If you're going to say that "PC operating systems" is a separate market than "Mac operating systems" then Apple has 100% marketshare.
No. There is no market for Mac operating systems because they don't license their OS for sale. They use it as a component in desktop computer systems and bypass the OS market altogether. OS X would qualify as a "PC operating system" if Apple licensed it. The "PC" part was meant to distinguish it from the "workgroup server" operating system market.
Lastly, if you'd read the article, you'd see that they're punishing Microsoft for 10 years of "bad behaviour."
No they're not. MS was fined once for that.
MS has gone to court in the EU over tying involving their media player, their server OS, and for price fixing. They have not been punished for tying their browser or any number of other criminal antitrust actions they have committed. The problem is, MS has been so blatantly violating antitrust law so often it is easy to be confused about what they have already been convicted of where.
It just seems like a spiteful jab at MS and a double-standard that they don't apply to Apple, Canonical, etc.
It's not a double standard to enforce the same laws the same way for everyone. When you don't understand why what MS is doing is illegal and what Canonical is doing is legal that doesn't mean there is no difference. It means you're too lazy to look up and understand what antitrust law is.
So if MacOS X with Safari becomes more popular then Windows with IE, should they be also sued?
First, this isn't a lawsuit. It's a prosecution for a crime. Second, Apple doesn't sell Mac OS X retail except as upgrades, so it would be pretty hard for them to monopolize the desktop OS market. If Apple were to start licensing OS X to OEMs and they were to gain 70% market share then, yes they should absolutely have to start offering OS X separately from Safari to OEMs.
Shouldn't they be sued now so that cannot ever happen?
Shouldn't you be "sued" now so you can't ever shoplift?
So as soon as a company becomes too powerful with its products they need to be taken down a notch...so others can have a chance too to become big?
No as soon as a company gains a specific type of power they are held responsible for making sure that power does not hurt others in other markets. Normal companies take measures when they approach monopoly influence to separate out products and market them separately so antitrust law never becomes an issue.
I mean seriously, its Business, competition.
No, it's big business lack of competition. Competition is where your product competes against others and the best one for the lowest price wins. What MS has been doing is using their monopoly in one market to make sure an inferior product wins in the Web browser market by shielding it from having to compete.
Google started out with two guys, when there was a "monopoly" of search engines on the market
First when was there a monopoly and second, what would they sue for? Do you even know what antitrust abuse is?
Market share = consumer free willed choice.
Which works great in a free market capitalism. Antitrust abuse undermines the free market by introducing artificial problems with competitors, which is why it is illegal.
Sorry that consumers are stupid and not researching things before they buy, or what they use before using them.
It doesn't matter if they are smart or stupid because the market is broken. In many cases it is in OEMs best financial interest to install IE and only IE, despite the likelihood that in a free market it would be the worst choice.
But that is not M$ fault.
This is exactly MS's fault. They knowingly broke the law and told partners and sent e-mails internally (look up the DoJ evidence) where they explicitly said their intention was to extinguish competitors and advances in the Web in order to protect their desktop OS monopoly. They certainly knew the choice they were making was illegal and would hurt the industry but they did it anyway. They need to be punished for that and the damage needs to be undone. So far they've made billions breaking the law. Why would you expect them to obey laws going forward if nothing is done?
Ok, Microsoft is found guilty of abusing its position of controlling the currently most popular PC OS on the market. Through bundling and anti-competitive practices they're nailed for being a monopoly.
They were nailed for abusing a monopoly, not being one.
The media player gets stripped out per an earlier EC case.
But the media player wasn't stripped out. It was removed from a special version of Windows while people who bought that version still had to pay for it. It was functionally no different than throwing the player away and failed miserably to remedy the market imbalance. That market is still horribly broken (for numerous reasons).
Now, in 2007, Opera complains about the browser bundling, saying that it gives Microsoft an unfair advantage in the browser wars. The EC says "Yeah, you're right! Ok MS, take out the bundled browser"
WRONG! The EU said no such thing. They said they think MS is guilty and started looking for ways to undo the damage MS had done over the years. MS then said they were pulling IE from the next version of Windows voluntarily in the hopes the EU would not impose a harsher and more effective punishment and remedy.
...what they REALLY wanted Microsoft to do was to bundle a competing product with the base OS. They don't want a level playing field, they want to tip the scales in their favor (specifically to Opera).
Opera doesn't even want their browser bundled with Windows. They primarily make money licensing the mobile version. They want the market fixed so they don't have to spend millions engineering around broken Web pages that were the intentional result of MS's crime. The EU wants the market restored to competition. Just stopping a crime does not solve the damage done by it. It's like if a person stabs you then when the cops show up they pull out the knife and say, "see I stopped, it's all good". In such a situation is it "unfair" and "biased" if the police throw the stabber in prison and make them pay the medical bills of the victim?
Let the OEMs decide what browser to install on a system.
It's way, way, way too late for that. OEMs have a vested interest in supporting fewer applications. OEMs have a vested interest in stalling IE since only it can deal with the broken IE only pages and applications on the Web. That is a direct result of a criminal action. It's like letting the robber keep all the money they stole so long as they stop. It is far too little, far too late.
Considering current browser usage statistics, I think the entire browser monopoly concept is antiquated.
You're completely ignorant. This isn't about a browser monopoly. It's about their browser having an unfair market share because of leveraging of a desktop OS monopoly. If you don't even know what crime MS committed how can you sit here and tell us why the punishment for that crime is not suitable?
I agree completely. I don't use IE myself, but the EC's position that MS should not only not bundle their own browser, but instead bundle *competing* browsers is inane. I'm not a gung-ho laissez-faire capitalist, but forcing companies to promote competing products is over the line.
Maybe you're forgetting, this is punishment for a crime. Your argument is like saying it is inane to force someone to sign their house over to another and then spend three years in a small room. That's perfectly true unless they've been caught extorting money for years from the guy they're supposed to sigh the house over to.
All I'd like to see is the option to uninstall cleanly, not a mandatory release of a browser-less (read: near useless) OS.
The EU is not mandating that, it's MS's idea. Your goals are not the goals of the EU commission who is charged with stopping particular crimes and creating remedies to restore the market to proper operation.
I know this is/., where everyone just loves to bash MS at every opportunity. But the EC is way out of line on this one.
Wouldn't it be nice if people had a clue before making such strong, declarative statements?
First of all, the old "bundling a browser with your OS is unfair" argument is a relic from the 90's, when browsers were still a bit of a novelty. But it's 2009. *EVERY* OS comes bundled with a browser now--Apple, Ubuntu, everyone. Forcing MS not to bundle a simple default browser with their OS isn't leveling the playing field, it's forcing them to play with a disadvantage over everyone else.
That would make a lot fo sense if MS were being convicted of the crime of bundling a browser with an OS. That's not what they're being convicted of, just the particular method by which they're doing it.
Here's a car analogy. Bob is arrested for grand theft auto after taking the action of driving a car home. Tom and Sue are not arrested, even though they also drove a car home. The difference is that Tom and Sue each owned the cars they drove home. Microsoft is guilty of antitrust abuse for the action of bundling a browser with their monopolized OS. Apple and Canonical also bundled a browser with their OS, but not having a monopoly on either market were not doing any damage or breaking the law.
. Including a default browser with your OS today is no more remarkable than including a default media player, or calculator, or text editor, etc.
So what? Just because an action is common means that in unusual circumstances it can never be illegal. Lots of people drive cars home. That doesn't mean it is never illegal to drive a car home.
ow would you even GET to the Firefox website to install it if you didn't have IE included with a fresh Windows install (this isn't 1996--most people don't keep install discs for their browsers anymore).
Yu use the install disk your OEM gave you that comes with a browser or you use a disk you copied a browser to. If you can't handle that, you can't handle doing a fresh install of an OS in the first place. Not that this matters since this article is about how MS has decided not to ship IE and how the EU is likely going to force a different remedy such as making it easy to install different browsers from Windows.
Secondly, what exactly is MS supposed to do if NOT bundling their browser isn't even enough for the EC?
There are quite a few things they can do, including dropping IE and installing a competing browser by default, but in truth MS is screwed. The time for them to act would have been before they broke the law and deciding not to do it. At this point they've been breaking the law for years and done a lot of damage. Criminals are not usually ordered to stop breaking the law, ignore reparations and let to walk away. They're going to be punished and made to fix some of the damage their criminal actions have caused.
At this point the EC isn't helping the consumer, they just seem like they're being spiteful.
At this point you don't seem to have a clue what you're talking about and if you think just stopping a crime is enough to get you out of trouble with the police then you're naive.
Yeah but doesnt[sic] Apple force Ipod users to use Itunes?
Apple does bundle iPods and iTunes. The EU commission looked into it and decided iPods don't make up big enough of a chunk of the market to give Apple dominance as of yet.
Doesnt[sic] Apple force Itunes installs, Safari, search light installs etc.
Force installs? It bundles them, but not with anything that is a monopoly.
What about the explorer.exe itself as a file browser?
It was not a pre-existing separate market at the time of monopolization.
Why not force everything to be open?
Because that's not the purpose of the law. It isn't about openness. It's about free markets.
Neither does microsoft, if you believe Apple fans. So if MS is no longer a monopoly, then antitrust laws no longer apply.
First both economically and in terms of antirust law monopoly influence is usually considered about 70%. Second, MS has about 98% of the relevant market, that being "PC operating systems" which is defined as operating systems used on desktop computers instead of servers or appliances. Apple's install base is irrelevant to market share because Apple does not sell license OS X to OEMs. The fact that Apple sells Macs with OS X pre-installed does nothing to lessen Microsoft's power over Dell or HP because they can't license OS X from Apple and install it as a component of their computer systems.
If Apple ever gained the dominant position in the market, would you support forcing them to remove their browser in their OS?
What market are you talking about? Since Apple doesn't sell a desktop OS it would be pretty hard for them to gain a dominant position. They do sell computer systems though, so if Apple were ever to achieve dominance in the computer system market, then yes I would 100% absolutely support forcing them to unbundle their OS from their hardware and, if relevant, their browser from their OS.
I have answered again and again. A CPU is not part of the OS, while the browser is.
So you think laws should be written that specifically deal with browsers OS's and CPU's?!? A browser and an OS and a CPU are all parts of a computer system I buy at Walmart. So if the difference if it is part of "something" then your definition fails spectacularly.
Antitrust law is not about undefined "somethings". It's about economics and specifically about markets. It doesn't matter if a browser is part of an OS or if an OS is part of a computer system. What matters is if their is a separate, preexisting MARKET for both OS's and browsers or CPUs and browsers or CPUs and computer systems.
s simple as that. I consider the browser as part of the OS, as windshield wipers are part of the car, merely a required enhancement.
So how do you write an antitrust law that defines these "somethings" into which you are grouping items? Why is an OS a something but a computer system is not? How do you write a law that makes it legal for MS to bundle browsers and their monopolized OS's but doesn't make it legal for them to bundle CPUs and their monopolized OS or make it legal for AT&T to bundle telephones and landline service... without going around and defining every single thing in the world as part of arbitrary "somethings"?
If MS should not be bundling IE, how about the other OS's? Can they bundle their own browsers?
Yes they can. Doing so for them is not breaking any law and does not undermine free trade.
Because that would seem to me that would mean giving them an edge and I assume the law would just prevent abuse of monopoly, not give competitive advantages to small players.
What competitive advantage do you think is being conferred? Is Apple gaining an advantage by bundling Safari with OS X with Macs and selling them? How so? Dell can sell Latitudes with Windows and IE. How is Apple gaining a market advantage and what market are they gaining an advantage in? Is Redhat gaining an advantage over Micrososft because they are selling a bundle of Linux and Firefox to Asus while Microsoft has to sell them Windows and IE separately? How is that an advantage to Redhat? Redhat has to be answerable to their customers because they don't have a monopoly on anything. If Asus wants just Linux or just Firefox market pressures force Redhat to give Asus what they want or they can go with another vendor. Only Microsoft is in a position to ignore Asus's desires. For most of their computers, Windows is the only viable option so if Asus needs Windows for a market MS can force them to take IE as well. That's a crime because it breaks competition in the Web browser market.
So please get back to me here. First, describe to me your idea of antitrust law if we're throwing away the concept of markets and defining things in terms of "somethings". Second, how does another vendor bundling a browser and OS give them an advantage in any market and undermine the operation of said market?
You're confusing the iTunes application with the iTunes music store service. This is understandable as the former is used to access the latter, but it is incorrect because they are separate markets as evidenced by competitors that supply only one of them. If either constitutes monopoly influence it would be the service, so a potential remedy would be forcing Apple to open up the interface to their store to other applications.
Quicktime and Safari are installed at the same time as Itunes.
Itunes is required for Ipods, and the ITMS. Apple are using Itunes's popularity and requirement for Ipods and ITMS to increase the install base of Safari and Quicktime by installing them when they aren't actually needed. This is the exact same type of piggybacking that lands Microsoft in such hot water.
So your claim is Apple is leveraging the iTunes application to increase installations of Safari and Quicktime. But Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the relevant market for the iTunes application. It isn't even the majority music player as WMP is installed bundled with all Windows machines. What Apple has to be careful about are the iTMS and the iPod since they have a lot of market share in both of those markets. So far the EU has ruled Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the relevant market for iPods because in the EU consumers consider cell phones that play media as an alternative, so Apple's market share is too small to constitute monopoly influence. For the iTMS the EU has not ruled on it directly, but have ruled that the RIAA cartel has engaged in price fixing using Apple's iTMS, but with Apple not being the guilty party.
So assuming Apple's iTMS constitutes monopoly influence on music download services, it is tied illegally to the iTunes application which is, in turn tied to Safari and Quicktime. The likely remedy then would be to break the tie between iTMS and the iTunes application (opening up the interface to other applications). severing the link between the iTunes application Safari and Quicktime would not solve the theoretical antitrust issue.
Your windows version will not be cheaper because all of the suddon, IE is not there anymore...
In a free market it is.
o will we start to sue car companies because they put 'wheels' on cars ?
If one car company gained a monopoly on cars before they started adding wheels to them, yes we would. Don't you think you should know what is illegal before you try making these analogies?
In the and, the commision is messing with things they have too little knowledge of.
The EU is enforcing the fricking law. It's been the law for a hundred years in the US and applies to everyone and all markets. It applies to the oil industry and the telephone market and to the wheat market and the browser market.
When i install ubuntu, evolution, Firefox, etc.. is bundled too..
So? When I go to the range and target practice I'm not arrested for murder. Does that mean it is always legal to fire a handgun regardless of the circumstances?
You don't even understand what's illegal or why it is illegal. Please educate yourself before babbling on and on.
Then, all automakers start installing their own windshield wipers by default. However, one automaker (Microsoft Motors) has most of the market.
All automakers? There basically aren't any other automakers. MS has about 98% of the relevant market. If there were one car company normal people could buy from (not specialty shops that sell only to the military for example and which are not part of this market as Apple is not) then yes, the MS car company would be banned from creating their own windshield wipers and bundling them thus destroying the livelihoods of the innovators who invented and started installing them.
Your main problem is you're mostly ignoring the whole "monopoly" thing. This is understandable since monopolies are uncommon and regulated in our society. Analogies with cars are always going to be awkward because none of us has ever lived in a society where cars were a monopolized market. Try an analogy with a monopoly, like the power distribution monopoly to your house. Imagine if they were not bound by antitrust law and could just start bundling things with the service they provide while at the same time increasing your bill. Do you see how that would undermine the market for whatever they bundled and why we have laws preventing suchlike?
A further question so that I can understand fully. Why are we allowing windows to come with firewall, image viewer, wordpad, email client etc? Aren't they destroying the markets of all these (Firewalls, email clients etc existed as a market before MS added them).
The criteria is if the product constituted a separate pre-existing market at the time of the monopoly. So for most of the items you list, yes they are undermining the markets for those items. If it ever goes to court, MS will probably lose. Any normal company would have taken measures to separate their application and OS divisions and been careful to market both separately to OEMs to avoid any possibility of antitrust issues. MS chose instead to ignore the laws over and over again and they are slowly being convicted over and over again. This is 100% their own fault. They have more lawyers than Disney and certainly can't claim they don't know what the law is. They just made a business decision that breaking the law would be more profitable. They bet the courts are ineffective and slow and bribable and they've been right for the most part.
What saddens be is that 90% of people here don't understand what laws MS is breaking or why those laws exist, but they feel they should voice their opinion that whatever laws they are they must be wrong.
I might mention, you STILL haven't answered my original questions. Should MS be allowed to bundle CPUs with their OS? If not, what quality differentiates CPUs and browsers and how would you write a law that makes bundling one legal and the other illegal while still applying to the general case?
I realize you're modded Insightful and all, and I guess I'm sticking my "excellent" karma up for grabs, but the GP has a point - what does unbundling the browser from the OS really solve?
What does removing the knife from a stabbing victim solve? It stops the ongoing damage so that remedies can be applied and it can eventually be healed. Further, it enforces the law, the same as it is applied to everyone else.
I mean, what problem is being addressed?
The problem is antitrust abuse. Shouldn't you know that already? The market for Web browsers has been undermined and is no longer functioning according to free market economics. This is a violation of the law.
Is the problem with Microsoft that they bundle the browser they develop with the operating system they develop?
No, the problem is they undermine the Web browser market. Their bundling the two is the mechanism by which they are breaking the law. There is no law against bundling a browser and an OS.
Here's an analogy. Bob is arrested for grand theft auto because he got in a car and drove home. Tim also got in a car and drove home, but was not arrested. In this situation no one complains the law is unfair because only one person was punished. That's because people understand the law being broken was against theft, not against driving. Driving was the mechanism by which the law was broken. Tim was, in fact, incapable of breaking the law since he owned the only car in the parking lot. This is analogous to Apple, who doesn't have the ability to break the market for Web browsers because they don't have a monopoly on desktop OS's.
So why are people fighting to have Microsoft's software unbundled with Microsoft's other software?
Because it is illegal and undermines the operation of the Web browser market.
Why aren't people fighting against the OS monopoly itself, instead of the fringes of the monopoly?
Because gaining a monopoly is not illegal in the general case nor does it undermine a market. Antitrust laws exist to ensure competition so that markets remain innovative and good products are produced at low prices by harnessing the self interest of producers and consumers. You can gain monopoly influence in a market simply by making a product that is much better than everyone else. That's the market working as it should. The economic problem and the crime happens when you use that monopoly to foist off inferior product in another market. Then, people acting in their own best interests are motivated to choose inferior products and the system stops working.
The problem with MS is that they hold a monopoly on operating systems.
No, the problem with Microsoft is they abuse a monopoly on desktop operating systems. It may be that the only way to stop these abuses is to remove the monopoly they are abusing, but many companies have monopoly influence in a market but don't undermine free trade in other markets. This is because those companies obey the law.
No one should care which software a vendor chooses to bundle with their other software...
No one does, just as no one cares if someone drives a car home. What they do care about is antitrust abuse and theft. Bundling software or anything else is legal in the general case. It's when that is the method used to implement antitrust abuse that the legal system starts to care.
What problem does this action really solve?
It stops a major method by which MS is undermining the Web browser market. Combined with other reforms, it can fix the Web browser market so it can move forward again and so the best WEb browsers are the ones that gain the most market share.
As long as they're consistant and strip all other operating systems of their Internet Explorers (Mac OSx of Safari)...
That's like being consistent and throwing everyone who drives a car in prison because you arrested a person for grand theft auto. It makes perfect sense if you think the latter person's crime was "driving" and MS's crime was "bundling a browser with an OS". Mind you, if you think that's what MS is about be convicted of you are probably pretty clueless. Likely you're just a troll.
They are the winner because they own the lion share of the browser market. They got there through dirty, underhanded and illegal tactics, but they came out on top. That battle has been fought and is in the past.
I thought I'd address this too. You don't "win" in a free market in any permanent sense. Who won the market for automobiles? Should we all be driving Fords because Ford had more than half of the car market at one point in history? Obviously not because they weren't allowed to break the law to prevent others from competing going forward. Everyone has to constantly make the best product and constantly try to lower costs. That's how the capitalist free market works when a monopolist is not breaking the law.
How do you fix the fact that 95% of computer users don't care what browser they use, and they just want to access "the internet"?
Why would you need to fix that? 95% of car drivers don't care what drive train their car uses and they just want to drive around. The free market, when it is allowed to work, allows car makers to pick the best suited one based upon its merits. The free market should be repaired so computer makers can pick the best suited browser based upon its merits as well.
What do you do when Jane installs Opera and her brother John installs Chrome and one of them can use the latest stupid Facebook widget, and the other can't?
Nothing, because the free market fixes it. Each browser maker is motivated to solve the problem and adhere to standards and if they fail OEMs and users are motivated to use a different browser. The free market makes micromanaging unnecessary.
At this point I'm just trying to get people to see the next step. Getting rid of IE isn't going to suddenly make everything on the web peachy keen.
Actually, if you could get rid of IE entirely, the market would solve the problem within a year and within three years we'd be seeing some really cool innovation in Web browsers and Web technologies as well as increased adherence to standards. That's not practical though. A remedy that works well will have to have several parts. MS is trying to avoid having to comply with a remedy by voluntarily shipping Win 7 without IE in the EU, but hopefully the EU will not go for it.
What I'm saying is that the horse is out of the barn at this point. What they have done in the past WAS illegal.
They haven't stopped doing it. It is still illegal. What do you think has changed that makes their action no longer illegal?
Unfortunately that is all water under the bridge at this point. The EU is attempting to right a wrong that has already gone so wrong that it is unable to be fixed at this point.
So your answer to abusive monopolies that have run amuck is to let them continue? Luckily most antitrust regulators move to stronger measures instead of giving up. For example, breaking up Microsoft would neatly solve the problem. Or forcing MS to bundle other browsers with their OS and forcing a certain level of compliance with Web standards. How is giving up helpful to anyone other than MS? How will it not encourage them to break the law more?
try to be as pragmatic as possible. With Windows in its current incarnation, a user can download an alternate browser and there isn't anything to keep it from functioning.
Yes there is. MS embraced and extended Web technologies. That alternate browser often can't read a particular Web page or use a particular Web application and that is the intentional result of MS's crime.
Whether or not Windows 7 comes with alternate browsers available from the get-go doesn't fix the problem that you've identified. The problem is that a large portion of the net is coded at IE6, and Microsoft's bastardization of the standards.
There are multiple parts to any solution to said problem, but including alternate browsers does help to solve it. For example, if Web developers know Firefox will ship with every copy of Windows as well as IE, then they can confidently target Firefox with Web sites they develop and tell people visiting with IE how to launch Firefox. This means IE has to compete for the attention of Web developers which motivates MS to make IE better and standards compliant so users will use it to get to sites coded to work with Firefox and other standards compliant browsers.
In my view of the world, it isn't the job of the government to step in an[sic] make Microsoft offer alternate browsers.
Is it the job of the government to tell people to sign over ownership of their house to another person and then force that first person to live in a small room for several years?
You seem to be missing this is the EU punishing MS for committing crimes and forcing them to make restitution to those they've hurt. It is absolutely the government's job to step in and punish MS when they break the law.
What I think should happen is that webmasters should grow a pair and write standards compliant code.
Yeah and we should all become socialists and work hard to make life better for everyone and share everything we have. Except it doesn't work. Capitalism works because it harnesses greed to a positive result, that being better products and lower prices. You can't expect Web developers to do anything but act in their own best financial interests. When the market is functioning, that is enough. The EU's job is to enforce the law so those best interests work within free market capitalism so we all benefit. MS is the one who broke the law and made that no longer the case and they're the one who needs to be punished and whose behaviors need to change to fix it, even if that means breaking MS up.
Businesses drive technology and innovation.
The capitalist free market drives innovation, until someone breaks the law to undermine it.
To sum it up more clearly, I don't think anti-trust law should be used in this instance because doing so won't fix the underlying issue.
So you're advocating letting criminals break the law because you don't think the law will effectively punish them enough? And
I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said. Original claim was "now we will see what happens in an unbiased market". I said that it might look no different than what we have now, in some countries...
No, you said they have a minority market share. Minority being 40% or so, which is pretty darn high for what is probably about the worst browser on the market. That MS hasn't done as much damage in that market is just a matter of degree.
and the EU needs to stop meddling with these things.
No they don't. The US needs to start enforcing their laws so businesses don't go to the EU to get the same laws actually enforced.
If they want to support open source software by doing something...
They don't this has nothing to do with OSS.
...but to cripple a OS over it is weak.
Is Windows crippled because MS doesn't get to pick which CPU it is run on or which video card it is run on? Why would it be crippled if OEMs pick the browser it runs with?
What if they forced everyone to include every alternative software bundled with the product, and what decides which alternative programs will get the special treatment?
What if? What if they stab all blonde people or make fire illegal? Do you even know what this article is about?
Note that in some European countries IE already has minority marketshare, biased market or no....
And note that some murder attempts fail because a bullet proof vest prevents serious injury. Not that either comment really has much to do with whether a crime has been committed or should be prosecuted or much of anything other than evaluating how successful a particular criminal is.
Mac ships with Safari and Ubuntu ships with FF
Make them stop that practice too.
You're misunderstanding what is illegal. There is no law against bundling an OS and a Web browser. But then there's no law against throwing a toaster. That doesn't mean you can't be guilty of antitrust abuse for the former and murder for the latter.
That's not a relevant market unless something prevents the average consumer from choosing a x86 computer as an alternative. Is there some reason why Dell and Apple aren't competing for the same customers?
Google has a monopoly on Search, and HAVE used this power to push others out of the market, and to become a monopoly in other online markets.
Google has a lot of market share in online search. What market do you believe they've leveraged this influence against?
No but they should be forced to remove it (and quicktime) from Itunes as they are doing the same thing as MS in trying to leverage Itunes market advantage to boost the market share of Safari and Quicktime
You're confusing the iTunes application with the iTunes music store service. This is understandable as the former is used to access the latter, but it is incorrect because they are separate markets as evidenced by competitors that supply only one of them. If either constitutes monopoly influence it would be the service, so a potential remedy would be forcing Apple to open up the interface to their store to other applications.
Hardly any end users give a rat's ass about any of that.
Why should I care? Most people don't know what an OS is or for that matter what an antitrust law is.
It's not as if IE is the only browser you can use in Windows.
Which doesn't solve the problem and isn't really relevant.
This all sounds like a metric ass-tonne of sandy vaginas.
I don't care what minerals you stuff in your orifices. Your hobbies aren't relevant either. Do you have anything useful or relevant to say or can you answer any of the questions I posed?
Slashdot Mirror
If you're going to say that "PC operating systems" is a separate market than "Mac operating systems" then Apple has 100% marketshare.
No. There is no market for Mac operating systems because they don't license their OS for sale. They use it as a component in desktop computer systems and bypass the OS market altogether. OS X would qualify as a "PC operating system" if Apple licensed it. The "PC" part was meant to distinguish it from the "workgroup server" operating system market.
Lastly, if you'd read the article, you'd see that they're punishing Microsoft for 10 years of "bad behaviour."
No they're not. MS was fined once for that.
MS has gone to court in the EU over tying involving their media player, their server OS, and for price fixing. They have not been punished for tying their browser or any number of other criminal antitrust actions they have committed. The problem is, MS has been so blatantly violating antitrust law so often it is easy to be confused about what they have already been convicted of where.
It just seems like a spiteful jab at MS and a double-standard that they don't apply to Apple, Canonical, etc.
It's not a double standard to enforce the same laws the same way for everyone. When you don't understand why what MS is doing is illegal and what Canonical is doing is legal that doesn't mean there is no difference. It means you're too lazy to look up and understand what antitrust law is.
So if MacOS X with Safari becomes more popular then Windows with IE, should they be also sued?
First, this isn't a lawsuit. It's a prosecution for a crime. Second, Apple doesn't sell Mac OS X retail except as upgrades, so it would be pretty hard for them to monopolize the desktop OS market. If Apple were to start licensing OS X to OEMs and they were to gain 70% market share then, yes they should absolutely have to start offering OS X separately from Safari to OEMs.
Shouldn't they be sued now so that cannot ever happen?
Shouldn't you be "sued" now so you can't ever shoplift?
So as soon as a company becomes too powerful with its products they need to be taken down a notch...so others can have a chance too to become big?
No as soon as a company gains a specific type of power they are held responsible for making sure that power does not hurt others in other markets. Normal companies take measures when they approach monopoly influence to separate out products and market them separately so antitrust law never becomes an issue.
I mean seriously, its Business, competition.
No, it's big business lack of competition. Competition is where your product competes against others and the best one for the lowest price wins. What MS has been doing is using their monopoly in one market to make sure an inferior product wins in the Web browser market by shielding it from having to compete.
Google started out with two guys, when there was a "monopoly" of search engines on the market
First when was there a monopoly and second, what would they sue for? Do you even know what antitrust abuse is?
Market share = consumer free willed choice.
Which works great in a free market capitalism. Antitrust abuse undermines the free market by introducing artificial problems with competitors, which is why it is illegal.
Sorry that consumers are stupid and not researching things before they buy, or what they use before using them.
It doesn't matter if they are smart or stupid because the market is broken. In many cases it is in OEMs best financial interest to install IE and only IE, despite the likelihood that in a free market it would be the worst choice.
But that is not M$ fault.
This is exactly MS's fault. They knowingly broke the law and told partners and sent e-mails internally (look up the DoJ evidence) where they explicitly said their intention was to extinguish competitors and advances in the Web in order to protect their desktop OS monopoly. They certainly knew the choice they were making was illegal and would hurt the industry but they did it anyway. They need to be punished for that and the damage needs to be undone. So far they've made billions breaking the law. Why would you expect them to obey laws going forward if nothing is done?
Ok, Microsoft is found guilty of abusing its position of controlling the currently most popular PC OS on the market. Through bundling and anti-competitive practices they're nailed for being a monopoly.
They were nailed for abusing a monopoly, not being one.
The media player gets stripped out per an earlier EC case.
But the media player wasn't stripped out. It was removed from a special version of Windows while people who bought that version still had to pay for it. It was functionally no different than throwing the player away and failed miserably to remedy the market imbalance. That market is still horribly broken (for numerous reasons).
Now, in 2007, Opera complains about the browser bundling, saying that it gives Microsoft an unfair advantage in the browser wars. The EC says "Yeah, you're right! Ok MS, take out the bundled browser"
WRONG! The EU said no such thing. They said they think MS is guilty and started looking for ways to undo the damage MS had done over the years. MS then said they were pulling IE from the next version of Windows voluntarily in the hopes the EU would not impose a harsher and more effective punishment and remedy.
...what they REALLY wanted Microsoft to do was to bundle a competing product with the base OS. They don't want a level playing field, they want to tip the scales in their favor (specifically to Opera).
Opera doesn't even want their browser bundled with Windows. They primarily make money licensing the mobile version. They want the market fixed so they don't have to spend millions engineering around broken Web pages that were the intentional result of MS's crime. The EU wants the market restored to competition. Just stopping a crime does not solve the damage done by it. It's like if a person stabs you then when the cops show up they pull out the knife and say, "see I stopped, it's all good". In such a situation is it "unfair" and "biased" if the police throw the stabber in prison and make them pay the medical bills of the victim?
Let the OEMs decide what browser to install on a system.
It's way, way, way too late for that. OEMs have a vested interest in supporting fewer applications. OEMs have a vested interest in stalling IE since only it can deal with the broken IE only pages and applications on the Web. That is a direct result of a criminal action. It's like letting the robber keep all the money they stole so long as they stop. It is far too little, far too late.
Considering current browser usage statistics, I think the entire browser monopoly concept is antiquated.
You're completely ignorant. This isn't about a browser monopoly. It's about their browser having an unfair market share because of leveraging of a desktop OS monopoly. If you don't even know what crime MS committed how can you sit here and tell us why the punishment for that crime is not suitable?
What this really feels like is...
...Incredible ignorance or astroturfing.
I agree completely. I don't use IE myself, but the EC's position that MS should not only not bundle their own browser, but instead bundle *competing* browsers is inane. I'm not a gung-ho laissez-faire capitalist, but forcing companies to promote competing products is over the line.
Maybe you're forgetting, this is punishment for a crime. Your argument is like saying it is inane to force someone to sign their house over to another and then spend three years in a small room. That's perfectly true unless they've been caught extorting money for years from the guy they're supposed to sigh the house over to.
All I'd like to see is the option to uninstall cleanly, not a mandatory release of a browser-less (read: near useless) OS.
The EU is not mandating that, it's MS's idea. Your goals are not the goals of the EU commission who is charged with stopping particular crimes and creating remedies to restore the market to proper operation.
I know this is /., where everyone just loves to bash MS at every opportunity. But the EC is way out of line on this one.
Wouldn't it be nice if people had a clue before making such strong, declarative statements?
First of all, the old "bundling a browser with your OS is unfair" argument is a relic from the 90's, when browsers were still a bit of a novelty. But it's 2009. *EVERY* OS comes bundled with a browser now--Apple, Ubuntu, everyone. Forcing MS not to bundle a simple default browser with their OS isn't leveling the playing field, it's forcing them to play with a disadvantage over everyone else.
That would make a lot fo sense if MS were being convicted of the crime of bundling a browser with an OS. That's not what they're being convicted of, just the particular method by which they're doing it.
Here's a car analogy. Bob is arrested for grand theft auto after taking the action of driving a car home. Tom and Sue are not arrested, even though they also drove a car home. The difference is that Tom and Sue each owned the cars they drove home. Microsoft is guilty of antitrust abuse for the action of bundling a browser with their monopolized OS. Apple and Canonical also bundled a browser with their OS, but not having a monopoly on either market were not doing any damage or breaking the law.
. Including a default browser with your OS today is no more remarkable than including a default media player, or calculator, or text editor, etc.
So what? Just because an action is common means that in unusual circumstances it can never be illegal. Lots of people drive cars home. That doesn't mean it is never illegal to drive a car home.
ow would you even GET to the Firefox website to install it if you didn't have IE included with a fresh Windows install (this isn't 1996--most people don't keep install discs for their browsers anymore).
Yu use the install disk your OEM gave you that comes with a browser or you use a disk you copied a browser to. If you can't handle that, you can't handle doing a fresh install of an OS in the first place. Not that this matters since this article is about how MS has decided not to ship IE and how the EU is likely going to force a different remedy such as making it easy to install different browsers from Windows.
Secondly, what exactly is MS supposed to do if NOT bundling their browser isn't even enough for the EC?
There are quite a few things they can do, including dropping IE and installing a competing browser by default, but in truth MS is screwed. The time for them to act would have been before they broke the law and deciding not to do it. At this point they've been breaking the law for years and done a lot of damage. Criminals are not usually ordered to stop breaking the law, ignore reparations and let to walk away. They're going to be punished and made to fix some of the damage their criminal actions have caused.
At this point the EC isn't helping the consumer, they just seem like they're being spiteful.
At this point you don't seem to have a clue what you're talking about and if you think just stopping a crime is enough to get you out of trouble with the police then you're naive.
Yeah but doesnt[sic] Apple force Ipod users to use Itunes?
Apple does bundle iPods and iTunes. The EU commission looked into it and decided iPods don't make up big enough of a chunk of the market to give Apple dominance as of yet.
Doesnt[sic] Apple force Itunes installs, Safari, search light installs etc.
Force installs? It bundles them, but not with anything that is a monopoly.
What about the explorer.exe itself as a file browser?
It was not a pre-existing separate market at the time of monopolization.
Why not force everything to be open?
Because that's not the purpose of the law. It isn't about openness. It's about free markets.
Apple does not have 90% of the market.
Neither does microsoft, if you believe Apple fans. So if MS is no longer a monopoly, then antitrust laws no longer apply.
First both economically and in terms of antirust law monopoly influence is usually considered about 70%. Second, MS has about 98% of the relevant market, that being "PC operating systems" which is defined as operating systems used on desktop computers instead of servers or appliances. Apple's install base is irrelevant to market share because Apple does not sell license OS X to OEMs. The fact that Apple sells Macs with OS X pre-installed does nothing to lessen Microsoft's power over Dell or HP because they can't license OS X from Apple and install it as a component of their computer systems.
If Apple ever gained the dominant position in the market, would you support forcing them to remove their browser in their OS?
What market are you talking about? Since Apple doesn't sell a desktop OS it would be pretty hard for them to gain a dominant position. They do sell computer systems though, so if Apple were ever to achieve dominance in the computer system market, then yes I would 100% absolutely support forcing them to unbundle their OS from their hardware and, if relevant, their browser from their OS.
I have answered again and again. A CPU is not part of the OS, while the browser is.
So you think laws should be written that specifically deal with browsers OS's and CPU's?!? A browser and an OS and a CPU are all parts of a computer system I buy at Walmart. So if the difference if it is part of "something" then your definition fails spectacularly.
Antitrust law is not about undefined "somethings". It's about economics and specifically about markets. It doesn't matter if a browser is part of an OS or if an OS is part of a computer system. What matters is if their is a separate, preexisting MARKET for both OS's and browsers or CPUs and browsers or CPUs and computer systems.
s simple as that. I consider the browser as part of the OS, as windshield wipers are part of the car, merely a required enhancement.
So how do you write an antitrust law that defines these "somethings" into which you are grouping items? Why is an OS a something but a computer system is not? How do you write a law that makes it legal for MS to bundle browsers and their monopolized OS's but doesn't make it legal for them to bundle CPUs and their monopolized OS or make it legal for AT&T to bundle telephones and landline service... without going around and defining every single thing in the world as part of arbitrary "somethings"?
If MS should not be bundling IE, how about the other OS's? Can they bundle their own browsers?
Yes they can. Doing so for them is not breaking any law and does not undermine free trade.
Because that would seem to me that would mean giving them an edge and I assume the law would just prevent abuse of monopoly, not give competitive advantages to small players.
What competitive advantage do you think is being conferred? Is Apple gaining an advantage by bundling Safari with OS X with Macs and selling them? How so? Dell can sell Latitudes with Windows and IE. How is Apple gaining a market advantage and what market are they gaining an advantage in? Is Redhat gaining an advantage over Micrososft because they are selling a bundle of Linux and Firefox to Asus while Microsoft has to sell them Windows and IE separately? How is that an advantage to Redhat? Redhat has to be answerable to their customers because they don't have a monopoly on anything. If Asus wants just Linux or just Firefox market pressures force Redhat to give Asus what they want or they can go with another vendor. Only Microsoft is in a position to ignore Asus's desires. For most of their computers, Windows is the only viable option so if Asus needs Windows for a market MS can force them to take IE as well. That's a crime because it breaks competition in the Web browser market.
So please get back to me here. First, describe to me your idea of antitrust law if we're throwing away the concept of markets and defining things in terms of "somethings". Second, how does another vendor bundling a browser and OS give them an advantage in any market and undermine the operation of said market?
You're confusing the iTunes application with the iTunes music store service. This is understandable as the former is used to access the latter, but it is incorrect because they are separate markets as evidenced by competitors that supply only one of them. If either constitutes monopoly influence it would be the service, so a potential remedy would be forcing Apple to open up the interface to their store to other applications.
Quicktime and Safari are installed at the same time as Itunes. Itunes is required for Ipods, and the ITMS. Apple are using Itunes's popularity and requirement for Ipods and ITMS to increase the install base of Safari and Quicktime by installing them when they aren't actually needed. This is the exact same type of piggybacking that lands Microsoft in such hot water.
So your claim is Apple is leveraging the iTunes application to increase installations of Safari and Quicktime. But Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the relevant market for the iTunes application. It isn't even the majority music player as WMP is installed bundled with all Windows machines. What Apple has to be careful about are the iTMS and the iPod since they have a lot of market share in both of those markets. So far the EU has ruled Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the relevant market for iPods because in the EU consumers consider cell phones that play media as an alternative, so Apple's market share is too small to constitute monopoly influence. For the iTMS the EU has not ruled on it directly, but have ruled that the RIAA cartel has engaged in price fixing using Apple's iTMS, but with Apple not being the guilty party.
So assuming Apple's iTMS constitutes monopoly influence on music download services, it is tied illegally to the iTunes application which is, in turn tied to Safari and Quicktime. The likely remedy then would be to break the tie between iTMS and the iTunes application (opening up the interface to other applications). severing the link between the iTunes application Safari and Quicktime would not solve the theoretical antitrust issue.
Sorry but that is a load of crap.
What a persuasive argument.
Your windows version will not be cheaper because all of the suddon, IE is not there anymore...
In a free market it is.
o will we start to sue car companies because they put 'wheels' on cars ?
If one car company gained a monopoly on cars before they started adding wheels to them, yes we would. Don't you think you should know what is illegal before you try making these analogies?
In the and, the commision is messing with things they have too little knowledge of.
The EU is enforcing the fricking law. It's been the law for a hundred years in the US and applies to everyone and all markets. It applies to the oil industry and the telephone market and to the wheat market and the browser market.
When i install ubuntu, evolution, Firefox, etc.. is bundled too..
So? When I go to the range and target practice I'm not arrested for murder. Does that mean it is always legal to fire a handgun regardless of the circumstances?
You don't even understand what's illegal or why it is illegal. Please educate yourself before babbling on and on.
Then, all automakers start installing their own windshield wipers by default. However, one automaker (Microsoft Motors) has most of the market.
All automakers? There basically aren't any other automakers. MS has about 98% of the relevant market. If there were one car company normal people could buy from (not specialty shops that sell only to the military for example and which are not part of this market as Apple is not) then yes, the MS car company would be banned from creating their own windshield wipers and bundling them thus destroying the livelihoods of the innovators who invented and started installing them.
Your main problem is you're mostly ignoring the whole "monopoly" thing. This is understandable since monopolies are uncommon and regulated in our society. Analogies with cars are always going to be awkward because none of us has ever lived in a society where cars were a monopolized market. Try an analogy with a monopoly, like the power distribution monopoly to your house. Imagine if they were not bound by antitrust law and could just start bundling things with the service they provide while at the same time increasing your bill. Do you see how that would undermine the market for whatever they bundled and why we have laws preventing suchlike?
A further question so that I can understand fully. Why are we allowing windows to come with firewall, image viewer, wordpad, email client etc? Aren't they destroying the markets of all these (Firewalls, email clients etc existed as a market before MS added them).
The criteria is if the product constituted a separate pre-existing market at the time of the monopoly. So for most of the items you list, yes they are undermining the markets for those items. If it ever goes to court, MS will probably lose. Any normal company would have taken measures to separate their application and OS divisions and been careful to market both separately to OEMs to avoid any possibility of antitrust issues. MS chose instead to ignore the laws over and over again and they are slowly being convicted over and over again. This is 100% their own fault. They have more lawyers than Disney and certainly can't claim they don't know what the law is. They just made a business decision that breaking the law would be more profitable. They bet the courts are ineffective and slow and bribable and they've been right for the most part.
What saddens be is that 90% of people here don't understand what laws MS is breaking or why those laws exist, but they feel they should voice their opinion that whatever laws they are they must be wrong.
I might mention, you STILL haven't answered my original questions. Should MS be allowed to bundle CPUs with their OS? If not, what quality differentiates CPUs and browsers and how would you write a law that makes bundling one legal and the other illegal while still applying to the general case?
I realize you're modded Insightful and all, and I guess I'm sticking my "excellent" karma up for grabs, but the GP has a point - what does unbundling the browser from the OS really solve?
What does removing the knife from a stabbing victim solve? It stops the ongoing damage so that remedies can be applied and it can eventually be healed. Further, it enforces the law, the same as it is applied to everyone else.
I mean, what problem is being addressed?
The problem is antitrust abuse. Shouldn't you know that already? The market for Web browsers has been undermined and is no longer functioning according to free market economics. This is a violation of the law.
Is the problem with Microsoft that they bundle the browser they develop with the operating system they develop?
No, the problem is they undermine the Web browser market. Their bundling the two is the mechanism by which they are breaking the law. There is no law against bundling a browser and an OS.
Here's an analogy. Bob is arrested for grand theft auto because he got in a car and drove home. Tim also got in a car and drove home, but was not arrested. In this situation no one complains the law is unfair because only one person was punished. That's because people understand the law being broken was against theft, not against driving. Driving was the mechanism by which the law was broken. Tim was, in fact, incapable of breaking the law since he owned the only car in the parking lot. This is analogous to Apple, who doesn't have the ability to break the market for Web browsers because they don't have a monopoly on desktop OS's.
So why are people fighting to have Microsoft's software unbundled with Microsoft's other software?
Because it is illegal and undermines the operation of the Web browser market.
Why aren't people fighting against the OS monopoly itself, instead of the fringes of the monopoly?
Because gaining a monopoly is not illegal in the general case nor does it undermine a market. Antitrust laws exist to ensure competition so that markets remain innovative and good products are produced at low prices by harnessing the self interest of producers and consumers. You can gain monopoly influence in a market simply by making a product that is much better than everyone else. That's the market working as it should. The economic problem and the crime happens when you use that monopoly to foist off inferior product in another market. Then, people acting in their own best interests are motivated to choose inferior products and the system stops working.
The problem with MS is that they hold a monopoly on operating systems.
No, the problem with Microsoft is they abuse a monopoly on desktop operating systems. It may be that the only way to stop these abuses is to remove the monopoly they are abusing, but many companies have monopoly influence in a market but don't undermine free trade in other markets. This is because those companies obey the law.
No one should care which software a vendor chooses to bundle with their other software...
No one does, just as no one cares if someone drives a car home. What they do care about is antitrust abuse and theft. Bundling software or anything else is legal in the general case. It's when that is the method used to implement antitrust abuse that the legal system starts to care.
What problem does this action really solve?
It stops a major method by which MS is undermining the Web browser market. Combined with other reforms, it can fix the Web browser market so it can move forward again and so the best WEb browsers are the ones that gain the most market share.
As long as they're consistant and strip all other operating systems of their Internet Explorers (Mac OSx of Safari)...
That's like being consistent and throwing everyone who drives a car in prison because you arrested a person for grand theft auto. It makes perfect sense if you think the latter person's crime was "driving" and MS's crime was "bundling a browser with an OS". Mind you, if you think that's what MS is about be convicted of you are probably pretty clueless. Likely you're just a troll.
They are the winner because they own the lion share of the browser market. They got there through dirty, underhanded and illegal tactics, but they came out on top. That battle has been fought and is in the past.
I thought I'd address this too. You don't "win" in a free market in any permanent sense. Who won the market for automobiles? Should we all be driving Fords because Ford had more than half of the car market at one point in history? Obviously not because they weren't allowed to break the law to prevent others from competing going forward. Everyone has to constantly make the best product and constantly try to lower costs. That's how the capitalist free market works when a monopolist is not breaking the law.
How do you fix the fact that 95% of computer users don't care what browser they use, and they just want to access "the internet"?
Why would you need to fix that? 95% of car drivers don't care what drive train their car uses and they just want to drive around. The free market, when it is allowed to work, allows car makers to pick the best suited one based upon its merits. The free market should be repaired so computer makers can pick the best suited browser based upon its merits as well.
What do you do when Jane installs Opera and her brother John installs Chrome and one of them can use the latest stupid Facebook widget, and the other can't?
Nothing, because the free market fixes it. Each browser maker is motivated to solve the problem and adhere to standards and if they fail OEMs and users are motivated to use a different browser. The free market makes micromanaging unnecessary.
At this point I'm just trying to get people to see the next step. Getting rid of IE isn't going to suddenly make everything on the web peachy keen.
Actually, if you could get rid of IE entirely, the market would solve the problem within a year and within three years we'd be seeing some really cool innovation in Web browsers and Web technologies as well as increased adherence to standards. That's not practical though. A remedy that works well will have to have several parts. MS is trying to avoid having to comply with a remedy by voluntarily shipping Win 7 without IE in the EU, but hopefully the EU will not go for it.
What I'm saying is that the horse is out of the barn at this point. What they have done in the past WAS illegal.
They haven't stopped doing it. It is still illegal. What do you think has changed that makes their action no longer illegal?
Unfortunately that is all water under the bridge at this point. The EU is attempting to right a wrong that has already gone so wrong that it is unable to be fixed at this point.
So your answer to abusive monopolies that have run amuck is to let them continue? Luckily most antitrust regulators move to stronger measures instead of giving up. For example, breaking up Microsoft would neatly solve the problem. Or forcing MS to bundle other browsers with their OS and forcing a certain level of compliance with Web standards. How is giving up helpful to anyone other than MS? How will it not encourage them to break the law more?
try to be as pragmatic as possible. With Windows in its current incarnation, a user can download an alternate browser and there isn't anything to keep it from functioning.
Yes there is. MS embraced and extended Web technologies. That alternate browser often can't read a particular Web page or use a particular Web application and that is the intentional result of MS's crime.
Whether or not Windows 7 comes with alternate browsers available from the get-go doesn't fix the problem that you've identified. The problem is that a large portion of the net is coded at IE6, and Microsoft's bastardization of the standards.
There are multiple parts to any solution to said problem, but including alternate browsers does help to solve it. For example, if Web developers know Firefox will ship with every copy of Windows as well as IE, then they can confidently target Firefox with Web sites they develop and tell people visiting with IE how to launch Firefox. This means IE has to compete for the attention of Web developers which motivates MS to make IE better and standards compliant so users will use it to get to sites coded to work with Firefox and other standards compliant browsers.
In my view of the world, it isn't the job of the government to step in an[sic] make Microsoft offer alternate browsers.
Is it the job of the government to tell people to sign over ownership of their house to another person and then force that first person to live in a small room for several years?
You seem to be missing this is the EU punishing MS for committing crimes and forcing them to make restitution to those they've hurt. It is absolutely the government's job to step in and punish MS when they break the law.
What I think should happen is that webmasters should grow a pair and write standards compliant code.
Yeah and we should all become socialists and work hard to make life better for everyone and share everything we have. Except it doesn't work. Capitalism works because it harnesses greed to a positive result, that being better products and lower prices. You can't expect Web developers to do anything but act in their own best financial interests. When the market is functioning, that is enough. The EU's job is to enforce the law so those best interests work within free market capitalism so we all benefit. MS is the one who broke the law and made that no longer the case and they're the one who needs to be punished and whose behaviors need to change to fix it, even if that means breaking MS up.
Businesses drive technology and innovation.
The capitalist free market drives innovation, until someone breaks the law to undermine it.
To sum it up more clearly, I don't think anti-trust law should be used in this instance because doing so won't fix the underlying issue.
So you're advocating letting criminals break the law because you don't think the law will effectively punish them enough? And
I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said. Original claim was "now we will see what happens in an unbiased market". I said that it might look no different than what we have now, in some countries...
No, you said they have a minority market share. Minority being 40% or so, which is pretty darn high for what is probably about the worst browser on the market. That MS hasn't done as much damage in that market is just a matter of degree.
I think it sucks that they won't package IE
Your opinion is noted.
and the EU needs to stop meddling with these things.
No they don't. The US needs to start enforcing their laws so businesses don't go to the EU to get the same laws actually enforced.
If they want to support open source software by doing something ...
They don't this has nothing to do with OSS.
...but to cripple a OS over it is weak.
Is Windows crippled because MS doesn't get to pick which CPU it is run on or which video card it is run on? Why would it be crippled if OEMs pick the browser it runs with?
What if they forced everyone to include every alternative software bundled with the product, and what decides which alternative programs will get the special treatment?
What if? What if they stab all blonde people or make fire illegal? Do you even know what this article is about?
Note that in some European countries IE already has minority marketshare, biased market or no....
And note that some murder attempts fail because a bullet proof vest prevents serious injury. Not that either comment really has much to do with whether a crime has been committed or should be prosecuted or much of anything other than evaluating how successful a particular criminal is.
Mac ships with Safari and Ubuntu ships with FF Make them stop that practice too.
You're misunderstanding what is illegal. There is no law against bundling an OS and a Web browser. But then there's no law against throwing a toaster. That doesn't mean you can't be guilty of antitrust abuse for the former and murder for the latter.
Apple had a monopoly on powerPC computers.
That's not a relevant market unless something prevents the average consumer from choosing a x86 computer as an alternative. Is there some reason why Dell and Apple aren't competing for the same customers?
Google has a monopoly on Search, and HAVE used this power to push others out of the market, and to become a monopoly in other online markets.
Google has a lot of market share in online search. What market do you believe they've leveraged this influence against?
No but they should be forced to remove it (and quicktime) from Itunes as they are doing the same thing as MS in trying to leverage Itunes market advantage to boost the market share of Safari and Quicktime
You're confusing the iTunes application with the iTunes music store service. This is understandable as the former is used to access the latter, but it is incorrect because they are separate markets as evidenced by competitors that supply only one of them. If either constitutes monopoly influence it would be the service, so a potential remedy would be forcing Apple to open up the interface to their store to other applications.
Hardly any end users give a rat's ass about any of that.
Why should I care? Most people don't know what an OS is or for that matter what an antitrust law is.
It's not as if IE is the only browser you can use in Windows.
Which doesn't solve the problem and isn't really relevant.
This all sounds like a metric ass-tonne of sandy vaginas.
I don't care what minerals you stuff in your orifices. Your hobbies aren't relevant either. Do you have anything useful or relevant to say or can you answer any of the questions I posed?