Slashdot Mirror
Windows RT Browser Restrictions Draw Antitrust Attention
An anonymous reader writes "Last week we heard complaints from Mozilla that Windows RT would restrict users' choice in web browsers, unfairly favoring Internet Explorer over alternatives like Firefox and Chrome. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the situation is now on the Senate Judiciary Committee's radar, and they will look into claims that Microsoft is engaging in anti-competitive behavior. That said, it could be a difficult case to make, since Windows RT is destined for ARM-based tablets, and Apple currently dominates that market. 'When it comes to proving abuse of monopoly power, an important question is determining the market in which a monopolist has power — the relevant market, in antitrust legal terms. In the [late '90s] DOJ case, U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's findings of fact concluded Microsoft had a monopoly in the market for "Intel-compatible PC operating systems." Windows on ARM doesn't run on x86 chips, so by Jackson's standards, Windows RT hasn't been judged to be part of Microsoft's monopoly.' Microsoft addressed some of these issues in a blog post in February."
"There' is no tablet market. There is only an iPad market" say the fans and Apple gets away with not only bundling Safari but banning all other browser engines. Yet Microsoft with it's 0.1% share of tablets in the "Post-PC world" gets flogged for this.
This space for rent.
So why isn't Apple under the same type of scrutiny?
On the tablet note:
I've already said screw Kindle Fire.
It's rather obvious I'm a burned former Apple guy and wouldn't consider an iAnything.
So what I really want one of these.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I've always wondered why they had to narrow their definition of "Personal Computer" to "Intel compatible". It turns out that Apple's 3-4% market share at the time still would have put them in the 90% category which most define as monopoly. Were they afraid that without narrowing the definition that something might spoil the case?
At any rate, MS wasn't nearly as bad for OS competition as Linux was. At the time, BeOS was selling for $50. Linux created the expectation that Intel compatible alternatives to MS would be free. BeOS never had a chance--against Linux. MS created opportunity, and they never dumped product at zero retail. Unfortunately, commies get around anti-trust by not formally organizing as for-profit corporations. Then when they squeeze everything out of the market, they'll jack up the price just like a corporation does. Mark my words.
How many times do we have to go through this? No, Microsoft, you don't get to dictate what programs I will use.
I don't think the fact Apple doesn't allow this kind of thing matters. Apple has a very clear differentiation of products. The desktops/laptops run a different OS from the iPads. I'm going to ignore the "Apple shouldn't be able to do this" argument, which I don't really disagree with. The fact is that's status quo.
With Windows 8, all tablets get the same interface and run the same software. The difference is that, based on something esoteric to the population at large (the architecture of the CPU), you lose the ability to load some kinds of software. Not because that software wasn't ported, but because it can't be ported without being severely crippled. What this means is that when someone buys a tablet from BestBuy, they may or may not be able to run the software they expect. Some Windows 8 software runs on everything, some Windows 8 software doesn't. What's the lesson? That FireFox thing doesn't always work. Just use the built in stuff or you'll have problems.
If MS was clearly positioning the ARM tablets as something different from the non-ARM tablets, that would be different. They may call it "Windows RT", but when two tablets are in the store next to each other, looking identical, running identical interfaces, I think it's fair to say they're the same. Duck typing for tablets. Since I'd expect ARM tablets to really take off due to cost and efficiency, this certainly seems like a round about way to force people to use IE.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
For enough money, the problem will go away, as the Senators find their priorities become redirected into more important endeavors.
Like investigating why Obama didn't fake his birth certificate.
The chain's going to go more like this:
Whether Microsoft has a monopoly in ARM-based tablets or not is irrelevant. It has a monopoly in the desktop and business-network market, and it's using that monopoly to gain advantages in the ARM-based phone/tablet OS and browser markets.
Please remind me what Apple's stance on browsers for their iDevices is.
Right...
What's Apple's share again? At least 90%, you say?
Right...
What's Microsoft's share? 0% in ARM tablets?
Right...
But Apple hasn't done this before! What? They kept certain OS functions reserved for Safari?
And Microsoft gets flak for disallowing other browsers in desktop mode? How often is an ARM tablet user going to use desktop IE? Other browsers are still allowed on the store, so it's not a case of locking other browsers out.
Monopoly: Good or Bad?
If good, why anti-trust?
If bad, why patents, copyright, central banking?
Or maybe neither and government should get just get out of the "picking losers and winners" business.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
So why is Microsoft still calling it "Windows"?
Apple doesn't call its OS for iPad/iPhone/etc. "OSX" anything, even though that's what it's derived from. It calls it "iOS."
So can't Microsoft pick another name for this thing, just to eliminate confusion? Like, say, call it "Metro OS," after the visual style it uses?
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Am I the only one who thought of Windows RG upon seeing the headline?
http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/WinRG2.htm
"Windows RT" will be a failure, just like every other non-x86 Windows to date. Why does anyone care about a miniscule OS that's going to stay miniscule?
No monopoly on browsers doesn't necessarily mean no monopoly on browser engines. One can't sell a competing browser engine on these platforms, not even if it is demonstrated that Microsoft and Apple have been falling behind on implementing useful HTML5 features in the respective engines of Internet Explorer and Safari. Or in what way are browser engines exempt from competition law?
So how should a developer write a web browser that allows users to view sites that use a feature of HTML that the latest version of WebKit does not implement? One such feature is the HTML Media Capture.
The chain's going to go more like this:
Whether Microsoft has a monopoly in ARM-based tablets or not is irrelevant. It has a monopoly in the desktop and business-network market, and it's using that monopoly to gain advantages in the ARM-based phone/tablet OS and browser markets.
You hit the nail on the head. Some Apple posting fans here do not see the train coming. You can bet that the corporate market is the real target and to force that market away from Firefox and Chrome is an obvious goal of Microsoft. You can bet that all the remote access features that Microsoft peddles to the business market will require signed device access with Internet Explorer only. And who can blame businesses for requiring that employees only use a secured private system.
Within 4 years you are going to see the beginning of the end of systems like Citrix and Microsoft will take over and dominate all business communication. Hell even IBM has given up on POS systems and thrown in the towel. Since the end of the antitrust era against Microsoft, the stranglehold that Microsoft has established on business has only increased. Halting the trend toward the corporate use of Ipad for remote access usage to servers is the next target for Redmond and this completely explains what they are doing with Windows 8 and RT.
app store censorship is an issue and with the lock in is a even bigger one.
and censorship can be API locks and saying you can't compete with a build in app.
no emulations is censorship as well.
Also adult games / apps should be in the store even if they a hidden in away where you have to go to the adult room.
Now the 30% cut along with the 30% cut of in app purchase may be antitrust as well.
What do you mean by a "general purpose tablet"?
A computing device is a general-purpose computer if it allows the input and testing of computer programs developed by the owner of the device* that make use of all the computer's peripherals. A video game console is not a general-purpose computer under this definition, nor is an iOS device alone. An iOS device paired to a Mac is a general-purpose computer as long as the owner keeps the developer certificate paid up. Once the certificate expires, the device is no longer general-purpose.
* I refer to the individual or organization that has purchased the device for use, as opposed to its manufacturer.
That one's easy:
1. Window RT tablets - Zero market share, so "obviously not tied to a particular market", such as "people who want a tablet."
2. The Win8 Metro UI in all its clunkiness, to guarantee that #1 (above) stays true.
3. Steve Ballmer, to guarantee more bloopers like #1 and #2 (above).
Hey, any tablet manufacturer that wants to get Nokia Disease is free to waste their time developing the tablet equivalent of a Zune ...
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Look at the windows 8 app store as well same BROWSER lock in for windows metro
Windows RT is OEM only. It does not run on generic computers such as ARM workstations or rooted Android tablets. The only way for an end user to obtain Windows RT is preinstalled on a device that is cryptographically locked (using UEFI Secure Boot with custom mode forbidden) to run only Windows RT.
This is incredibly insightful.
If they allow other browsers on IOS, then that might allow stuff like flash etc.
If they allow stuff like flash, then people might be able to use flash-apps and games
If people can use flash apps and games... then Apple won't be able to take a cut of the revenue...
I am not being anti-Microsoft here, but more to the point, if Microsoft is investigated for this issue, then Microsoft will easily also point the finger at Apple already doing this. Once that happens, both Microsoft AND Apple will get yelled at for it, but since Windows 8 is not released yet, Microsoft can get away with only a warning, while Apple may get a huge fine.
The U.S government needs to stay the hell out of this and maybe deal with real issues in this country like the TSA, wars, 17 trillion debt, police brutality, privacy and rights going down the drain, banks defrauding this country, regulations and red tape slowly destroying small businesses. First of all, Microsoft does not charge anybody for developing on the their previous and current operating systems, so it is a privilege to run your app on their OS. Developers need to stop crying and bitching because Microsoft likes to use their own apps over 3rd party. If you don't like Microsoft's decision how the OS(software like IE pre-installed) will be rolled out maybe you should hire or gather with other developers online and create your own operating system to compete against MS. OH wait, there is linux, there is Solaris 11, there is OS X, there is FreeBSD. STOP CRYING!!! If Microsoft distance themselves away from 3rd party app developers, Eventually, people will move away from Microsoft's OS and to Linux or whatever is out there and surely Microsoft will implode. Let the Free Market(which is the consumer) decide.
Browsers can be restricted for security reasons.
But what about Microsoft's special treatment for MS Office on the ARM desktop?
I could see Libre Office folks having a real beef with that kind of special treatment.
But it is probably more likely they couldn't be bothered with such a tiny market as Win8ARM desktop.
Is there an app for the task of learning computer science by developing and testing programs?
The market where Microsoft has monopoly is not just "desktop operating systems" but also "operating systems for general-purpose interactive computer devices". Even counting existing tablets as "general-purpose", what is a stretch for things like iPad, Microsoft is still a monopoly due to overwhelming numbers of PCs. Windows 8 for ARM is firmly in that category. It's marketed as the same Windows, just for smaller devices (just like Windows CE was, except then it was a lie, and now it mostly is not).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
First, I have better apps to develop than a web browser
The limitation I speak of (no HTML Media Capture) means that if your "better app to develop" needs a camera or a microphone, such as a barcode scanner or a voice or video chat application, you cannot develop it as a web application and expect it to work on a device running iOS. How would this have meshed with Apple's goal throughout the iOS 1 series of having all third-party applications be web applications?
You seem to have an acute and chronic version of this:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/07/25/1757253/linus-calls-microsoft-hatred-a-disease
This space for rent.
Same as existing platforms with a walled garden - developer license permits you to sideload apps [...] See here for details.
The page you mentioned doesn't mention payment. As I understand that page, anyone can run the Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration cmdlet without having to pay Microsoft. In such a case, it's almost the same as turning on "Unknown sources" in Android. Or does the "dialog box from which you can acquire a developer license and install it on the local machine" require a payment method? I don't have a spare machine on which to install Windows 8 Consumer Preview, nor the time to download tens of gigabytes, so I can't try it myself.
As I understand that page, anyone can run the Show-WindowsDeveloperLicenseRegistration cmdlet without having to pay Microsoft. In such a case, it's almost the same as turning on "Unknown sources" in Android. Or does the "dialog box from which you can acquire a developer license and install it on the local machine" require a payment method?
It does require a Live ID, but no payment. Here is what it looks like (VS automatically invokes this when you try to run a Metro app from it).
It's different from "Unknown sources" on Android in that it expires regularly, so you have to re-apply for it every now and then. For Consumer Preview, at least, the term seems to be one month in practice - though MSDN says that it would be longer if one has a Store account, as well (I don't).
The other difference is the terms of the license - it says "you may use the developer license only for the purpose of developing, testing and evaluating apps". Of course, "evaluating" is quite a catch-all, so I don't know if the difference is meaningful in practice.
Then I must be doing something right, if I manage to p*** off both sides, because others have accused me of the exact opposite, even to being a shill for Microsoft, because I've called most linux distros crapware because they all eventually become exactly that - a load of crap. Just like I have no problem saying that RMS is a disgusting misogynist who has done more harm than good over the last decade, and we either distance ourselves from him and his ilk, or we reap the consequences.
Microsoft's Metro is no better - it (and Win8, judging from the last preview - which I tried ... did you??) is also crap, with no features that will ultimately redeem it.
I agree with Torvalds - technical merit over politics - which is ironic, because linux nowadays bears a strong resemblance to kludgeware.
After ~15 years, I've given up on ever seeing a linux distro that will be "good enough" for the masses for daily use. It's not going to happen, because of three things:
1. The "RTFM" + GPL quasi-religious zeolotry + "I want it for nothing" attitude of linux users;
2. The GPL itself - one of the reasons the underpinnings of the #1 desktop unix is FreeBSD (Apple) and not linux - who needs the hassles?;
3. Forking - there are too many forking forks. We're seeing the same thing happening with Android, and when Google tries to control it by saying they're delaying release of the source because they want to get a stable API and reduce forking, the self-anointed GPL crusaders go nutzo.
You can't even GIVE AWAY linux. I know - I've tried. Eventually it always end up being wiped, because it doesn't do the job. Even I had to give up after first Opensuse, the Fedora, Slackware, Debian and a whole slew of other distros all crapped out. Reduced to booting with Knoppix + a hard drive memory overlay for persistent data, I said "screw this" and dug out my old copy of XP. The machine works faster than it has in years, my linux-compatible color laser printer (says so on the box, even though it was mostly "it'll work until an update kills it, then not work until I switch distros, until the next distro update kills it") actually works consistently, and while I *hate* OSX, I can see my next computer probably being a mac, because I want something that works - not something that breaks something every update, lacks a ton of software, and generally sucks.
So now I tell people - for home and personal use, just get a mac. For servers, install freebsd because you'll be able to run the same server 10 years from now, no hassles, no breaking on updates, even if you go 5 years or more between updates and skip multiple major revisions. Been there, done that, got the "what do you mean you shelled into the production server and upgraded it - that's impossible, there's a BIOS bug that will make it hang on reboot and it's 500 miles each way to pick it up and fix it" speech, to which I responded "I did the upgrades manually, it's been working fine for a week, just like the local one I tested everything on has been working fine" - and which is, sad to say from too many minor upgrades crapping themselves, impossible with linux.
Linux? For hobbyists, or a back end if you can hide it with something like Android. The computing world would have been better off if BSD adoption hadn't been stalled for 2 years because of the AT&T lawsuit - we'd all be writing on BSD machines, and the latest Windows would be a shell running atop *nix.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
SecureBoot needs to be implemented, there is nothing anywhere to say it can't be turned off
The article linked from this Slashdot story states otherwise.
tablet makers could always ship non-certified devices but that's less likely.
How so without a copyright infringement? As I understand it, no certification, no Windows license.
Microsoft pulls some minor crap with web browsers, and they take notice. Yet, when a system is put in place which will make it difficult for someone to choose an alternate operating system, the government doesn't care. WTF? Microsoft's monopoly is based upon Operating Systems.
I didn't realize you wanted to have backwards compatibility to iOS 1.
I didn't mean backward compatibility to iOS 1 literally, just compatibility with the mentality that drove iOS 1. I remember Apple's original plan was to have only web apps, and had Apple stuck with this plan, I wonder how a barcode scanner app or an app like Instagram would have worked.
You can do Media Capture, perhaps not in a web application, but you can add web capabilities to your app
In other words, anyone who wants to add the equivalent of Media Capture to an app has to pay $649 plus $99 per year for the iOS devkit.
So how does one integrate "some fucking media capture program" with the web application so that the web application can call "some fucking media capture program" and get results back from it?
If you want to sell your app in iTunes, you have to pay the $99 per year, so that is irrelevant.
If it's a web application, you don't need to sell it in iTunes. I apologize for not making an effort to clarify this difference earlier.
Is your $649 supposed to be the min you can spend on iHardware (because it's not)?
Apple charges $599 for a new Mac mini. I estimate $50 for the KVM switch and other cables needed to hook it up as your second computer.
Why won't Microsoft port .NET to the Mac.
A copy of Windows Home Premium (retail) to run in VirtualBox on your existing Mac is $150. A copy of Mac OS X to run alongside your existing Windows machine is $600 plus a KVM.
Why won't Microsoft port .NET to the Mac.
For one thing, the Silverlight browser plug-in is ported, and for another, Mono exists.
Monopoly! Unfair!
Next to nobody cares about Windows Phone 7, at least compared to iOS.
In the US it's legal to have monopolies as long as they're not "damaging". In the EU it's illegal to have a monopoly regardless, they're always damaging according to our law. Two fundamentally different approaches.