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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.
The EU is ridiculous. I sure hope they are at the very least fair with their insanity, and force Apple to remove Safari from OSX. They might as well force MS and Apple to remove their desktop search features, Instant messengers, and programming APIs.
Hell why not force Microsoft to unbundle NTFS and to use non Microsoft file systems.
Why even let microsoft even write an OS at all? Some one else may want to one day and MS stands in the way.
sigh.
Fucking EU is ridiculous sometimes.
If they were convicted monopolists, go ahead!
Thank you, another wise person who is marked as Troll.
You're right. This singles out Microsoft and lets Apple and Linux off the hook.
OSX only runs on "apple hardware" which to me screams more injustice than IE coming with windows. We all know Apple's hardware is the same shit in all of our windows pcs.
Safari is bundled...
Itunes is bundled...
Search Light is bundled...
The EU doesnt seem to care about them. Why? The answer is the REAL injustice.
Anybody familiar enough with the basics to estimate the environmental impact of seperate browser CD's?
They need to be manufactured: raw materials -> CD pressing factory
They need to make their way to retailers: factory -> retailers
They need to make their way to customers: retailers -> customers
They need to make their way to landfill/recycler: customers -> waste disposal
I would think that 100,000,000 units in europe would be a conservative estimate over a 10 year period.
"His name was James Damore."
That's the free market for you.
And to be honest, as long as it breaks people's association that the internet = the big blue "e", it'll be worth it. For as long as people think that icon IS the internet, there can be no serious competition. At least once people are aware there are different browsers, they might be easier to sway when it comes to switching to a better product.
And none of the browser makers wanted to be included either. This whole case has always been a fairly petty complaint from Netscape because they were making money out of a product Microsoft turned into a free commodity. Not so great for Netscape, but pretty damned great for consumers.
It's always been the underlying flaw with the monopoly case against Microsoft, yes Microsoft has the lion's share of the market. Yes it's very difficult for alternatives to compete. Yes Microsoft bought out or wiped out a few competitors along the way. What do you do about it? Consumers have pretty much universally failed to embrace linux, and the primary reason it's difficult to compete with Windows is because no matter how nice your OS is no one's software will run on it.
Whatever Microsoft did to get here, they're where they are now and no amount of these court cases is going to change that.
You are a fucking moron, seriously, you are a fucking moron. If you can't see what has happened, after all the 100s of articles about this exact same subject, if you can't see the importance of controlling the browser yet, then the only possible reason is that you are a fucking moron.
Mod me down all you want, this had to be said. Anyone coming here, running around asking this stupid questions, deserves to be shot down.