The big deal is that WMP is the thin end of the wedge. If everybody uses WMP then the next step is Plays for Sure. Once we all use the Microsoft DRM standard, we all need MS compatible music players. We would tend to buy music from Microsoft compatible music vendors.
With WMP bundled, this scenario is more likely than if they have to fight it out on features and quality with iTunes, Sony and all the other stores out there. Their monopoly gives them a competitive advantage over the other players in the market.
I installed SP2 on my reasonably fast (Athlon 2600/512MB Ram) PC and found it was dramatically slower. Startup times for applications like MS Office were particularly bad. One basic powerpoint with 20 slides took a minute and a half to open and show thumbnails. I removed SP2 and the same ppt only took five seconds to open.
I don't like running my system without up-to-date patches, but I won't accept that kind of performance hit.
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The big deal is that WMP is the thin end of the wedge. If everybody uses WMP then the next step is Plays for Sure. Once we all use the Microsoft DRM standard, we all need MS compatible music players. We would tend to buy music from Microsoft compatible music vendors. With WMP bundled, this scenario is more likely than if they have to fight it out on features and quality with iTunes, Sony and all the other stores out there. Their monopoly gives them a competitive advantage over the other players in the market.
I installed SP2 on my reasonably fast (Athlon 2600/512MB Ram) PC and found it was dramatically slower. Startup times for applications like MS Office were particularly bad. One basic powerpoint with 20 slides took a minute and a half to open and show thumbnails. I removed SP2 and the same ppt only took five seconds to open. I don't like running my system without up-to-date patches, but I won't accept that kind of performance hit.