Actually many people in the US get their phones for "free" too. But it isn't really free, it's subsidized by the phone companies.
Right, for cell phones, but not for LAN lines. This is because in a given area there are many cell phone providers, but usually only one LAN line provider granted a geographical monopoly. They are banned from bundling by the same law that bans MS from bundling their monopoly on desktop OS's with a Web browser.
Wow, you are serious with that CPU example? I will dare answer, although I doubt I will get through...
You're right it won't because you don't even answer the question. You don't provide any quality that makes the Web browser market different from the CPU market and then explain why that makes a difference in term of either antitrust law or economics.
...question is where is the line drawn between OS and applications...
Not really, because it doesn't matter. Is a telephone part of a telephone network? It didn't matter in the AT&T case because it isn't relevant. What matters is if it is a separate, preexisting market, both in the eyes of the law and in terms of economics. No one writes antitrust laws about browsers and OS's or phones and phone servic because it isn't relevant, just as we don't write murder laws about murder with a waffle iron while wearing a sweater.
In the end, removing IE from Windows adds an inconvenience to Windows...
This is the logical fallacy, appeal to consequences.
It is only natural that the company that controls ~90% of the desktop space is going to influence what the users of those desktops can do when they get online.
Sure, but it should be in the same way Nvidie influences what you can do online, or Samsung or any other component supplier for computer systems.
Let me ask you a question. What is it that you want to do, right now, that you can't do because Microsoft is bundling IE with their OS?
I can't go to a Website and get vector graphics that are smaller and scale well. This is because IE won't support the standard so Web developers can use it. We don't even know what other technologies would have come to the Web by now if not for their interference. Proper video and audio support, 3D objects, 3D video, client side databases, probably a lot more.
Is there an awesome service that you could provide, if only it weren't for that darn IE and its lack-luster feature set and sub-par standards implementations?
Yes, many of them. I've personally wasted hundreds of hours working around MS's broken implementations, let alone all the things I didn't even attempt.
The "problem" if you will is that Microsoft is such a behemoth. They control the entire stack.
That's illegal. They are only supposed to control the components they are winning the market for independently. Anything else undermines the market
e I said, I'm biased. I don't think that their "illegal" behavior is harming me.
So. It's illegal. Companies who are the victims say it is hurting them. I don't see where this is getting ambiguous.
In my mind, it all revolves around the question of, "What can't I do with a computer because Microsoft is preventing it." For me, the answer is "nothing"...
And 40 years ago if you asked people what they couldn't do with their phones because of AT&T 90% of them would not have come up with anything either, certainly not autodial or push buttons. We'll never know what might have been, but we do know the general trends. There would almost certainly have been a great deal more innovation and useful improvements if the market were functioning.
In my mind, the difficulty in beating Microsoft with the anti-trust club has to do with the newness of the internet and computers as tools in society.
Why? How is this any different than any other markets when it comes to the economics of capitalism?
It's not like Microsoft is the phone company, and they control the lines and make you rent your telephone from them.
No they monopolize the desktop OS, and control enough of the Web browser market so that no one can implement anything new they don't sanction. And since they don't want to lose their desktop OS monopoly, anything that makes said monopoly less important (like technologies that allow for Web applications and useful Web services) present MS with a direct financial interest in preventing.
They didn't invent HTML or Java or CSS or any of the other commonly used web components.
No, they were late to the game and responded by trying to catch up and then trying to sue their existing monopoly to cripple the Web. Remember "embrace, extend, extinguish". That's what MS executives said their plan for the Web was. They were convicted of harming the Web browser market and intentionally crippling Java and trying to kill it. If MS had seen the Web coming, they would have created their own, completely closed technologies to prevent it from going anywhere out of their control. We got lucky.
I'm all for forcing Microsoft to allow people to install alternate browsers. Then we can put this argument to rest, and people can realize that the web is the web, and it doesn't matter what browser you look at it with.
But back to anti-trust law and Microsoft browsers. The market has pressured Microsoft to incorporate better standards compliance into their browser. That's the end goal, right? To make sure that the monopolist supports what the people say that they want.
The point of antitrust law is to ensure every player in continually pressured by the market to make the best product. Right now MS is feeling pressure to make the worst browser slightly less terrible, but still not as good or better than every other browser out there. Therein lies the problem. Unless the laws are enforced, there is no reason to expect the type of rapid innovation and improvement we see in other markets because the financial incentive is not there. We're a decade behind where we should be already. We need to make sure MS is subject to the same pressures as everyone else. That means when they have absolutely the worst product on the market they don't have 60-70% market share, like they do now. The only think keeping IE in the game is bundling. We don't want that changed because we want IE to fail, but because we want IE to be a decent browser.
Just because MS has monopolized the desktop OS market that doesn't mean they should be given a free pass to push crap on us in other markets. Every time in history that has happened we see innovation in that second market slow to a crawl. That's one of the big reasons we passed those laws. MS is breaking those laws.
You write, "I'm all for anti-trust law." Okay, but you don't think it should be enforced in this instance for some reason? Why? What they're doing is illegal. Are you proposing we change the laws and if so, what changes do you propose that would make what MS is doing legal, but not make antitrust law ineffective?
So the batteground will evolve, and it will come down to what vendor gives the developers the tools that they need to construct the applications that do what the users want to do.
But the battleground hasn't been evolving. We're still trying to present Web pages using half implemented decade old standards because we haven't been able to move forward with anything new because MS uses their illegally gained dominance in the Web browser market to stop it. Further, other companies have no financial incentive to move forward either, since they know IE won;t implement anything new so Web developers won't target anything new they create.
IE 7 and 8 are far too little far too late and offer no promises for the future. Putting MS in the same position as everyone else, where if their browser sucks they rapidly lose market share, does offer that guarantee. That's a big part of the reason we have such a strong capitalist component to our economy. Rather than trust MS will keep improving, what's you objection to giving them direct financial incentive to keep improving at the same time as enforcing our current laws and giving every other browser developer a fair shake?
Most cars come with OEM parts from the manufacturer. You dont get a choice of fucking tire brands. It comes as is. Next you're going to tell me that air bag brands are anti trust violations.
Did you get dropped on your head or something? It' called "antitrust law". It doesn't take a genius to find out what a trust is, especially after I've already pointed out your ignorance. At this point, it is just willful ignorance. It doesn't matter how many examples of non-trusts not violating laws you point out, it doesn't do anything to mitigate a trust breaking the law.
It would be hard for the EU to make a case that Microsoft's proposed remedy doesn't address the complaint. After all, if they're no longer bundling the browser with the OS, it can't be considered "illegal tying of a different product to a monopoly."
If you stop extorting money from the guy down the street it's hard to argue your stopping didn't address the complaint. That doesn't mean they don't toss your butt in jail for a few years then garnish your wages until the money is repaid. MS committed a criminal offense. Stopping committing that offense doesn't get you off the hook, especially when there are still damages to others that have not been remedied.
It shifts that part of the regulatory burden onto the OEMs, who aren't nearly the kind of deep-pockets attractive target for a fine that Microsoft is.
OEMs can do whatever they want because none of them has monopoly influence to abuse. It doesn't matter how much money they have since they are incapable of committing this crime if they wanted to (well unless they band together and form a trust).
t's not hard to see why MS would prefer to ship "no browser" than a competitor's browser.
True. It remains to be seen if the EU will let it go at that and a fine or if they'll continue to push for a more significant remedy that will do more to reverse the damage to the market. MS is a repeat offender here and as of yesterday the EU was in talks with PC makers about a different remedy.
OK, I didn't read TFA, but to offer a version [...] that has the browser removed sounds to me like the Windows XP N bullcrap.
Maybe next time you SHOULD RTFA then. They claim they are offering the OEM version in the EU without IE 8 and not selling a version in the EU to OEMs tat includes it.
"Offering a version" just doesn't cut it IMO, the browser needs to go, period. Just have a dialog box pop up asking 'which browser would you like?' when somebody first wants to access 'the Internet'.
That's what the EU commission seems to be favoring. This is MS's attempt to get away with less.
You really need a display to get a browser too, should it be bundled with the OS? You really need a CPU to use an OS, should it be bundled with the OS? If Microsoft were to come out with their own brand of CPU tomorrow and required all PC makers to buy a bundle of Windows with their CPU, instead of just Windows would you support that? After all, a OS won't work without a CPU. And PC makers can always throw away the MS brand CPU and buy one from Intel or AMD right? And if you wanted to run Windows on a PC you were building you could just throw away the CPU too right? And just because MS pays to create that CPU and deliver it does not mean the price of Windows was raised to include it, does it? After all, it comes "free" with the OS.
Oh, come on, of all the arguments you could use you resort to cheap sophism? I can't seriously respond to this, perhaps I could revert to humor... but...
This isn't sophism, it is how antitrust law works. Answer the question. Should MS be able to bundle a CPU with their OS? If not, how is a CPU qualitatively different from a browser? Either action is the same in terms of effect upon the market and both are illegal under the same antitrust law.
I have no doubt you can't respond to this, but not because it is not a serious argument. It's because you;re completely wrong in principal.
Is there really a "web browser market" when only one of the four major players are actually trying to charge for their product?
Yes. AT&T was forced to stop bundling telephones with their telephone service, despite the fact that no one was selling telephones at the time. Immediately thereafter there was en explosion of innovation including push buttons, autodial, answering machines, wireless sets, etc. Why do you think that is? Why do you think we have antitrust laws?
IE, FF and Chrome are free.
IE is Windows only and every time you buy Windows you're paying for it. The cost is bundled into the price of Windows. "Free" is just marketing. The others make money in ways other than directly charging for the browser.
The only company out there trying to make money by selling a web browser is Opera.
Opera's regular browser is free too.
When I was using a WinCE phone, Opera Mobile was absolutely the best browser for that platform.
Guess what, you paid more for that phone than you should have. The phone maker paid Opera. Opera spent millions working around broken Web pages. Broken Web pages exist because IE is broken and was artificially granted huge market share despite being inferior. MS's actions, thus, cost Opera money and they pass that on to you, which hurts their business by making their product more expensive and less useful because of MS's illegal act.
Despite whatever technical merits their browser might have, I think Opera is looking to the government to create a market for them that in a truly free market, wouldn't exist.
Yeah, expecting the government to enforce the laws and MS to obey them the same as everyone else sure is unfair. Let's cut to the chase then. Do you feel antitrust law is wrong in principal or do you feel it should not apply to MS in this case. Why?
It helps to restore the free market so we can have innovation in Web technologies.
The fact that you need a browser in order to get a browser (no, a bundled wget would certainly not do for Windows users), for me means that the browser should be part of the operating system... However isn't the fact that you REALLY need to bundle a browser an indication that it should be part of the OS?
You really need a display to get a browser too, should it be bundled with the OS? You really need a CPU to use an OS, should it be bundled with the OS? If Microsoft were to come out with their own brand of CPU tomorrow and required all PC makers to buy a bundle of Windows with their CPU, instead of just Windows would you support that? After all, a OS won't work without a CPU. And PC makers can always throw away the MS brand CPU and buy one from Intel or AMD right? And if you wanted to run Windows on a PC you were building you could just throw away the CPU too right? And just because MS pays to create that CPU and deliver it does not mean the price of Windows was raised to include it, does it? After all, it comes "free" with the OS.
Perhaps we should have Apple remove Safari next. The DO have a monopoly on pretentious/cool-wannabe devices, don't they?;)
They don't have a monopoly on desktop OS's or on Web browsers, so it does not undermine the market. MS does have an effective monopoly on desktop OS's so anything they bundle with it does undermine the free market.
I think it is going a step-to-far to force MS to not include a browser as a part of it's OS offering given almost all their competitors do.
Do you think it is going to far to stop James Wenneker von Brunn from shooting guns at people given that the US Olympic shooting team fires guns all the time? Maybe your first step should be understanding what law it was MS has violated and why that law exists. There's no law that says you can't bundle an OS and a browser. There's a law that says you can't undermine the free market by leveraging monopoly influence on another market.
No matter how much you love FF or hate all things Microsoft it seems extremely unreasonable.
It only seems unreasonable if you're ignorant of what antitrust law is all about. Is it too much to ask that you educate yourself before burdening us with your opinions?
It also sets a bad precident[sic]...
Okay, assuming for the sake of argument antitrust law is all wrong and fundamentally flawed, you think it sets a bad precedent to enforce the law instead of letting MS get away with breaking it while enforcing it against everyone else? How does this make sense? Even if the laws were completely wrong, MS as a corporation should obey them while trying to get them changed, just like everyone else.
now someone can complain and get other builtin software removed because of the competition issue... think WinZIP, WS_FTP, util you've stripped down the OS (Windows or otherwise) that does next to nothing out of the box and won't lower Windows' cost.
Yes, they could get some other software removed, but we have only your assertion it won't lower costs. As for doing nothing out of the box, it does nothing out of the box now because MS doesn't bundle it with a CPU and hard drive and display. That's why we have OEMs, to assemble components into sellable products.
...and if Linux ever does get a foothold, regulators could start demanding what packages end up in the "default" install rather than the market, which really sucks.
Again, this shows your complete failure to understand antitrust law. Please, find out what the laws say before making absurd assertions like this.
So, if IE won't be bundled with Win7 then, how are they gonna download the browser that they DO want to use?
I imagine using one of their thousands of computers they use now and which already have browsers installed. This is about what Microsoft ships to Dell, not what Dell ships to Bestbuy.
I sure hope they are at the very least fair with their insanity, and force Apple to remove Safari from OSX.
That makes a lot of sense if you fundamentally misunderstand what MS is guilty of. It's like saying everyone should be arrested for driving cars because one person was arrested for grand theft auto after driving a car that did not belong to them... and we have to be fair.
Hell why not force Microsoft to unbundle NTFS and to use non Microsoft file systems.
Hell, why not read what antitrust abuse is so you can answer your own questions? Or you could just shut up about crap if you don't want to bother informing yourself.
Fucking EU is ridiculous sometimes.
Fucking ignorant twats like Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745) are ridiculous sometimes. How can you still be ignorant after so many discussions of this where you've posted?
Can someone explain to me why bundling IE with windows is considered to be a trust?
No, because it isn't considered a trust. You don't even seem to know what a trust is, so one can only assume your ignorance of this topic is extreme. Have you considered a dictionary?
An antitrust law is a law against undermining the operation of a free market by using overwhelming influence in a market. A trust is a group of companies or organizations that collude to use their market power to this end. A monopoly is a company with enough influence to do it my themselves. MS has been ruled to have such influence in the "PC Operating System" market (differentiating it from the workgroup server OS market.). As such, they are forbidden from using that influence to disrupt other, pre-existing markets. The Web browser market qualifies as such a market.
MS doesn't charge any money for it
Irrelevant.
... and it was better than Netscape when it came out...
Irrelevant.
...why is it all of the sudden a trust and not a trust 15 years ago?
They had a monopoly then too, and it was a crime then, the US charged them with it. Since then other countries have tried them for it over the years. The EU finally charged them in response to complaints from their victims.
Doesn't it chill your blood to imagine that you could very suddenly be in a situation where every single person you know who gets a new computer is going to need you to set it up?
RTFA idiot! This applies to copies of Windows shipped by MS. It has nothing to do with whether or not a browser will be installed on computers sold to the public.
I'm confused. So if I get a copy of Windows in Europe and do a full reinstall, how am I supposed to use my already-active internet connection to get Firefox?
Well if you're compentent enough to do a full re-install surely you're competent enough to make a copy of Firefox on CD/DVD/flash drive before you do it?
The article submitter fails to note the EU is not necessarily on board with this as they've been circulating a survey asking PC companies about how many and what browsers should be pre-installed as well as asking questions about if MS is pressuring them on the issue.
We'll finally be able to measure IE's marketshare in a non-biased market.
Not really. Many years of a broken market have created a huge number of Websites and Web applications broken to only work properly with IE. Unless this is remedied, we'll only have a slightly less broken market. Additionally, this applies only to the EU, so any company doing business anyplace outside the EU or Web developers wanting to target customers outside the EU will still be subject to artificial market incentives caused by MS's bundling elsewhere.
Look, in a "cyber war" you don't fight with DoS attacks, you fight by simply severing the undersea cables.
Well, severing the cables would be expensive. More likely we'd just filter incoming traffic from that address space. If every computer in China today started sending a DoS attack at something in the US or Europe, an IT guy would get beeped and would authorize their automated system to blackhole that traffic at the core routers. Basically, it would just cut off traffic originating in China and the rest of us would go on as usual except there would be some interesting network security articles. Heck, with some of the systems in place, companies with regular traffic to china might not even have their normal traffic disrupted since it had been previously mapped out as normal and white-listed.
I can understand why they're looking into Google. They're a monopoly
Monopoly? What the hell are you talking about? Google is an advertiser.. Just like thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of other companies on the Interweb and in real life. Google surely has a tremendous market share, but they don't prevent anyone from advertising with other companies...
Having tremendous market share is being a monopoly, in terms of the law. Not leveraging that monopoly to harm competition means Google is obeying the law, not that they aren't a monopoly. A monopoly is just having the power to abuse a position, which is legal. Abuse of a monopoly is illegal.
Being #1 doesn't make your[sic] a monopoly.
No but having 70%+ of a market does give you a lot of power over your customers. Refusing to do business with them unless they accede to your demands allows you to undermine free trade and because you have so much power your customers have little choice. Walking away from advertising with Google will kill many small companies.
Of course all of this is academic because none of Google's large market share is the monopoly (actually trust) in question in this case. It is about the formation of a new trust granting Google exclusive power to act on behalf of a trust made up by Google, the Author's Guild, and the AAP.
Actually, the trust in this instance is the combination of the Author's Guild and the AAP trying to make a collective deal with Google that would grant Google exclusive privileges over use of printed works in exchange for using that power to gather money for the trust. It isn't Google's market share in internet search or online advertising that is the issue here.
What is annoying when the DOJ turns a blind eye as other monopolies, at least from my perspective, abuse their power to maintain their position as monopolies.
The DoJ has done a terrible job of regulating monopolies over te last decade and have pretty much been in the pocket of big business. This new action is useful in it addresses a monopoly business is trying to form and which would potentially harm competition. It would, of course, be even nicer if they'd go after long standing abusive trusts that have been harming competition for a long time such as Microsoft, each local Cable television company, consolidation of wired telephone service, the RIAA, etc.
As I pointed out (Slashdot has no edit function) Tiger users this time around appear to have to buy the $169 Snow Leopard + iWork + iLife bundle to bring their entire computer up to date.
I don't think this is clear at all. From the presentation and the info Apple has put up, Tiger users amy be able to just buy the $29 version of Snow Leopard and install. All I've seen on the topic is speculation. Do you have a real source to assert otherwise?
When did Apple ever release "me too!" products to jump into temporarily hot markets?
iPods and iPhones.
The portable music player and smartphone markets weren't hot markets when Apple jumped into them. They were tiny niche markets and the average person found such devices way, way too hard to use. They were reserved mostly for nerds. The markets did exist, but what Apple did was went in and refined the overall usability of the devices to provide a solid base level of functionality that was easy enough for average people... drastically expanding the market. That's when they really heated up and everyone else tried to copy them and compete for share of the newly expanded market. Apple's not the only company that does this, but they are one of the most successful.
...it takes a basic idea others came out with then adds enough extras to it for people to pay a higher price for it.
Usually Apple's initial offerings have fewer features than competitors, not more. They are good at making those features usable to normal people and ditching the features they can't make usable by the ship date. The iPod had less space than a Nomad and no wi-fi. It didn't have an FM tuner and was missing several other features competitors had on their bullet list. The difference was the average person could actually rip CDs with iTunes, transfer them to the iPod, and play them all without calling the neighbor's kid over to help. That's where Apple innovates and that's what many people are willing to pay more for.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually many people in the US get their phones for "free" too. But it isn't really free, it's subsidized by the phone companies.
Right, for cell phones, but not for LAN lines. This is because in a given area there are many cell phone providers, but usually only one LAN line provider granted a geographical monopoly. They are banned from bundling by the same law that bans MS from bundling their monopoly on desktop OS's with a Web browser.
Hopefully they haven't discovered spoofing.
You can't spoof which line the packet is coming into the core router on.
Wouldn't it just make more sense to leave IE in, and let people use whatever browser they want?
Not if you understand why antitrust abuse is illegal. If you don't understand, find out. I'm tired of explaining it.
Wow, you are serious with that CPU example? I will dare answer, although I doubt I will get through...
You're right it won't because you don't even answer the question. You don't provide any quality that makes the Web browser market different from the CPU market and then explain why that makes a difference in term of either antitrust law or economics.
...question is where is the line drawn between OS and applications...
Not really, because it doesn't matter. Is a telephone part of a telephone network? It didn't matter in the AT&T case because it isn't relevant. What matters is if it is a separate, preexisting market, both in the eyes of the law and in terms of economics. No one writes antitrust laws about browsers and OS's or phones and phone servic because it isn't relevant, just as we don't write murder laws about murder with a waffle iron while wearing a sweater.
In the end, removing IE from Windows adds an inconvenience to Windows...
This is the logical fallacy, appeal to consequences.
You fail all around.
It is only natural that the company that controls ~90% of the desktop space is going to influence what the users of those desktops can do when they get online.
Sure, but it should be in the same way Nvidie influences what you can do online, or Samsung or any other component supplier for computer systems.
Let me ask you a question. What is it that you want to do, right now, that you can't do because Microsoft is bundling IE with their OS?
I can't go to a Website and get vector graphics that are smaller and scale well. This is because IE won't support the standard so Web developers can use it. We don't even know what other technologies would have come to the Web by now if not for their interference. Proper video and audio support, 3D objects, 3D video, client side databases, probably a lot more.
Is there an awesome service that you could provide, if only it weren't for that darn IE and its lack-luster feature set and sub-par standards implementations?
Yes, many of them. I've personally wasted hundreds of hours working around MS's broken implementations, let alone all the things I didn't even attempt.
The "problem" if you will is that Microsoft is such a behemoth. They control the entire stack.
That's illegal. They are only supposed to control the components they are winning the market for independently. Anything else undermines the market
e I said, I'm biased. I don't think that their "illegal" behavior is harming me.
So. It's illegal. Companies who are the victims say it is hurting them. I don't see where this is getting ambiguous.
In my mind, it all revolves around the question of, "What can't I do with a computer because Microsoft is preventing it." For me, the answer is "nothing"...
And 40 years ago if you asked people what they couldn't do with their phones because of AT&T 90% of them would not have come up with anything either, certainly not autodial or push buttons. We'll never know what might have been, but we do know the general trends. There would almost certainly have been a great deal more innovation and useful improvements if the market were functioning.
In my mind, the difficulty in beating Microsoft with the anti-trust club has to do with the newness of the internet and computers as tools in society.
Why? How is this any different than any other markets when it comes to the economics of capitalism?
It's not like Microsoft is the phone company, and they control the lines and make you rent your telephone from them.
No they monopolize the desktop OS, and control enough of the Web browser market so that no one can implement anything new they don't sanction. And since they don't want to lose their desktop OS monopoly, anything that makes said monopoly less important (like technologies that allow for Web applications and useful Web services) present MS with a direct financial interest in preventing.
They didn't invent HTML or Java or CSS or any of the other commonly used web components.
No, they were late to the game and responded by trying to catch up and then trying to sue their existing monopoly to cripple the Web. Remember "embrace, extend, extinguish". That's what MS executives said their plan for the Web was. They were convicted of harming the Web browser market and intentionally crippling Java and trying to kill it. If MS had seen the Web coming, they would have created their own, completely closed technologies to prevent it from going anywhere out of their control. We got lucky.
I'm all for forcing Microsoft to allow people to install alternate browsers. Then we can put this argument to rest, and people can realize that the web is the web, and it doesn't matter what browser you look at it with.
It does matter t
But back to anti-trust law and Microsoft browsers. The market has pressured Microsoft to incorporate better standards compliance into their browser. That's the end goal, right? To make sure that the monopolist supports what the people say that they want.
The point of antitrust law is to ensure every player in continually pressured by the market to make the best product. Right now MS is feeling pressure to make the worst browser slightly less terrible, but still not as good or better than every other browser out there. Therein lies the problem. Unless the laws are enforced, there is no reason to expect the type of rapid innovation and improvement we see in other markets because the financial incentive is not there. We're a decade behind where we should be already. We need to make sure MS is subject to the same pressures as everyone else. That means when they have absolutely the worst product on the market they don't have 60-70% market share, like they do now. The only think keeping IE in the game is bundling. We don't want that changed because we want IE to fail, but because we want IE to be a decent browser.
Just because MS has monopolized the desktop OS market that doesn't mean they should be given a free pass to push crap on us in other markets. Every time in history that has happened we see innovation in that second market slow to a crawl. That's one of the big reasons we passed those laws. MS is breaking those laws.
You write, "I'm all for anti-trust law." Okay, but you don't think it should be enforced in this instance for some reason? Why? What they're doing is illegal. Are you proposing we change the laws and if so, what changes do you propose that would make what MS is doing legal, but not make antitrust law ineffective?
So the batteground will evolve, and it will come down to what vendor gives the developers the tools that they need to construct the applications that do what the users want to do.
But the battleground hasn't been evolving. We're still trying to present Web pages using half implemented decade old standards because we haven't been able to move forward with anything new because MS uses their illegally gained dominance in the Web browser market to stop it. Further, other companies have no financial incentive to move forward either, since they know IE won;t implement anything new so Web developers won't target anything new they create.
IE 7 and 8 are far too little far too late and offer no promises for the future. Putting MS in the same position as everyone else, where if their browser sucks they rapidly lose market share, does offer that guarantee. That's a big part of the reason we have such a strong capitalist component to our economy. Rather than trust MS will keep improving, what's you objection to giving them direct financial incentive to keep improving at the same time as enforcing our current laws and giving every other browser developer a fair shake?
Most cars come with OEM parts from the manufacturer. You dont get a choice of fucking tire brands. It comes as is. Next you're going to tell me that air bag brands are anti trust violations.
Did you get dropped on your head or something? It' called "antitrust law". It doesn't take a genius to find out what a trust is, especially after I've already pointed out your ignorance. At this point, it is just willful ignorance. It doesn't matter how many examples of non-trusts not violating laws you point out, it doesn't do anything to mitigate a trust breaking the law.
It would be hard for the EU to make a case that Microsoft's proposed remedy doesn't address the complaint. After all, if they're no longer bundling the browser with the OS, it can't be considered "illegal tying of a different product to a monopoly."
If you stop extorting money from the guy down the street it's hard to argue your stopping didn't address the complaint. That doesn't mean they don't toss your butt in jail for a few years then garnish your wages until the money is repaid. MS committed a criminal offense. Stopping committing that offense doesn't get you off the hook, especially when there are still damages to others that have not been remedied.
It shifts that part of the regulatory burden onto the OEMs, who aren't nearly the kind of deep-pockets attractive target for a fine that Microsoft is.
OEMs can do whatever they want because none of them has monopoly influence to abuse. It doesn't matter how much money they have since they are incapable of committing this crime if they wanted to (well unless they band together and form a trust).
t's not hard to see why MS would prefer to ship "no browser" than a competitor's browser.
True. It remains to be seen if the EU will let it go at that and a fine or if they'll continue to push for a more significant remedy that will do more to reverse the damage to the market. MS is a repeat offender here and as of yesterday the EU was in talks with PC makers about a different remedy.
OK, I didn't read TFA, but to offer a version [...] that has the browser removed sounds to me like the Windows XP N bullcrap.
Maybe next time you SHOULD RTFA then. They claim they are offering the OEM version in the EU without IE 8 and not selling a version in the EU to OEMs tat includes it.
"Offering a version" just doesn't cut it IMO, the browser needs to go, period. Just have a dialog box pop up asking 'which browser would you like?' when somebody first wants to access 'the Internet'.
That's what the EU commission seems to be favoring. This is MS's attempt to get away with less.
You really need a display to get a browser too, should it be bundled with the OS? You really need a CPU to use an OS, should it be bundled with the OS? If Microsoft were to come out with their own brand of CPU tomorrow and required all PC makers to buy a bundle of Windows with their CPU, instead of just Windows would you support that? After all, a OS won't work without a CPU. And PC makers can always throw away the MS brand CPU and buy one from Intel or AMD right? And if you wanted to run Windows on a PC you were building you could just throw away the CPU too right? And just because MS pays to create that CPU and deliver it does not mean the price of Windows was raised to include it, does it? After all, it comes "free" with the OS.
Oh, come on, of all the arguments you could use you resort to cheap sophism? I can't seriously respond to this, perhaps I could revert to humor... but...
This isn't sophism, it is how antitrust law works. Answer the question. Should MS be able to bundle a CPU with their OS? If not, how is a CPU qualitatively different from a browser? Either action is the same in terms of effect upon the market and both are illegal under the same antitrust law.
I have no doubt you can't respond to this, but not because it is not a serious argument. It's because you;re completely wrong in principal.
Is there really a "web browser market" when only one of the four major players are actually trying to charge for their product?
Yes. AT&T was forced to stop bundling telephones with their telephone service, despite the fact that no one was selling telephones at the time. Immediately thereafter there was en explosion of innovation including push buttons, autodial, answering machines, wireless sets, etc. Why do you think that is? Why do you think we have antitrust laws?
IE, FF and Chrome are free.
IE is Windows only and every time you buy Windows you're paying for it. The cost is bundled into the price of Windows. "Free" is just marketing. The others make money in ways other than directly charging for the browser.
The only company out there trying to make money by selling a web browser is Opera.
Opera's regular browser is free too.
When I was using a WinCE phone, Opera Mobile was absolutely the best browser for that platform.
Guess what, you paid more for that phone than you should have. The phone maker paid Opera. Opera spent millions working around broken Web pages. Broken Web pages exist because IE is broken and was artificially granted huge market share despite being inferior. MS's actions, thus, cost Opera money and they pass that on to you, which hurts their business by making their product more expensive and less useful because of MS's illegal act.
Despite whatever technical merits their browser might have, I think Opera is looking to the government to create a market for them that in a truly free market, wouldn't exist.
Yeah, expecting the government to enforce the laws and MS to obey them the same as everyone else sure is unfair. Let's cut to the chase then. Do you feel antitrust law is wrong in principal or do you feel it should not apply to MS in this case. Why?
I mean I really don't understand you...
Yup, that's pretty obvious.
Why is this a good thing?
It helps to restore the free market so we can have innovation in Web technologies.
The fact that you need a browser in order to get a browser (no, a bundled wget would certainly not do for Windows users), for me means that the browser should be part of the operating system... However isn't the fact that you REALLY need to bundle a browser an indication that it should be part of the OS?
You really need a display to get a browser too, should it be bundled with the OS? You really need a CPU to use an OS, should it be bundled with the OS? If Microsoft were to come out with their own brand of CPU tomorrow and required all PC makers to buy a bundle of Windows with their CPU, instead of just Windows would you support that? After all, a OS won't work without a CPU. And PC makers can always throw away the MS brand CPU and buy one from Intel or AMD right? And if you wanted to run Windows on a PC you were building you could just throw away the CPU too right? And just because MS pays to create that CPU and deliver it does not mean the price of Windows was raised to include it, does it? After all, it comes "free" with the OS.
Perhaps we should have Apple remove Safari next. The DO have a monopoly on pretentious/cool-wannabe devices, don't they? ;)
They don't have a monopoly on desktop OS's or on Web browsers, so it does not undermine the market. MS does have an effective monopoly on desktop OS's so anything they bundle with it does undermine the free market.
I think it is going a step-to-far to force MS to not include a browser as a part of it's OS offering given almost all their competitors do.
Do you think it is going to far to stop James Wenneker von Brunn from shooting guns at people given that the US Olympic shooting team fires guns all the time? Maybe your first step should be understanding what law it was MS has violated and why that law exists. There's no law that says you can't bundle an OS and a browser. There's a law that says you can't undermine the free market by leveraging monopoly influence on another market.
No matter how much you love FF or hate all things Microsoft it seems extremely unreasonable.
It only seems unreasonable if you're ignorant of what antitrust law is all about. Is it too much to ask that you educate yourself before burdening us with your opinions?
It also sets a bad precident[sic]...
Okay, assuming for the sake of argument antitrust law is all wrong and fundamentally flawed, you think it sets a bad precedent to enforce the law instead of letting MS get away with breaking it while enforcing it against everyone else? How does this make sense? Even if the laws were completely wrong, MS as a corporation should obey them while trying to get them changed, just like everyone else.
now someone can complain and get other builtin software removed because of the competition issue... think WinZIP, WS_FTP, util you've stripped down the OS (Windows or otherwise) that does next to nothing out of the box and won't lower Windows' cost.
Yes, they could get some other software removed, but we have only your assertion it won't lower costs. As for doing nothing out of the box, it does nothing out of the box now because MS doesn't bundle it with a CPU and hard drive and display. That's why we have OEMs, to assemble components into sellable products.
...and if Linux ever does get a foothold, regulators could start demanding what packages end up in the "default" install rather than the market, which really sucks.
Again, this shows your complete failure to understand antitrust law. Please, find out what the laws say before making absurd assertions like this.
So, if IE won't be bundled with Win7 then, how are they gonna download the browser that they DO want to use?
I imagine using one of their thousands of computers they use now and which already have browsers installed. This is about what Microsoft ships to Dell, not what Dell ships to Bestbuy.
The EU is ridiculous.
You're ignorant.
I sure hope they are at the very least fair with their insanity, and force Apple to remove Safari from OSX.
That makes a lot of sense if you fundamentally misunderstand what MS is guilty of. It's like saying everyone should be arrested for driving cars because one person was arrested for grand theft auto after driving a car that did not belong to them... and we have to be fair.
Hell why not force Microsoft to unbundle NTFS and to use non Microsoft file systems.
Hell, why not read what antitrust abuse is so you can answer your own questions? Or you could just shut up about crap if you don't want to bother informing yourself.
Fucking EU is ridiculous sometimes.
Fucking ignorant twats like Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745) are ridiculous sometimes. How can you still be ignorant after so many discussions of this where you've posted?
Can someone explain to me why bundling IE with windows is considered to be a trust?
No, because it isn't considered a trust. You don't even seem to know what a trust is, so one can only assume your ignorance of this topic is extreme. Have you considered a dictionary?
An antitrust law is a law against undermining the operation of a free market by using overwhelming influence in a market. A trust is a group of companies or organizations that collude to use their market power to this end. A monopoly is a company with enough influence to do it my themselves. MS has been ruled to have such influence in the "PC Operating System" market (differentiating it from the workgroup server OS market.). As such, they are forbidden from using that influence to disrupt other, pre-existing markets. The Web browser market qualifies as such a market.
MS doesn't charge any money for it
Irrelevant.
... and it was better than Netscape when it came out...
Irrelevant.
...why is it all of the sudden a trust and not a trust 15 years ago?
They had a monopoly then too, and it was a crime then, the US charged them with it. Since then other countries have tried them for it over the years. The EU finally charged them in response to complaints from their victims.
Doesn't it chill your blood to imagine that you could very suddenly be in a situation where every single person you know who gets a new computer is going to need you to set it up?
RTFA idiot! This applies to copies of Windows shipped by MS. It has nothing to do with whether or not a browser will be installed on computers sold to the public.
I'm confused. So if I get a copy of Windows in Europe and do a full reinstall, how am I supposed to use my already-active internet connection to get Firefox?
Well if you're compentent enough to do a full re-install surely you're competent enough to make a copy of Firefox on CD/DVD/flash drive before you do it?
The article submitter fails to note the EU is not necessarily on board with this as they've been circulating a survey asking PC companies about how many and what browsers should be pre-installed as well as asking questions about if MS is pressuring them on the issue.
We'll finally be able to measure IE's marketshare in a non-biased market.
Not really. Many years of a broken market have created a huge number of Websites and Web applications broken to only work properly with IE. Unless this is remedied, we'll only have a slightly less broken market. Additionally, this applies only to the EU, so any company doing business anyplace outside the EU or Web developers wanting to target customers outside the EU will still be subject to artificial market incentives caused by MS's bundling elsewhere.
Look, in a "cyber war" you don't fight with DoS attacks, you fight by simply severing the undersea cables.
Well, severing the cables would be expensive. More likely we'd just filter incoming traffic from that address space. If every computer in China today started sending a DoS attack at something in the US or Europe, an IT guy would get beeped and would authorize their automated system to blackhole that traffic at the core routers. Basically, it would just cut off traffic originating in China and the rest of us would go on as usual except there would be some interesting network security articles. Heck, with some of the systems in place, companies with regular traffic to china might not even have their normal traffic disrupted since it had been previously mapped out as normal and white-listed.
I can understand why they're looking into Google. They're a monopoly
Monopoly? What the hell are you talking about? Google is an advertiser.. Just like thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of other companies on the Interweb and in real life. Google surely has a tremendous market share, but they don't prevent anyone from advertising with other companies...
Having tremendous market share is being a monopoly, in terms of the law. Not leveraging that monopoly to harm competition means Google is obeying the law, not that they aren't a monopoly. A monopoly is just having the power to abuse a position, which is legal. Abuse of a monopoly is illegal.
Being #1 doesn't make your[sic] a monopoly.
No but having 70%+ of a market does give you a lot of power over your customers. Refusing to do business with them unless they accede to your demands allows you to undermine free trade and because you have so much power your customers have little choice. Walking away from advertising with Google will kill many small companies.
Of course all of this is academic because none of Google's large market share is the monopoly (actually trust) in question in this case. It is about the formation of a new trust granting Google exclusive power to act on behalf of a trust made up by Google, the Author's Guild, and the AAP.
I can understand why they're looking into Google.
Actually, the trust in this instance is the combination of the Author's Guild and the AAP trying to make a collective deal with Google that would grant Google exclusive privileges over use of printed works in exchange for using that power to gather money for the trust. It isn't Google's market share in internet search or online advertising that is the issue here.
What is annoying when the DOJ turns a blind eye as other monopolies, at least from my perspective, abuse their power to maintain their position as monopolies.
The DoJ has done a terrible job of regulating monopolies over te last decade and have pretty much been in the pocket of big business. This new action is useful in it addresses a monopoly business is trying to form and which would potentially harm competition. It would, of course, be even nicer if they'd go after long standing abusive trusts that have been harming competition for a long time such as Microsoft, each local Cable television company, consolidation of wired telephone service, the RIAA, etc.
As I pointed out (Slashdot has no edit function) Tiger users this time around appear to have to buy the $169 Snow Leopard + iWork + iLife bundle to bring their entire computer up to date.
I don't think this is clear at all. From the presentation and the info Apple has put up, Tiger users amy be able to just buy the $29 version of Snow Leopard and install. All I've seen on the topic is speculation. Do you have a real source to assert otherwise?
When did Apple ever release "me too!" products to jump into temporarily hot markets?
iPods and iPhones.
The portable music player and smartphone markets weren't hot markets when Apple jumped into them. They were tiny niche markets and the average person found such devices way, way too hard to use. They were reserved mostly for nerds. The markets did exist, but what Apple did was went in and refined the overall usability of the devices to provide a solid base level of functionality that was easy enough for average people... drastically expanding the market. That's when they really heated up and everyone else tried to copy them and compete for share of the newly expanded market. Apple's not the only company that does this, but they are one of the most successful.
...it takes a basic idea others came out with then adds enough extras to it for people to pay a higher price for it.
Usually Apple's initial offerings have fewer features than competitors, not more. They are good at making those features usable to normal people and ditching the features they can't make usable by the ship date. The iPod had less space than a Nomad and no wi-fi. It didn't have an FM tuner and was missing several other features competitors had on their bullet list. The difference was the average person could actually rip CDs with iTunes, transfer them to the iPod, and play them all without calling the neighbor's kid over to help. That's where Apple innovates and that's what many people are willing to pay more for.