Abandonware sites often claim they just do it "so those games don't go into extinction". With this reason gone, there's no reason anymore for game companies to shoot with big shells their way without getting bad rep.
What good is a game no one can play? What good is a law designed to encourage producers to produce that forever makes a game unavailable to everyone? Copyrights should expire the day that a company stops selling the copyrighted material at a reasonable market price. Otherwise they are just a way to erase our artistic heritage in the quest for more money.
And while users are making an active choice to install google integrated search, how many users do you think will start up IE7 for the first time, visit google and follow the on-screen prompts to insall the google search integration - and then have no idea how to set another search client as the default?
So? What does this have to do with the issue? If users intentionally go to some company's page and then intentionally install settings from it what's the problem? Google does not have any monopolies. Even if they did, this action doesn't bundle or tie their search to any other market. Maybe you just don't understand the whole point of antitrust law and its purpose.
If anyone is being hypocritical it is Microsoft. They would not even exist except for the fact that antitrust law was enforced against IBM and now they bitch and moan every time they are caught violating it and whine about how unfair it is. Give me a break. They only have a gajillion antitrust lawyers on the payroll. They know very well they are breaking the law and all this is PR nonsense in the hope that they can convince the uneducated masses they are being persecuted for some reason. Pathetic.
Here's a tip for them: how about you stop breaking the law and make your bloody product better if you want it to take over the market?
Exactly. The economic term for this is an 'opportunity cost.' I'm sure Google would pay a ton of money to be listed as the default search engine on IE, but Microsoft decided that it's worth more to them to set their own search engine as the default, thus forgoing cash profit. As long as you have the option to override the default search engine, I don't see what the problem is.
For someone who knows what "opportunity cost" is you sure don't know much about monopolies. Let me guess, you learned it in management training, not in economics?
The issue isn't about the opportunity cost in this instance, it is about the operation of the free market. MS is a monopoly. That means they wield a huge amount of power that can be used to bypass free market forces. Firefox with their very small market share is already fighting a monopoly action that bundles IE with Windows. They have a better product, but only a tiny amount of the market. Why has the market failed to make the best product the most popular? Why do consumers put up with an inferior product? The answer is by using their monopoly MS bypassed the free market action.
Now here's an interesting point. Does MS have a monopoly on Web browsers? They have about 85% of the market, so it is a near thing. Assuming they don't, why can't they do the same thing as Firefox and sell the opportunity to themselves? The answer is because IE is bundled with Windows, where they do have a monopoly beyond any legal doubt. If MS unbundles IE and Windows then they can probably do what they want with this legally. It's an easy solution, but it sure isn't going to happen.
MS can also sell this opportunity to anyone other than themselves, because then the market would still be able to function. If they sell it to Yahoo, a lot of people will start using Yahoo's service, but that doesn't help MS take over a second market, which is what they want to do. And that ability to take over market after market using tying and bundling is why those actions are illegal.
Here's a revolutionary idea for Microsoft. If they want to win the search engine war, just make the best search engine. That's all they need to do and that is what the whole free market is all about. Whining because they aren't allowed to gain market share without making a better product just shows how broken and pathetic the system is.
I've never bought RAM from Apple. I just buy RAM with the same specs somewhere else (and avoid the really, really crappy stuff). I've used at least three different manufacturer's of RAM and never had a problem. You're right that Apple's seem to be picky about RAM, but then again a lot of Windows crashes are due to the same thing. Just buy something decent and don't worry about it.
I think Apple would have had a much better argument for their "different look and perspective" if they had used an intelligent, young, hip WOMAN for their computer insted of the grungy guy.
Of course you didn't go to school for marketing so that is just an uneducated opinion. Here's my equally uneducated opinion. If the main character in the commercial was a woman, it would reinforce for many men the image that it is a computer for artists and girlie types. That would lead them to avoid it. Conversely, women are accustomed to using products marketed at men and there is no stigma attached to it. Case and point, women will buy men's clothes and no one has an issue. Men won't buy women's clothes without the sky falling. From a marketing perspective, I suspect having a man in the commercial really was the way to go.
If Apple builds a BT client into the OS and declares it "Part of the Operating System" because it uses that to obtain its patches, how is that different from Microsoft doing it with IE?
MS wields monopoly power. It is illegal to leverage a monopoly in one market to gain in another. Thus bundling anything with Windows when a market exists for that product is illegal. This is because bundling does an end run around the benefits of the free market. Why should MS make a better or cheaper product when they can get everyone to use it even if it isn't better?
Apple does not have a monopoly on desktop OS's or computers. They have nothing to leverage. They are approaching having a monopoly on portable digital music players. If they were to bundle their bittorrent client with iPods and make all iPods require the bittorrent client then maybe you'd have a similar situation.
Apple right now can bundle or tie any products they want because they don't have a monopoly. If they bundle a bittorrent client with their OS, who cares? That doesn't force the market to use either their OS or the bittorrent client. If it sucks people will use a different one.
MS can bundle anything it wants, so long as it is not with their monopoly desktop OS. They can refuse to sell their mice without a copy of IE. They can bundle IE with Xboxes. They can bundle IE with anything but Windows. Bundling is not a problem unless it is with a monopolized product.
So what SHOULD Microsoft do? Make Google the default?
Legal options for MS include:
Remove the search entirely.
Default to any search engine they do not own.
Set no default and let users select from a predefined list.
Set no default and let the user specify in a blank field.
Require OEMs and retailers to set this option on behalf of their customers and apply no coercion to their choices including discriminatory pricing, kickbacks, etc.
Microsoft is *gasp* setting their browser to use *gasp* THEIR search engine??
AT&T is *gasp* setting their phone system to use *gasp* only phones they rent to you.
Maybe you're a little unclear on what the whole point of anti-trust law is. In both of the above it is a monopoly using that monopoly to gain an advantage in a second market, despite not having a better product. If MS *gasp* wants more people to use their search engine, they should *gasp* make it fucking better instead of trying to use their Windows OS to gain it market share.
But you're failing to recognize a key point. In this situation there are only 2 options for Microsoft:
I reject this assertion.
There is no default and the user is initially prompted. Result: most people have no idea what option they want, they just click "ok" and get Microsoft's search. The rest immediately click Google or a9 or imdb or whatever.
To be legal, users would have to have the option of clicking MSN, Google, Yahoo, and a number of other search engines, not "OK."
It defaults to Microsoft.
This is illegal.
You also failed to think of the options, there is no default and users have to type in the one they want or OEMs and/or retailers select the defualt option on behalf of their users. Both of those would be legal.
You're making the logical leap that these same users who apathetically accept Microsoft's search engine, would (given the choice) choose something else.
No, I'm saying if presented with a required choice, some would choose MSN and some would choose something else.
I'm saying, even if you did give them the option, the users who wouldn't change a default, are the same users who would either purely by random choose one of x options or leave it on the first option (Microsoft).
Random chance is better than defaulting to MS, because it gives no one an advantage. User cannot be given a default they have to change only a selection of options. If MSN is the first on the list and selected by default (without a good justification like alphabetical order) they would still be violating the law.
What do you want a large essay in the installation...
This is called a "straw-man argument" and is an example of a logical fallacy. Just a blank field where the user or OEM can and must type in a search engine to activate this feature would be fine. A list of alternatives with none selected by default and a blank field for inserting new ones would be fine too. Completely removing the feature is fine. Absolutely anything that does not give MS an unfair advantage over the competition is fine. That is not too much to ask and it is what the law requires.
Mac OSX with Intel platform is a hi-security risk because PPC was a platform no virus makers where even targetting. Now they have ability to attack macs too. No wonder that mac has a one to five known viruses right now.. when previously there where none...
Ummm, do any of the malware (most of which is proof of concept code) even work on Intel based macs? They all work on PPC based macs. The processor change is not enabling worms in any way. Worms don't propagate well, or really at all on Macs for a large number of reasons and none of them have anything to do with the processor. The only way Macs will be getting more worms because of this is because it makes running Windows in dual boot, or a VM easier.
Given BSD-based OSX on new x86 architecture, oughn't developers be able to port/write to/for both Linux & Mac together relatively easily? I mean, you're probably not writing games in Cocoa...
Sadly, not really. Many game companies (most of the big ones) do co-development with the PC now. This will save them some minor work with processor optimizations. Most companies that don't have a mac port or have greatly delayed Mac ports use DirectX for development. DirectX is a MS proprietary technology.
The main advantage this will bring is if developers rely upon a re-implementation of the Windows APIs (including DirectX). WINE is one such re-implementation. Apple supposedly has another they have not released. This would allow Windows programs, including games to run at nearly full speed under OS X (maybe faster in some cases). Also, some game companies might build upon the WINE work to make "quick and dirty" ports of their games for the Mac.
I do foresee more games being ported because of this, but not as nicely or cleanly as a real port. A lot of this may depend upon the WINE developers and what Apple releases.
So Apple has always maintained that their computers are NOT personal computers. Just don't tell a Mac zealot that their PC's are PC's because they're not. They're Macs.
Actually this nomenclature evolved from industry jargon. Macintosh personal computers were called "macs" to distinguished them from IBM-compatible personal computers, which came to be called just "PCs." Since macs weren't IBM compatible, they were considered a different grouping. This naming scheme persisted in the tech community even after Apple computers had IBM processors in them while "IBM compatible PCs" did not.
I just wonder what you call it when you take a Mac (Intel flavor) and slap Windows on it. Crap? Rotten Apple?
The name "rotten apple" was taken years ago by modders who put Intel and AMD motherboards and chips into salvaged Apple cases. It basically means an Apple that has been gutted and replaced with non-Apple hardware. It sort of applies, but not really.
I think that's a very telling statement. If it works fairly well, why change?
That is the whole point of this. MS is abusing their monopoly so that users will not choose a product but just use theirs if it is "good enough" so that they don't go out of their way to find something better. The difficulty of finding and installing something else is different depending upon the level of knowledge and expertise of the user.
In a free market, theoretically the best product wins. Consumers choose the best and/or cheapest product as they perceive it. Companies strive to make the best product. This means search engines get better and consumers have a better overall experience. This is why capitalism wins out over socialism for large groups. Competition pressures companies to make the best and cheapest.
By using their monopoly to choose for consumers, MS has bypassed that market force. They are not motivated to make a better product. Why should they? It is cheaper and easier to make a "good enough" product and bundle it with their monopoly. They've already done it with their browser. IE is insecure, fails to implement anything other than a partial set of a six year old specification for HTML and CSS, and has lagged Firefox in features like pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing for years. But it is bundled and "good enough" for most people's everyday browsing so it dominates. MS would have the same thing happen in search engines. They want to win in the market without innovating and making a better product.
So let's recap. People hate installing things. They hate choosing between things they don't understand.
People hate deciding what brand of ketchup to buy too, should MS be able to choose that for them? People don't even have to be informed. OEMs and retail stores can make the choice for them and the market will still work it out. The problem is only when MS makes the choice for people and thus others have to work to overcome that. It breaks capitalism and it is illegal for that reason. Doesn't anyone have to take Economics 101 anymore?
This whole thing sounds like a huge non-issue to me.
Yeah why should you care that they are breaking the law? Why should you care that Google who works hard to make the best product will lose money to MS because MS broke the law and foisted an inferior product upon consumers. Here's a question for you. Would you feel the same way if you came up with an innovative new product and started a company based around it and then MS came up with an inferior alternative and put you out of business? Would you care then?
so, does apple use the same key for every copy of a song? It seems like that could be easily circumvented.
I believe it was Steve Jobs who said, "Every security mechanism based upon secrecy will fail." The DRM in iTunes is a speed bump to make some things less convenient. The whole concept of DRM as a protection mechanism is flawed. You just can't give people read access to data and prevent them from copying it. Nor is that the real purpose of the DRM. The purpose is to make it hard for the average consumer to move to a new format and to motivate them to buy another copy of the same data in the future.
You can download a little program to strip off the DRM from many foreign sites. Of course you can always burn a CD of the data too. You can also play it and rip the music going to the sound card with another program. You can also plug your speaker jack into a digital recorder. The encryption is just a way to make it less convenient not a real protection.
When did I say anything about antitrust law or monopolies?
You responded to a post arguing the definition of a monopoly and saying Google was not one. You then compared the examples given as to why (search services) to other OS's. If your intention was not to point out that Google and Microsoft have the same characteristics then your post had no point at all.
I use IE because it is a superior product. Some people agree with me, others don't. People should excercise their choice and use whatever browser they want.
Agreed, but they should be given that choice on a level playing field with other browsers. Right now you can only buy Windows computers at the store with IE installed because MS has bundled it with their monopoly OS. Since almost everyone has to use Windows or overcome significant market barriers, that is illegal. OEMs should be the ones to pick a browser to install based upon what they think their customers want. They should, in fact, have to pick one, since MS should not be able to force IE to ship with Windows. In this way, consumers can actually pick computers based upon the features they want. If dell ships IE and Gateway ships Firefox the market can speak to which has made the better choice as consumers learn and begin to favor one over the other. What MS has done with IE was remove that market force and make their own product a default. Thus consumers don't ever make a choice or have the opportunity to educate themselves. Worse, since everything is standardized on the behaviors of one product instead of a real, published standard the Web itself to some degree conforms with broken behaviors and features are not implemented where IE failed to properly implement the HTML and CSS specs.
Having maintained a monopoly on both desktop OS's and Web browsers, they are now trying to extend that to search engines as well. Instead of making a better search engine in order to gain customers they have instead decided to tie it to the browser and make it another default. Again consumers get no choice and again the free market competition is bypassed. I'm all for anyone being able to choose to use IE or MSN search, but I'm against their being able to use their monopoly to push this decision on the ignorant or lazy. It is also illegal.
No, it doesn't have a monopoly! It's just the clear market leader.
A lot of different court systems who spent years going over the facts disagree with you. I also disagree with you. In the market of desktop operating systems who besides MS is making any money (note, monopolies are defines by markets and market share, i.e. money, not by install base). IBM gives Linux away for free to sell hardware and services. Ditto Sun with Solaris, HP with HP-UX, Redhat with Linux, etc. Apple makes a tiny amount of money selling OS X directly, but mostly survives by selling a bundle of the OS and hardware. So basically no one is making any money except MS. Those that tried were driven out of business, even with superior products. (See BeOS.)
Google makes about 65% of the money being made in search engines by most estimates. They don't wield monopoly power. They can't bypass the free market using their market share. They haven't tried to leverage their market share into another market (which is the activity actually forbidden by antitrust law).
In the same way that (I'd expect) Firefox is the non-Windows browser market leader.
That is likely not a valid market definition and even if it were, they don't have the market share Windows+IE does. Opera, Kbrowser, Safari, Omniweb, Lynx, etc. all have shares and are doing fine.
Please, if you're going to try arguing these things at least read the anti-trust laws and review the facts before posting.
Even if a user is utterly clueless on how to change the default (which isn't hard at all), once they go to google...
Brilliant! I'm not saying it is difficult, I'm saying some people won't do it anyway. For people to find that link they have to have already gone to google.com. If they know Google exists they're already ahead of half of new IE users.
Just how much easier can it get?
IE could give users multiple options on install. That would be easier and legal.
Give me a break. The previous poster was suggested that IE only increased its market share from 8% because of bundling... Stop being disingenuous. You knew full well what the statement implied.
I was the previous poster and no, that is not at all what I was implying.
What exactly did I say that contradicts what you're saying?
I think it was the "Except that's not true" part.
It would say it's more directly due to apathy. Most people DO NOT CARE what browser they use. If people cared there is absolutely nothing that has ever stopped them from using something else.
Bundling works because of apathy and ignorance and technical incompetence. That does not mean it would still occur without the bundling which takes advantage of those criteria. It is the bundling that is illegal. We can't exactly outlaw apathy.
Had Microsoft succeeded to gain 90% market share without bundling the same thing would have happened.
No, it wouldn't. If users were given a choice at install time of either IE or Firefox, a great many would choose Firefox. That market share is lost to bundling. Further, as they would both get equal exposure, they would start to be judged based upon features and how good the product is. MS would not be able to neglect the product without losing market share. They would be motivated to compete. It is the removal of competition that is the heart of anti-trust violations.
More realistically, if MS was just forbidden to pre-install IE, OEMs would install the browser of their choice and (barring other illegal activity from MS) would choose the one they felt their customers would prefer. Competition between them would do the rest. "Don't buy a Dell, they get viruses all the time. Gateways come with that cool Firefox thing that stops viruses and ads and has these little tabs so you can open a bunch of Web pages at once. It is way cooler."
Whatever it is you got Safari to do sounds pretty darn cool, but for the 90% of people who are even less computer literate than me, it's probably not happening.
You drop system services in the/Library/Services directory (or ~Library/Services). You can download them from plenty of places and many applications automatically provide them as well (Graphviz will generate a graph from any series or table of data you highlight). Some (like spell checking) are built into the OS. To use them highlight any text in a native program and use the Services menu in the application menu (In Safari you'd go to Safari: Services: Spellchecker or whatever service you want). Alternately, you can use the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane to assign key combinations to them. Once you get used to them, they are really hard to do without. In addition to text some programs also perform services upon audio and graphics. You might want to play with them some time. They are, in my opinion, the most underrated feature of OS X.
IE didn't win 'by default', they won by being a better competitor.
In a free market you can never "win." That is the whole point. You have to compete and provide a better product or you lose. IE has not been the "better product" for many, many years, yet they do still have the market. For that matter Microsoft hasn't added any real features to IE for nearly as long. They put the thing on ice and let the bundling keep its market share. How many years did it take them to copy tabbed browsing despite it being a "must have" feature of almost everyone that used it? What about pop-up blocking? How many years?
I agree IE is probably the best on the market, seven years ago. That does not mean everyone should use them then, now and forevermore just because they bundle it with a monopolized desktop OS.
How about looking at it from a users[sic] perspective rather than legal malarky?
Okay.
Apple has a defacto monopoly on Mac Operating Systems.
To paraphrase a movie I like, Macs are the Apple brand name of computers. Of course Apple has a monopoly on them. Do you have a bunch of trained monkeys somewhere figuring this stuff out for you? Guess what? Dell has a monopoly on Inspirons. Gateway has a monopoly on Gateways. Lenovo has a monopoly on Thinkpads. To define a market in those terms is wholly improper. Personal computers is a market. Laptops is a market. Desktop OS's is a market. Computers made by a certain company is not a market.
Apple's default browser in their OS is hardcoded to support Google and no other search engine.
Purely for the sake of argument, lets assume Apple has a monopoly on a real market. So what? What market is Apple moving into that the default setting in Safari is leveraging? Did Apple buy Google while I wasn't looking? What other market does this give Apple an advantage in?
Yet you didn't see Yahoo, MSN, or other search providers go whining about it, and you certainly did NOT see Google raising any objections.
Yeah thats because Apple doesn't have a monopoly. The courts have not spent years in court ruling before after the umpteenth appeal ruling that they have a monopoly and are abusing it. Apple does not run a search engine to which they have hard coded Safari to query.
As it stands right now, Google has an "unfair" advantage over its competitors in the Mac market.
Even assuming Apple computer was a valid market, (which it isn't) that doesn't matter, because it is Apple giving Google an advantage in another market, not Apple giving Apple an advantage in another market.
Your arguments are strained past the breaking point and your reasoning specious. End users are hurt by MS's move because most of them out of ignorance or laziness will use the MSN search, which is currently inferior. Google will be hurt because they will lose market share despite having spent the money to make a better product. The industry will suffer because MS having leveraged their monopoly has no incentive to make their search engine better in any way, only "good enough" that people don't go to the extra effort to educate themselves and find something else.
In the case of Safari, consumers get the search engine Apple feels is best. It may not be what they would feel is best, but then no engine will be for everyone. Apple is motivated to pick the best one to keep their users happy and so they don't switch to another browser or OS. Google is still motivated to make a better search engine because the majority of their users are not using Safari and even if they are Apple will likely switch the default if they feel something better comes along. The market works as it is intended.
Except that's not true. Microsoft achieved nearly 40% market share BEFORE IE was ever bundled with Windows.
Umm, what part of, "MS's market share in Web browsers was 8% once too, before they started bundling it with the OS" do you think is contradicted by your statement? Certainly MS had gained more market share than that before they started bundling and for a while they were winning the browser wars based upon having a better product. The fact of the matter, however, is that they don't have the best browser now, and haven't for many years, but it is still the most popular browser. This is due directly to the illegal bundling. In fact, I'd argue that the bundling is the reason IE is no longer the best browser. If they had to compete on even ground with Firefox (users were given equal opportunity to download either or both during setup) MS would have to have included tabbed browsing, better security, disabled ActiveX, better searching, better pop-up blocking, and better support for new features in an attempt to get users to select IE. Instead they basically put IE in the deep freeze and relied upon bundling to stop better products from winning in the marketplace.
Yes, you're free to use Yahoo!, Google, MSN, Ask, or any other search engine that you like. You're also free to use Linux, Windows, Mac OS, z/OS, Solaris, or any other operating system that you like.
I think you may be making a very common and fundamental mistake about antitrust law and monopolies. Monopolies are defined in terms of markets, not products. Take a look at the desktop OS market. Who is making money selling Linux? No one. IBM makes money selling hardware and services and giving Linux away. How much money does Apple make selling OS X? Very little. For the most part they make money giving away OS X free with hardware they sell. Who makes money selling Solaris? No one. Sun gives it away for free in an attempt to sell hardware and services. ZOS is a server OS and operates in an entirely different market and I believe is given away to sell hardware for IBM.
Notice something odd about this market? No one makes money selling desktop OS's other than Microsoft. All those that tried had to move on or went under.
All of this ignores all of the ways MS locks customers into Windows and the market naturally does the same. Most people can't even buy a machine without Windows on it and most businesses rely upon software written only for it.
The truth of the matter is, MS is a monopoly for desktop OS's or some of the major retailers and OEMs would be shipping other OS's. When you look at a major retailer and note that they are paying for Windows licenses for PPC Apple computers they sell and which can't even theoretically run it, you can pretty much assume you're dealing with a monopoly. (This actually happened before Apple took over the retail market for their systems.)
You're entitled to your opinion, but a number of courts have looked into the issue now and pretty much all of them have found MS not only to have a monopoly, but to be guilty of abusing it. I certainly don't see any other reason why most people would use IE instead of Firefox other than the fact that it is bundled.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't bittorrent be much less efficient for sending an encryped file to someone?
I'm no expert, but I'm not sure why it would be, provided they keys are in Apple's hands and not the end user. For example, I buy a new song or movie from iTunes. At this point they transfer a key directly to me. My computer grabs the data from bittorent and unencrypts it. If the key is tied to my machine somehow, such as the way iTunes works now, I can watch the movie or listen to the song on my authorized machines? Am I missing something? We're not talking about securing a 1-to-1 data stream like SSH here, rather this is a one to many with a "hidden" key embedded in the end user's machine.
That's one of the main reasons I use Firefox more than Safari. I love having things like Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster available from my search box. I think the limited search function hurts Safari more than anyone.
That's funny, your reason is very similar to why I use Safari instead of Firefox for my default browser. Safari supports system services, because it uses the default text handling APIs, while Firefox uses its own included ones. That means by installing a few services I can enable Safari, (and most of the other programs on my machine) to highlight words and perform searches and lookups based upon it. I have it nicely consolidated so that I can, with a single keystroke, lookup a word in about seven dictionaries and references, google, a thesaurus, and wikipedia. Since I earn a lot of my income as a writer I find this invaluable. Merriam-Webster doesn't know what BGP is and neither Wikipedia or Merriam -Webster know what SFlow is, but you can bet ietf.org does.
I know it is possible to create plug-ins for Firefox to acheive the same effect in Firefox, but it is a lot easier to have that functionality available in all my applications, including InDesign, mail.app, photoshop, terminal.app, Pages, subethaedit, etc. Besides, the other system services are equally valuable, including a unified spellchecker (so I don't have to teach each application that SFlow is a real word), grammar checker, translations, text transformations, scripts, etc., etc.
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Abandonware sites often claim they just do it "so those games don't go into extinction". With this reason gone, there's no reason anymore for game companies to shoot with big shells their way without getting bad rep.
What good is a game no one can play? What good is a law designed to encourage producers to produce that forever makes a game unavailable to everyone? Copyrights should expire the day that a company stops selling the copyrighted material at a reasonable market price. Otherwise they are just a way to erase our artistic heritage in the quest for more money.
And while users are making an active choice to install google integrated search, how many users do you think will start up IE7 for the first time, visit google and follow the on-screen prompts to insall the google search integration - and then have no idea how to set another search client as the default?
So? What does this have to do with the issue? If users intentionally go to some company's page and then intentionally install settings from it what's the problem? Google does not have any monopolies. Even if they did, this action doesn't bundle or tie their search to any other market. Maybe you just don't understand the whole point of antitrust law and its purpose.
If anyone is being hypocritical it is Microsoft. They would not even exist except for the fact that antitrust law was enforced against IBM and now they bitch and moan every time they are caught violating it and whine about how unfair it is. Give me a break. They only have a gajillion antitrust lawyers on the payroll. They know very well they are breaking the law and all this is PR nonsense in the hope that they can convince the uneducated masses they are being persecuted for some reason. Pathetic.
Here's a tip for them: how about you stop breaking the law and make your bloody product better if you want it to take over the market?
Exactly. The economic term for this is an 'opportunity cost.' I'm sure Google would pay a ton of money to be listed as the default search engine on IE, but Microsoft decided that it's worth more to them to set their own search engine as the default, thus forgoing cash profit. As long as you have the option to override the default search engine, I don't see what the problem is.
For someone who knows what "opportunity cost" is you sure don't know much about monopolies. Let me guess, you learned it in management training, not in economics?
The issue isn't about the opportunity cost in this instance, it is about the operation of the free market. MS is a monopoly. That means they wield a huge amount of power that can be used to bypass free market forces. Firefox with their very small market share is already fighting a monopoly action that bundles IE with Windows. They have a better product, but only a tiny amount of the market. Why has the market failed to make the best product the most popular? Why do consumers put up with an inferior product? The answer is by using their monopoly MS bypassed the free market action.
Now here's an interesting point. Does MS have a monopoly on Web browsers? They have about 85% of the market, so it is a near thing. Assuming they don't, why can't they do the same thing as Firefox and sell the opportunity to themselves? The answer is because IE is bundled with Windows, where they do have a monopoly beyond any legal doubt. If MS unbundles IE and Windows then they can probably do what they want with this legally. It's an easy solution, but it sure isn't going to happen.
MS can also sell this opportunity to anyone other than themselves, because then the market would still be able to function. If they sell it to Yahoo, a lot of people will start using Yahoo's service, but that doesn't help MS take over a second market, which is what they want to do. And that ability to take over market after market using tying and bundling is why those actions are illegal.
Here's a revolutionary idea for Microsoft. If they want to win the search engine war, just make the best search engine. That's all they need to do and that is what the whole free market is all about. Whining because they aren't allowed to gain market share without making a better product just shows how broken and pathetic the system is.
I've never bought RAM from Apple. I just buy RAM with the same specs somewhere else (and avoid the really, really crappy stuff). I've used at least three different manufacturer's of RAM and never had a problem. You're right that Apple's seem to be picky about RAM, but then again a lot of Windows crashes are due to the same thing. Just buy something decent and don't worry about it.
I think Apple would have had a much better argument for their "different look and perspective" if they had used an intelligent, young, hip WOMAN for their computer insted of the grungy guy.
Of course you didn't go to school for marketing so that is just an uneducated opinion. Here's my equally uneducated opinion. If the main character in the commercial was a woman, it would reinforce for many men the image that it is a computer for artists and girlie types. That would lead them to avoid it. Conversely, women are accustomed to using products marketed at men and there is no stigma attached to it. Case and point, women will buy men's clothes and no one has an issue. Men won't buy women's clothes without the sky falling. From a marketing perspective, I suspect having a man in the commercial really was the way to go.
If Apple builds a BT client into the OS and declares it "Part of the Operating System" because it uses that to obtain its patches, how is that different from Microsoft doing it with IE?
MS wields monopoly power. It is illegal to leverage a monopoly in one market to gain in another. Thus bundling anything with Windows when a market exists for that product is illegal. This is because bundling does an end run around the benefits of the free market. Why should MS make a better or cheaper product when they can get everyone to use it even if it isn't better?
Apple does not have a monopoly on desktop OS's or computers. They have nothing to leverage. They are approaching having a monopoly on portable digital music players. If they were to bundle their bittorrent client with iPods and make all iPods require the bittorrent client then maybe you'd have a similar situation.
Apple right now can bundle or tie any products they want because they don't have a monopoly. If they bundle a bittorrent client with their OS, who cares? That doesn't force the market to use either their OS or the bittorrent client. If it sucks people will use a different one.
MS can bundle anything it wants, so long as it is not with their monopoly desktop OS. They can refuse to sell their mice without a copy of IE. They can bundle IE with Xboxes. They can bundle IE with anything but Windows. Bundling is not a problem unless it is with a monopolized product.
So what SHOULD Microsoft do? Make Google the default?
Legal options for MS include:
Microsoft is *gasp* setting their browser to use *gasp* THEIR search engine??
AT&T is *gasp* setting their phone system to use *gasp* only phones they rent to you.
Maybe you're a little unclear on what the whole point of anti-trust law is. In both of the above it is a monopoly using that monopoly to gain an advantage in a second market, despite not having a better product. If MS *gasp* wants more people to use their search engine, they should *gasp* make it fucking better instead of trying to use their Windows OS to gain it market share.
But you're failing to recognize a key point. In this situation there are only 2 options for Microsoft:
I reject this assertion.
There is no default and the user is initially prompted. Result: most people have no idea what option they want, they just click "ok" and get Microsoft's search. The rest immediately click Google or a9 or imdb or whatever.
To be legal, users would have to have the option of clicking MSN, Google, Yahoo, and a number of other search engines, not "OK."
It defaults to Microsoft.
This is illegal.
You also failed to think of the options, there is no default and users have to type in the one they want or OEMs and/or retailers select the defualt option on behalf of their users. Both of those would be legal.
You're making the logical leap that these same users who apathetically accept Microsoft's search engine, would (given the choice) choose something else.
No, I'm saying if presented with a required choice, some would choose MSN and some would choose something else.
I'm saying, even if you did give them the option, the users who wouldn't change a default, are the same users who would either purely by random choose one of x options or leave it on the first option (Microsoft).
Random chance is better than defaulting to MS, because it gives no one an advantage. User cannot be given a default they have to change only a selection of options. If MSN is the first on the list and selected by default (without a good justification like alphabetical order) they would still be violating the law.
What do you want a large essay in the installation...
This is called a "straw-man argument" and is an example of a logical fallacy. Just a blank field where the user or OEM can and must type in a search engine to activate this feature would be fine. A list of alternatives with none selected by default and a blank field for inserting new ones would be fine too. Completely removing the feature is fine. Absolutely anything that does not give MS an unfair advantage over the competition is fine. That is not too much to ask and it is what the law requires.
Mac OSX with Intel platform is a hi-security risk because PPC was a platform no virus makers where even targetting. Now they have ability to attack macs too. No wonder that mac has a one to five known viruses right now.. when previously there where none...
Ummm, do any of the malware (most of which is proof of concept code) even work on Intel based macs? They all work on PPC based macs. The processor change is not enabling worms in any way. Worms don't propagate well, or really at all on Macs for a large number of reasons and none of them have anything to do with the processor. The only way Macs will be getting more worms because of this is because it makes running Windows in dual boot, or a VM easier.
Given BSD-based OSX on new x86 architecture, oughn't developers be able to port/write to/for both Linux & Mac together relatively easily? I mean, you're probably not writing games in Cocoa...
Sadly, not really. Many game companies (most of the big ones) do co-development with the PC now. This will save them some minor work with processor optimizations. Most companies that don't have a mac port or have greatly delayed Mac ports use DirectX for development. DirectX is a MS proprietary technology.
The main advantage this will bring is if developers rely upon a re-implementation of the Windows APIs (including DirectX). WINE is one such re-implementation. Apple supposedly has another they have not released. This would allow Windows programs, including games to run at nearly full speed under OS X (maybe faster in some cases). Also, some game companies might build upon the WINE work to make "quick and dirty" ports of their games for the Mac.
I do foresee more games being ported because of this, but not as nicely or cleanly as a real port. A lot of this may depend upon the WINE developers and what Apple releases.
So Apple has always maintained that their computers are NOT personal computers. Just don't tell a Mac zealot that their PC's are PC's because they're not. They're Macs.
Actually this nomenclature evolved from industry jargon. Macintosh personal computers were called "macs" to distinguished them from IBM-compatible personal computers, which came to be called just "PCs." Since macs weren't IBM compatible, they were considered a different grouping. This naming scheme persisted in the tech community even after Apple computers had IBM processors in them while "IBM compatible PCs" did not.
I just wonder what you call it when you take a Mac (Intel flavor) and slap Windows on it. Crap? Rotten Apple?
The name "rotten apple" was taken years ago by modders who put Intel and AMD motherboards and chips into salvaged Apple cases. It basically means an Apple that has been gutted and replaced with non-Apple hardware. It sort of applies, but not really.
I think that's a very telling statement. If it works fairly well, why change?
That is the whole point of this. MS is abusing their monopoly so that users will not choose a product but just use theirs if it is "good enough" so that they don't go out of their way to find something better. The difficulty of finding and installing something else is different depending upon the level of knowledge and expertise of the user.
In a free market, theoretically the best product wins. Consumers choose the best and/or cheapest product as they perceive it. Companies strive to make the best product. This means search engines get better and consumers have a better overall experience. This is why capitalism wins out over socialism for large groups. Competition pressures companies to make the best and cheapest.
By using their monopoly to choose for consumers, MS has bypassed that market force. They are not motivated to make a better product. Why should they? It is cheaper and easier to make a "good enough" product and bundle it with their monopoly. They've already done it with their browser. IE is insecure, fails to implement anything other than a partial set of a six year old specification for HTML and CSS, and has lagged Firefox in features like pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing for years. But it is bundled and "good enough" for most people's everyday browsing so it dominates. MS would have the same thing happen in search engines. They want to win in the market without innovating and making a better product.
So let's recap. People hate installing things. They hate choosing between things they don't understand.
People hate deciding what brand of ketchup to buy too, should MS be able to choose that for them? People don't even have to be informed. OEMs and retail stores can make the choice for them and the market will still work it out. The problem is only when MS makes the choice for people and thus others have to work to overcome that. It breaks capitalism and it is illegal for that reason. Doesn't anyone have to take Economics 101 anymore?
This whole thing sounds like a huge non-issue to me.
Yeah why should you care that they are breaking the law? Why should you care that Google who works hard to make the best product will lose money to MS because MS broke the law and foisted an inferior product upon consumers. Here's a question for you. Would you feel the same way if you came up with an innovative new product and started a company based around it and then MS came up with an inferior alternative and put you out of business? Would you care then?
so, does apple use the same key for every copy of a song? It seems like that could be easily circumvented.
I believe it was Steve Jobs who said, "Every security mechanism based upon secrecy will fail." The DRM in iTunes is a speed bump to make some things less convenient. The whole concept of DRM as a protection mechanism is flawed. You just can't give people read access to data and prevent them from copying it. Nor is that the real purpose of the DRM. The purpose is to make it hard for the average consumer to move to a new format and to motivate them to buy another copy of the same data in the future.
You can download a little program to strip off the DRM from many foreign sites. Of course you can always burn a CD of the data too. You can also play it and rip the music going to the sound card with another program. You can also plug your speaker jack into a digital recorder. The encryption is just a way to make it less convenient not a real protection.
When did I say anything about antitrust law or monopolies?
You responded to a post arguing the definition of a monopoly and saying Google was not one. You then compared the examples given as to why (search services) to other OS's. If your intention was not to point out that Google and Microsoft have the same characteristics then your post had no point at all.
I use IE because it is a superior product. Some people agree with me, others don't. People should excercise their choice and use whatever browser they want.
Agreed, but they should be given that choice on a level playing field with other browsers. Right now you can only buy Windows computers at the store with IE installed because MS has bundled it with their monopoly OS. Since almost everyone has to use Windows or overcome significant market barriers, that is illegal. OEMs should be the ones to pick a browser to install based upon what they think their customers want. They should, in fact, have to pick one, since MS should not be able to force IE to ship with Windows. In this way, consumers can actually pick computers based upon the features they want. If dell ships IE and Gateway ships Firefox the market can speak to which has made the better choice as consumers learn and begin to favor one over the other. What MS has done with IE was remove that market force and make their own product a default. Thus consumers don't ever make a choice or have the opportunity to educate themselves. Worse, since everything is standardized on the behaviors of one product instead of a real, published standard the Web itself to some degree conforms with broken behaviors and features are not implemented where IE failed to properly implement the HTML and CSS specs.
Having maintained a monopoly on both desktop OS's and Web browsers, they are now trying to extend that to search engines as well. Instead of making a better search engine in order to gain customers they have instead decided to tie it to the browser and make it another default. Again consumers get no choice and again the free market competition is bypassed. I'm all for anyone being able to choose to use IE or MSN search, but I'm against their being able to use their monopoly to push this decision on the ignorant or lazy. It is also illegal.
No, it doesn't have a monopoly! It's just the clear market leader.
A lot of different court systems who spent years going over the facts disagree with you. I also disagree with you. In the market of desktop operating systems who besides MS is making any money (note, monopolies are defines by markets and market share, i.e. money, not by install base). IBM gives Linux away for free to sell hardware and services. Ditto Sun with Solaris, HP with HP-UX, Redhat with Linux, etc. Apple makes a tiny amount of money selling OS X directly, but mostly survives by selling a bundle of the OS and hardware. So basically no one is making any money except MS. Those that tried were driven out of business, even with superior products. (See BeOS.)
Google makes about 65% of the money being made in search engines by most estimates. They don't wield monopoly power. They can't bypass the free market using their market share. They haven't tried to leverage their market share into another market (which is the activity actually forbidden by antitrust law).
In the same way that (I'd expect) Firefox is the non-Windows browser market leader.
That is likely not a valid market definition and even if it were, they don't have the market share Windows+IE does. Opera, Kbrowser, Safari, Omniweb, Lynx, etc. all have shares and are doing fine.
Please, if you're going to try arguing these things at least read the anti-trust laws and review the facts before posting.
Even if a user is utterly clueless on how to change the default (which isn't hard at all), once they go to google...
Brilliant! I'm not saying it is difficult, I'm saying some people won't do it anyway. For people to find that link they have to have already gone to google.com. If they know Google exists they're already ahead of half of new IE users.
Just how much easier can it get?
IE could give users multiple options on install. That would be easier and legal.
Give me a break. The previous poster was suggested that IE only increased its market share from 8% because of bundling... Stop being disingenuous. You knew full well what the statement implied.
I was the previous poster and no, that is not at all what I was implying.
What exactly did I say that contradicts what you're saying?
I think it was the "Except that's not true" part.
It would say it's more directly due to apathy. Most people DO NOT CARE what browser they use. If people cared there is absolutely nothing that has ever stopped them from using something else.
Bundling works because of apathy and ignorance and technical incompetence. That does not mean it would still occur without the bundling which takes advantage of those criteria. It is the bundling that is illegal. We can't exactly outlaw apathy.
Had Microsoft succeeded to gain 90% market share without bundling the same thing would have happened.
No, it wouldn't. If users were given a choice at install time of either IE or Firefox, a great many would choose Firefox. That market share is lost to bundling. Further, as they would both get equal exposure, they would start to be judged based upon features and how good the product is. MS would not be able to neglect the product without losing market share. They would be motivated to compete. It is the removal of competition that is the heart of anti-trust violations.
More realistically, if MS was just forbidden to pre-install IE, OEMs would install the browser of their choice and (barring other illegal activity from MS) would choose the one they felt their customers would prefer. Competition between them would do the rest. "Don't buy a Dell, they get viruses all the time. Gateways come with that cool Firefox thing that stops viruses and ads and has these little tabs so you can open a bunch of Web pages at once. It is way cooler."
Whatever it is you got Safari to do sounds pretty darn cool, but for the 90% of people who are even less computer literate than me, it's probably not happening.
You drop system services in the /Library/Services directory (or ~Library/Services). You can download them from plenty of places and many applications automatically provide them as well (Graphviz will generate a graph from any series or table of data you highlight). Some (like spell checking) are built into the OS. To use them highlight any text in a native program and use the Services menu in the application menu (In Safari you'd go to Safari: Services: Spellchecker or whatever service you want). Alternately, you can use the Keyboard and Mouse preference pane to assign key combinations to them. Once you get used to them, they are really hard to do without. In addition to text some programs also perform services upon audio and graphics. You might want to play with them some time. They are, in my opinion, the most underrated feature of OS X.
IE didn't win 'by default', they won by being a better competitor.
In a free market you can never "win." That is the whole point. You have to compete and provide a better product or you lose. IE has not been the "better product" for many, many years, yet they do still have the market. For that matter Microsoft hasn't added any real features to IE for nearly as long. They put the thing on ice and let the bundling keep its market share. How many years did it take them to copy tabbed browsing despite it being a "must have" feature of almost everyone that used it? What about pop-up blocking? How many years?
I agree IE is probably the best on the market, seven years ago. That does not mean everyone should use them then, now and forevermore just because they bundle it with a monopolized desktop OS.
How about looking at it from a users[sic] perspective rather than legal malarky?
Okay.
Apple has a defacto monopoly on Mac Operating Systems.
To paraphrase a movie I like, Macs are the Apple brand name of computers. Of course Apple has a monopoly on them. Do you have a bunch of trained monkeys somewhere figuring this stuff out for you? Guess what? Dell has a monopoly on Inspirons. Gateway has a monopoly on Gateways. Lenovo has a monopoly on Thinkpads. To define a market in those terms is wholly improper. Personal computers is a market. Laptops is a market. Desktop OS's is a market. Computers made by a certain company is not a market.
Apple's default browser in their OS is hardcoded to support Google and no other search engine.
Purely for the sake of argument, lets assume Apple has a monopoly on a real market. So what? What market is Apple moving into that the default setting in Safari is leveraging? Did Apple buy Google while I wasn't looking? What other market does this give Apple an advantage in?
Yet you didn't see Yahoo, MSN, or other search providers go whining about it, and you certainly did NOT see Google raising any objections.
Yeah thats because Apple doesn't have a monopoly. The courts have not spent years in court ruling before after the umpteenth appeal ruling that they have a monopoly and are abusing it. Apple does not run a search engine to which they have hard coded Safari to query.
As it stands right now, Google has an "unfair" advantage over its competitors in the Mac market.
Even assuming Apple computer was a valid market, (which it isn't) that doesn't matter, because it is Apple giving Google an advantage in another market, not Apple giving Apple an advantage in another market.
Your arguments are strained past the breaking point and your reasoning specious. End users are hurt by MS's move because most of them out of ignorance or laziness will use the MSN search, which is currently inferior. Google will be hurt because they will lose market share despite having spent the money to make a better product. The industry will suffer because MS having leveraged their monopoly has no incentive to make their search engine better in any way, only "good enough" that people don't go to the extra effort to educate themselves and find something else.
In the case of Safari, consumers get the search engine Apple feels is best. It may not be what they would feel is best, but then no engine will be for everyone. Apple is motivated to pick the best one to keep their users happy and so they don't switch to another browser or OS. Google is still motivated to make a better search engine because the majority of their users are not using Safari and even if they are Apple will likely switch the default if they feel something better comes along. The market works as it is intended.
Do you see the difference?
Except that's not true. Microsoft achieved nearly 40% market share BEFORE IE was ever bundled with Windows.
Umm, what part of, "MS's market share in Web browsers was 8% once too, before they started bundling it with the OS" do you think is contradicted by your statement? Certainly MS had gained more market share than that before they started bundling and for a while they were winning the browser wars based upon having a better product. The fact of the matter, however, is that they don't have the best browser now, and haven't for many years, but it is still the most popular browser. This is due directly to the illegal bundling. In fact, I'd argue that the bundling is the reason IE is no longer the best browser. If they had to compete on even ground with Firefox (users were given equal opportunity to download either or both during setup) MS would have to have included tabbed browsing, better security, disabled ActiveX, better searching, better pop-up blocking, and better support for new features in an attempt to get users to select IE. Instead they basically put IE in the deep freeze and relied upon bundling to stop better products from winning in the marketplace.
Yes, you're free to use Yahoo!, Google, MSN, Ask, or any other search engine that you like. You're also free to use Linux, Windows, Mac OS, z/OS, Solaris, or any other operating system that you like.
I think you may be making a very common and fundamental mistake about antitrust law and monopolies. Monopolies are defined in terms of markets, not products. Take a look at the desktop OS market. Who is making money selling Linux? No one. IBM makes money selling hardware and services and giving Linux away. How much money does Apple make selling OS X? Very little. For the most part they make money giving away OS X free with hardware they sell. Who makes money selling Solaris? No one. Sun gives it away for free in an attempt to sell hardware and services. ZOS is a server OS and operates in an entirely different market and I believe is given away to sell hardware for IBM.
Notice something odd about this market? No one makes money selling desktop OS's other than Microsoft. All those that tried had to move on or went under.
All of this ignores all of the ways MS locks customers into Windows and the market naturally does the same. Most people can't even buy a machine without Windows on it and most businesses rely upon software written only for it.
The truth of the matter is, MS is a monopoly for desktop OS's or some of the major retailers and OEMs would be shipping other OS's. When you look at a major retailer and note that they are paying for Windows licenses for PPC Apple computers they sell and which can't even theoretically run it, you can pretty much assume you're dealing with a monopoly. (This actually happened before Apple took over the retail market for their systems.)
You're entitled to your opinion, but a number of courts have looked into the issue now and pretty much all of them have found MS not only to have a monopoly, but to be guilty of abusing it. I certainly don't see any other reason why most people would use IE instead of Firefox other than the fact that it is bundled.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't bittorrent be much less efficient for sending an encryped file to someone?
I'm no expert, but I'm not sure why it would be, provided they keys are in Apple's hands and not the end user. For example, I buy a new song or movie from iTunes. At this point they transfer a key directly to me. My computer grabs the data from bittorent and unencrypts it. If the key is tied to my machine somehow, such as the way iTunes works now, I can watch the movie or listen to the song on my authorized machines? Am I missing something? We're not talking about securing a 1-to-1 data stream like SSH here, rather this is a one to many with a "hidden" key embedded in the end user's machine.
That's one of the main reasons I use Firefox more than Safari. I love having things like Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster available from my search box. I think the limited search function hurts Safari more than anyone.
That's funny, your reason is very similar to why I use Safari instead of Firefox for my default browser. Safari supports system services, because it uses the default text handling APIs, while Firefox uses its own included ones. That means by installing a few services I can enable Safari, (and most of the other programs on my machine) to highlight words and perform searches and lookups based upon it. I have it nicely consolidated so that I can, with a single keystroke, lookup a word in about seven dictionaries and references, google, a thesaurus, and wikipedia. Since I earn a lot of my income as a writer I find this invaluable. Merriam-Webster doesn't know what BGP is and neither Wikipedia or Merriam -Webster know what SFlow is, but you can bet ietf.org does.
I know it is possible to create plug-ins for Firefox to acheive the same effect in Firefox, but it is a lot easier to have that functionality available in all my applications, including InDesign, mail.app, photoshop, terminal.app, Pages, subethaedit, etc. Besides, the other system services are equally valuable, including a unified spellchecker (so I don't have to teach each application that SFlow is a real word), grammar checker, translations, text transformations, scripts, etc., etc.