Microsoft Will Ship Windows 7 in Europe With IE Unbundled

jimmi_hendrix was one of several people to note CNET's report that 'Microsoft plans to remove Internet Explorer from the versions of Windows 7 that it ships in Europe, CNET News has learned. Reacting to antitrust concerns expressed by European regulators, Microsoft plans to offer a version in Europe that has the browser removed. Computer makers would then have the option to add the browser back in, ship another browser or ship multiple browsers, according to a confidential memo that was sent to PC makers and seen by CNET News." There's also a report at Ars Technica.

Comments

Re:Damage is already done.

[icebike]

Include all popular web browsers and the uninformed are just going to click the internet explorer link.

By uninformed you mean people who disagree with you.

The cynicism is laughable

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Reacting to antitrust concerns expressed by European regulators, Microsoft plans to offer a version in Europe that has the browser removed.

But the rest of you people are totally fucked and will have to deal with what MS deigns to grant you.

Nice.

RS

Re:i still dont see the logic

[SCPRedMage]

That argument would only hold water if you could demonstrate that, without IE, the OS would cost less.

Re:Downloadability

[EvanED]

Windows doesn't have anything like wget to download the packages over the internet...

Does FTP not count as "something like wget"? Hell, you'd have your choice of CLI or GUI FTP client.

Re:I don't understand you guys...

[Ecuador]

Wow, you are serious with that CPU example? I will dare answer, although I doubt I will get through...
First of all, you are completely disregarding what an OS means. Let's take the Wikipedia definition: "an interface between hardware and user". An OS is definitely not hardware, so I would say bundling CPU's would be an obvious attempt at abusing your market position in OS's. However, a browser is indeed an interface between hardware (the network) and the user. You could compare it to a telnet program, an ftp program or more loosely to firewall software, file managers, image viewers etc. A question is where is the line drawn between OS and applications (I trust we have now moved past your silly CPU example). I would say that the OS should enable the very basic functionality that a modern user would expect. I would say that viewing an image, writing a text file, accessing the internet are examples of very basic functionality. "Accessing the internet" right now means a browser. Would it be ok if MS only bundled an FTP client? They would still be "destroying" the "FTP client market", however right now a browser is the most basic internet application and that is what should be included in an OS. I don't expect to have to find a CD to install a browser, IE is fine for downloading a decent browser. Ok, you can say then that it is a security risk and that browsing porn on an unpatched IE could get you into trouble, but I would counter that people who get hit that way, are also vulnerable to the countless other attack vectors available to malware writers for Windows systems.
In the end, removing IE from Windows adds an inconvenience to Windows, and I think that is the main reason that this is considered "good news" here. Yeah, I have my nice SUSE desktop and I don't care whether Windows users can surf out of the box or not, however I that is no reason for finding this good.