is mostly in the way they are missuisng their monopoly.

Re:Who cares

[vux984]

Mircosoft does a lot of bad things, but giving away software is not one of them. Their competitors (various open source projects) give away much higher quality code for free. Every time Microsoft tries to add a new feature, they get their asses sued off by every company that hacked in that new feature before, and are now charging ridiculous amounts of money for it.

The first part is that it isn't that Microsoft gives it away for free that is the problem, its that they bundle it, make it the default, and even integrate it with the OS.

If Microsoft limited their free giveaways to software that had to be downloaded from their website and installed manually, their competitors would have a lot less to bitch about.

And the second part is that the rules CHANGE when you have a monopoly. What are perfectly acceptable business practices in a competitive market are abusive and illegal in a monopoly. In a competitive market if you don't like what a company is doing you just stop buying from them... in a monopoly you can't, so market forces cease to be effective.

Re:Who cares

[MBGMorden]

Indeed. I read that and was thinking Real would be suing Etch-a-sketch for providing a superior media experience next.

Re:Who cares

[YaroMan86]

I will never understand why open source enthusiasts get so angry when Microsoft starts giving things away for free. Has anyone ever stopped to think that this antitrust thing is the reason windows is such an underpowered POS? Maybe this is why they aren't able to give away decent developer tools, standardized antivirus, or a decent package management system.

Most FOSSies aren't pissed about giving stuff away for free, even from Microsoft. What they are pissed off about is when Microsoft virtually forces them to use it by way of shell integration. The difference between say, Windows and IE and KDE and Konquerer's integration is the fact that, in my experience, removing Konquerer is still an option, whereas there's no easy method of removing Internet Explorer. Though I still don't care for KDE. I'm probably one of the few who likes GNOME. Windows has always been a POS, even before all this anti-trust action came up. The reason they haven't released decent tools is less to do with anti-trust and less because they don't give a crap about these things. Developers Tools? They practically dominate the Windows development market with Visual Studio. It has degenrated into a nasty vendor lock-in mess I could care less for. .Net made this worse. They implemented Windows Defender for antivirus, and it is no secret that Defender can't stop viruses worth a shit. And the MS lapdog Symantec produces worse. And Microsoft has absolutely no interest in package management, unless you count MSI as such. Why? Because too many software vendors are more than happy enough to kiss Microsoft's ass and produce physical media for the vast majority of its software, making package management redundant and pointless.

Mircosoft does a lot of bad things, but giving away software is not one of them. Their competitors (various open source projects) give away much higher quality code for free. Every time Microsoft tries to add a new feature, they get their asses sued off by every company that hacked in that new feature before, and are now charging ridiculous amounts of money for it.

I agree, giving away their software isn't bad. But making it so that the software they give away becomes the only real solution is. This is why Silverlight bothers me so much. What happens if Flash becomes defunct and Silverlight takes over? I don't want any Microsoft software on *my* machine. But what if Microsoft crushes Flash with Silverlight the way they crushed Netscape with Internet Explorer. Sure, there are "alternatives" but will the average user be aware of it or even care?

I dislike Microsoft because they do not play well with standards bodies. I think that's lame, and they need to learn their place. On the other hand, if they actually started shipping a fully featured OS where I didn't have to pay a ton of money for all the additional bell and whistles, I would seriously consider switching to windows.

No, they don't play very well. Whenever they see a standard that threatens their monopoly position, they do the familiar embrace, extend, extinguish. I've seen them break way too many standards, in IE, in Visual Studio, etc. And Windows *is* fully featured except in markets where they have to abide by the anti-trust decisions. That's most of the world, unfortunately. But that's the problem is because the features integrate, from a technical perspective, where they really shouldn't. Internet Explorer, Explorer, IIS, DRM, etc. UNIX may not be perfect, but I find it wins in the kernel department thanks to the philosophy of doing only what it is *supposed* to do that's relevant to what it is. A kernel shouldn't have anything to do with the GUI, web browser, DRM, or web servers. All a kernel *should* do is manage memory and hardware and act as a messenger for the software and drivers. Though this differs from UNIX to UNIX and UNIX-like to UNIX-like. I like a monolithic kernel simply so that sen

Re:Who cares

[vux984]

Let's see you show grandma how to download a web browser when none is installed... Go on, show us! ;)

apt-get install firefox

There is even a gui for it if you prefer.

Granted windows doesn't have this. But there's absolutely no reason it couldn't.

Re:Who cares

[vux984]

And how is that different than Mac OS and all their bundled software?

Seriously? I only wrote 3 short paragraphs. You couldn't make it all the way through? Heres part of paragraph number 3:

"... the rules CHANGE when you have a monopoly. What are perfectly acceptable business practices in a competitive market are abusive and illegal in a monopoly...."

The difference between Mac OS and Windows is that Windows has been found to be a monopoly; and Microsoft has been convicted of abusing that monopoly. Mac OS isn't, and Apple hasn't.

See the difference?

Hint: Its not about -what- they do. Its about how what they do affects the market. Apple, by not having a monopoly, has more freedom to use different business practices because its unable to utterly distort and abuse the market. Microsoft, by contrast, has less freedom to use those same business practices because when they do use them it does utterly distort and abuse the market.

Re:Who cares

[AKAImBatman]

Except that WMP was included in windows many years before Real was ever founded.

Congratulations, you've been suckered by Microsoft's intentionally confusing naming scheme. To give you an idea of the grave error you have just committed, a good comparison would be to point at FileMan from Windows 3.1 and say that Microsoft has had a web browser FOREVER. Just as Windows Explorer != Internet Explorer, Media Player != Windows Media Player. In fact, WMP was predated by ActiveMovie, Microsoft's first real attempt at streaming video playback.

Netscape was the first to give away their browser.

What is it with Slashdotters and bad history today? Is this "make up history as we go" day and someone forgot to tell me? Or is it national unencyclopedia month?

Netscape gave away their browser to non-profit entities like students. Corporations had to pay to use the browser as late as 1998. In fact, I happen to have the press release right here that made Navigator a free product:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (January 22, 1998) -- In addition, the company is making its currently available Netscape Navigator and Communicator Standard Edition 4.0 software products immediately free for all users. With this action, Netscape makes it easier than ever for individuals at home, at school or at work to choose the world's most popular Internet client software as their preferred interface to the Internet.

Real's offerings just SUCKED

And if you had actually read my post, you'd know that it doesn't actually matter. But I will add this: Netscape, Real, Eudora, WinSock, etc. were all pioneers of the Internet age. No one had given them roadmaps to follow, so they pretty much had to make it up as they went along. (And keep in mind that these companies were born in the fires of Unix, not Windows.) Microsoft was able to swoop in and provide a better experience by way of bundling their product. They were able to learn from all the mistakes of their predecessors, then use their market power to CRUSH them.

Even worse? Microsoft didn't write Internet Explorer. They obtained the source code to a competitor of Netscape's called "Spyglass". Their deal with Spyglass was that Spyglass would get a tiny sum up front in exchange for long-term royalties. Of course, Microsoft gave Internet Explorer away, so they refused to pay Spyglass any royalties. How's that for anti-competitive behavior?

Re:Who cares

[scuba0]

It is all in the total cost, you cannot ignore the total price tag for one product. Yes the mints are included in every paying bill, the same as rents, supplies etc. The problem is not MS having their own software but rather that they use their money and software to lock consumers in and developers out.

Re:Who cares

[cyber-vandal]

That's what happens to convicted criminals - they have to abide by much harsher rules than decent, law-abiding citizens. You have any complaints take them up with the management of MS who thought that laws didn't apply to their company.

Re:Who cares

[GaryPatterson]

You kids! We bought browsers in boxes at the software store in the olden days.

But what's wrong with pre-installing a bunch of browsers, or letting vendors decide?

Re:Who cares

[redxxx]

start>run cmd ok ftp ftp-mozilla.netscape.com anonymous binary get "/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.0b4/win32/en-US/Firefox Setup 3.0 Beta 4.exe" bye "Firefox Setup 3.0 Beta 4.exe" it's not quite as easy as in linux, but totally doable in widows.

Re:Who cares

[Kattspya]

Locking out develepors defeats the whole purpose of an operating system. One fixed bug is not locking out develeopers not when it's a piece of software that microsoft gives away for free.

If you had numbers supporting you i.e. that the operating system was just an insignificant part of Microsofts buissness or any rational reason why Microsoft would want to piss its market shares away. Some sort of evidence at all would be nice.

They'll do nothing

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The watchdogs have rubber teeth. So far they've done nothing and MS ignores them.

Lost causes

[pembo13]

Microsoft Outlook needs (and loads) MS Word. MS Visual Studio requires MS Office for some of the data aware components to work at all. Windows Media player often "reactivates" all on its lonesome

Re:Lost causes

[gstoddart]

Microsoft Outlook needs (and loads) MS Word. MS Visual Studio requires MS Office for some of the data aware components to work at all. Windows Media player often "reactivates" all on its lonesome

And, a surprising amount of the time after an update My Firefox and Thunderbird clients have to tell me that they're no longer the default applications and do I want to re-enable them.

For some reason, I find that rather annoying. It was my setting yesterday, just because you patched a vulnerability on Outlook, why have you made it the default application?

I believe my iTunes has occasionally had to re-assert itself as the default player for audio files on my PC.

Cheers

Re:Lost causes

[plague3106]

Microsoft Outlook needs (and loads) MS Word.

No, it doesn't.

MS Visual Studio requires MS Office for some of the data aware components to work at all.

You mean the components that are designed to get data from MS Office? The horror!

Windows Media player often "reactivates" all on its lonesome

Funny, it's never done that for me.

Re:Lost causes

[plague3106]

Well, let's see, I know 100% that Outlook in no way requires Word. It only would if you set Outlook to use Word as the email editor... but then that's an option you choose, and it's only available if Word is installed at all.

If I'm wrong about the VS "data aware" controls, tell me exactly to which controls you're refering.

Finally, I've had plenty of media players other than WMP that I had set as default, and I never had XP or so far Vista randomly "reset" them. So you're either making it up, or maybe there's something else going on, like group policy making the change.

Re:Lost causes

[maeltor]

He's right. It doesnt REQUIRE it at all, it just happens to be installed with WORD as the default editor when Outlook is installed with Office, For example, look at SBS 2003. You get Outlook 2003 w/ Exchange when you buy SBS. It doesn't include Office and doesn't need it when installed.

Re:Lost causes

[Richard_at_work]

Just to add to your comment -

I run several XP systems, all with Firefox set as the default - none have ever had their default setting removed, and they are all kept up to date with patches.

Installing Office does add extra functionality to Visual Studio (or at least certain versions) - it adds the Office data components, which are not shipped with Visual Studio. Or you could just download the Office SDK which includes them.

Outlook uses the Word HTML engine to display messages, but it comes with it included - you can install Outlook standalone with no issues (and you can even buy it standalone).

I can't see one thing the GP has said which I couldn't classify as FUD from experience with the products involved.

Re:Lost causes

[zachdms]

I'll stick my neck out here.

I wrote most of that code. There's no mechanism by which it could reactivate. Hit me up at zachdms at hotmail dotty com and I'll walk through whatever you think you're seeing.

Most third party players have tended to be a little lackadaisical when it comes to file association implementations. This is one of the big reasons why the new (easy) Vista file association interfaces (Set Default Programs) are so great. Ask your favorite application to support it if they don't already. I've supplied the basics to a number of third party vendors (WinAMP, VLC, MPC-via-CCCP) to get them up and running on this.

Due date

[Dr. Eggman]

Windows 7 is due sometime around 2010. Which means it will be released around 2012, and may or may not have any relationship to the coming of the Apocalypse and/or the end of 13th b'ak'tun cycle.

Proceed with modding down; it was worth it!

VISTA is Windows V.6x???

[starglider29a]

Wake me when it hits version 6.61x!!! That would only leave us a month of monthly builds until The Prophecy is fulfilled!~

I know....

[iknownuttin]

Anyone have any forecast about the state of the OS market come 2010?

It'll be the Year of the Linux Desktop (tm).

Why is Apple Any Better, By These Standards?

[roadkill_cr]

"it's looking at whether Windows 7 favors Microsoft apps over third party programs"

Doesn't Apple very heavily lean towards Apple software?

(This isn't starting flaming, this is a legitimate question - what separates Apple from Microsoft in these regards?)

Re:Why is Apple Any Better, By These Standards?

[644bd346996]

Apple sells and bundles a lot of applications, but it is really easy to switch to a third party app, and your preferences are honored. For example, if you set a mozilla-based browser as the default, you will never end up with Safari opening up, and the only time Webkit will get used is in the help system or generating a preview in the Finder. (Granted, on windows, it's pretty much the same, except that it is not uncommon for apps to launch IE even when Firefox is the default.)

In some cases, it seems that Apple has made it too easy for third party apps to become the default. Stuffit in particular is almost viral in the way it claims all compressed files as it's own. I'd prefer the OS to ask me for confirmation before letting Stuffit rape my prefs just because I want to use a piece of legacy software in a .sit archive.

Perhaps one of the benefits of Apple's approach is that the underlying frameworks are far more separated from the front-end applications. Services like Quicktime and Webkit are usable by all apps, with relatively few undocumented APIs. Those frameworks are also more extendable, which makes for better interoperability. (eg. there are free Quicktime components that add oog support to all applications that use QT, even iTunes.) Webkit is open-source, so if you fix a rendering bug or download a nightly with a new feature, all applications can take advantage of that (even the proprietary apps).

Re:Why is Apple Any Better, By These Standards?

[maxume]

It looks to me that the biggest difference is that they are treated like a hardware vendor, whereas Microsoft is treated as an operating system vendor. So Apple is competing with Dell, and just happens to write lots of the software that they include with their systems.

If(when?) things reach the point where Apple hardware comprises a significant portion of the overall installed base, you will see people claiming that any OS upgrades that they sell separately from hardware need to be subjected to antitrust regulation.

Forcing IE

[diodeus]

"For instance, it eliminates several browser overrides where Vista ignored users' default preferences and automatically launched Explorer."

Yup, just try clicking on a link in a Messenger conversation with or without Vista. You get IE, like it or not.

Re:Forcing IE

[Thaelon]

Likely this is just because a lazy programmer hardcoded it to run IE, rather than going through the proper API to figure out the user's browser preference and launch that.

Not a very nice thing to do? Sure. Intentionally malicious? Probably not.

You'd be right if the software didn't get delivered that way.

For that to happen it means it has to get written that way by a lazy programmer. Then it has to (presumably) pass QA like that.

So not only is it getting written, but it's getting QA'd. Sure there's still wiggle room for it to accidentally slip by, but compare the chances of that "slipping by" to the chances of a hard-coded Firefox call to slip by.

Re:Forcing IE

[SEMW]

FYI: In any .NET application, you click an URL, IE is used. This is regardless if you have FF (or what have you) set as the default browser. Bollocks. Counterexample: I've just tried opening a URL from the About box in Paint.NET (the only obviously .NET program I have that I can think of at the moment), and it opened in my default browser (Opera, FYI).

Did you actually mean "One particular application I have does this, and it happens to be .NET, so I'm going to assume with little justification that it's a general feature of the programming framework rather than the particular program"?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:this is total BS

[psychodelicacy]

I sort of agree with you, except that t seems to me that most places you buy computers sell them with Microsoft software pre-installed. (Unless they're selling Macs, obv.) So a) the average computer user thinks that Windows is the best option (otherwise why would computer manufacturers always ship with it), b) the average computer user gets used to using Windows, and c) the average computer user pays extra for their system because they think they need Windows with it.

If computers were sold without an OS, and the customer given the choice of buying Windows or having a Linux distro on a free CD, especially if they were buying from one of these places that'll come to your house and set it all up for you, I think Linux would be doing much better. And the consumers would get a better deal.

Re:this is total BS

[psychodelicacy]

I guess the difference is that McDonalds and Coca Cola's products haven't become almost-essential tools for a wide variety of people. I'd have trouble getting a job if I didn't know how to use a computer, and so would a vast number of other people. Knowing the difference between a Big Mac and a Bacon Cheeseburger is less likely to be a feature of my CV. Using a computer is a priority for people, so Microsoft not only has a massive share of the market, it also has a relatively captive audience. Because most computers come with Windows pre-installed, and because Windows is so well-known, that is what most people will use in their workplaces. This encourages them to use Windows at home, too. In contrast, the fact that there's a Coke vending machine in your office doesn't mean that you won't drink Pepsi at home - the choice of drink has no impact on your work efficiency and employability.

I don't know whether there's an answer to this. Different OSs will always work differently, and most people will learn to use the one that they will encounter more frequently. Getting employers to shift to Linux will never be easy, and until they do, employees will favour Windows as the OS to learn. Microsoft is lucky that, despite the fact that it now faces controls, it managed to manoeuvre itself into a position where people will choose Windows regardless of the fact that there are other free and more efficient options. Isn't legislating against Microsoft now like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?

Re:How about Apple?

[MightyMartian]

Because, with 10% market share, they aren't even in the same galaxy as Microsoft.

Ch-rist, but why is this such a hard concept? Or is this just Redmond's shills attacking /. with intentionally retarded sounding arguments?