Russia Launches Anti-trust Probe of Microsoft

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Russia's state anti-monopoly service said on Thursday it had launched a probe of Microsoft over cutbacks in supplies of its Windows XP operating system in Russia. The agency said it thought Microsoft had violated antimonopoly legislation by cutting delivery of Windows XP operating system to Russia both separately and pre-installed on personal computers, as well as in its pricing policy on the product. It said it would consider the case on July 24, 2009."

Comments

Re:Anti-monopoly?

[wjh31]

because you can only afford to EOL a still very popular product when you are near-monopolistic enough to be able to force people to buy the more expensive alternative.

Re:This actually sounds reasonable.

[sweatyboatman]

1. software is very different from car parts. a better metaphor would be Coke and New Coke.

XP may be a 9 year old OS, but to many people it's a better OS than Vista. Vista is New Coke. The Coca-Cola company tried to insist on selling New Coke exclusively, but they alienated their existing customers. They went back to the original formula because New Coke was driving away customers to Pepsi and other competitors.

If Coke was the only kind of soda, then we'd all be drinking New Coke today. Regardless of whether it was wanted by customers.

That's what Microsoft did with Vista. Except there's no "Pepsi" competitor to force them to market their more desirable product.

To answer your question, Microsoft can "get rid" of their aging product when they produce a new product that people want more than XP.