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EU Accepts Microsoft's Browser Choice Promise
itwbennett writes "Hurrah! The European Commission's antitrust investigation of Microsoft's position in the browser market is over. The EC has accepted Microsoft's commitment to offer users of 'Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 a choice screen through which they can pick the browsers they want to install on their PC,' writes Peter Sayer in an article on ITworld. 'The screen will be offered to users in the European Union and some neighboring countries for the next five years via the Windows Update mechanism. In addition, PC manufacturers will be allowed to ship computers with competing Web browsers, as well as or instead of Internet Explorer.'"
so this is a remedy for future anti-competitive concerns. How does this address past anti-competitive behaviour?
It sounds a little like "Microsoft murdered people. Microsoft enters into a legally binding agreement not to murder for the next 5 years."
SURELY NOT!!!!!
I sure hope the EU now forces APPLE to do the very same thing because Apple is far more controlling and "locked in" then Microsoft ever was.
Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, IE are on my Virtual Windows Test Area. I can say to my clients, "My product to you is '5 Browser Safe';" With apologies to Mr. Asimov. I don't fully appreciate the "Use Only One Browser Rule". So I don't agree why people don't occasionally check other browsers out. Personal Computers are very flexible these days. And the Browsers I mentioned above all play friendly with each other. But then again, Soccer Mom, and Baseball Dad, IMHO, will never go to Stockholm to collect a prize.
It's also a shame that m$ has to choose names for its products such that they can get a better ranking by using their name on Google, than by their usefulness.
And as usual you answer the part why Apple isn't forced to do this and omit the part why this just applies to IE and WMP and not the many other apps shipped with windows.
It applies to all applications and any other product for which there is a pre-existing separate market. It is usually only enforced, however, if it is causing significant problems for the government or in response to one or more complaints or civil suits from competitors in those other markets. Most companies in the, past upon coming close to monopoly influence in one market, break out that product into a separate divisions of the company with separate sales teams just to make sure they don't have any legal liability. If MS were a normal company interested in obeying the law instead of committing crime as a business model they would have broken the application and OS divisions apart years ago and sold app bundles to OEMs separate from Windows. Notepad and Outlook are very likely distributed in violation of the law, but no one has bothered to prosecute them for that yet.