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EU Could Force Bundling Firefox With Windows
Barence writes "The European Commission could force Microsoft to bundle Firefox with future versions of Windows. The revelation came as part of Microsoft's quarterly filing with the Security and Exchange Commission. Among the statements is a clause outlining the penalties being considered by the European watchdog, which recently ruled that Microsoft is harming competition by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. The most interesting situation outlined in the filing would see either Microsoft or computer manufacturers forced to install Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari by default alongside Internet Explorer on new Windows-based PCs."
there is nothing to get amazed. KDE, Gnome any other distro that bundles a single browser to their product will probably be asked to bundle more.
this is not an 'equality' matter. this is a matter of monopoly. microsoft is almost a practical monopoly in the market. therefore, anittrust laws apply to it. if linux had the same place, and had a virtual monopoly, they would go after it first.
antitrust laws are not fair. they are not supposed to be fair. they should not be fair. they are equalizing moves that are used to whack down on the biggest shareholder in a market if they do anything wrong, illegal, or unethical. any corporation that is vying for the top market positions has to make peace with that fact, and get its act together. microsoft didnt. it doesnt have an affinity for coherent, orderly, ethical conduct.
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From my understanding Windows is fully integrated with IE. Meaning removing IE would require a huge reworking to windows.
All they really need to do is remove the executable. While the executable is little more than a wrapper for the HTML rendering library and most of the code that makes IE what it is is in this library, they could remove the executable, and probably satisfy the EU (and Opera for that matter). Microsoft like to fudge the issue by suggesting that any library that IE uses is part of IE, but really that's just to suggest it's more tightly integrated with the OS than it actually is.
Why is the EU so hooked up on what browser is being used? Why not e.g. the productivity tools being bundled, or the kind of media center/player to play videos and music?
First, the EU already convicted them for the bundling of their media player. Second, the media player market is horribly broken anyway because of certain cartels and forcing MS to change will make less of a difference especially with Apple leveraging their near monopoly to promote a different player.
With the Web however you have just Microsoft as the stumbling block preventing fair competition. You have an open and shut case with fairly straightforward remedies available. You have a complaint from effected competitors. You have already discovered evidence of MS's intent to maliciously break the market. It is an ideal market to fix and actually help both other companies and the people in general.
The linked article is rather sensationalized, the summary even more so
Here's the actual text. It's from Microsoft's own SEC filings, in the "Contingencies" section of the notes, not from the EU - this is Microsoft's opinion of what the European Commission might require, not something from the Comission itsself.
Note, in particular, no mention of specific other browsers.
...or am I missing something?
*sigh*
This tired argument is brought up every time a Microsoft anti-trust article is posted. The difference is that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. It is not bundling a browser with your OS that is illegal--it is abusing your monopoly in one domain to hamper competition in another domain that is illegal.
Microsoft had/has a near-monopoly in the OS market. They were accused of abusing that monopoly to hamper competition in other markets (e.g. web browsers, media players). They were found guilty of those actions in multiple jurisdictions (US, EU, ...). That is why action is being taken against them.
If Apple were to do the same thing (abuse their monopoly in one market to hamper competition in another), they would be subject to the same laws. (And indeed the EU has launched antitrust probes into iTunes...)
A monopoly means there is only one option
No, a monopoly means market dominance, to a level decided by a court. 90% market share, for example, could be considered a monopoly (for legal reasons). It doesn't mean there's no one else in the market, just extreme dominance.
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By forcing the users to make a choice, it allows Opera to attempt to sway users to choose them.
They already have to pick between IE and Telnet:80 . Exactly how many options does Microsoft have to provide for people to sort through before they magically decide they want to download Opera?
That's not the point. Microsoft didn't create its own browser and let it "win" on its own merit. It bundled it and abused its monopoly power, thereby breaking the law.
But they broke the law, which means that rights will be taken away. It is illegal to tie products from different pre-existing markets with products from a monopolized market. Thus, bundling IE with windows is against the law.
No, not if OEMs preinstall a browser.
False. It's about the fact that MS broke the law. Please pay attention.
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