EU Releases Microsoft Antitrust Report 612
Hassman writes "Ever wondered the reasoning behind the EU fining Microsoft and ordering them to sell a Media Player free version of Windows? Well now you can stop wondering. If you aren't up for the full read (it is 302 pages), check out the Reuters summary. Want more? Check out a quote from the summary: 'There is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system [as in not Windows],' he [a MS exec] wrote Gates. 'It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy version at times...' Mmm...sexy indeed." Reader BrerBear writes "News.com is reporting that the European Union has released its report on Microsoft's conduct, to which Microsoft has pre-emptively responded. Inside are more classic examples of what one should never write in an internal memo: 'In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago,' from Microsoft Sr. VP Bob Muglia."
Common Sense ... (Score:4, Interesting)
For those who won't RTF 7 page MS response, here's my "flaimbait" quote from Microsoft's response.
All other contemporary operating systems, such as Apple's OS X, similarly tout their integrated media capabilities. The Decision expressly rejects (Para. 822) the principle that tying analysis for finished products should focus not on whether there exists a separate demand for a component but on whether there is any demand for the finished product with that component missing. For example, the fact that there is a market for shoelaces does not mean there is a market for shoes that have their laces missing. Common sense dictates that it would be misguided for regulators to require shoes to be sold in such a manner, even if this would create greater opportunities for companies that sell shoelaces. 1 The Decision goes on to dismiss the fact that all other operating systems also come with media playback software, ostensibly because some (but not all) of these finished products incorporate media players developed by other suppliers. (Para. 822.)
Go ahead, mod me down for common sense ...
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
A better analogy would be that there was a dominant shoe maker that refused to make the shoelace holes in a way that would allow other shoelace makers to create a product that worked with their shoes.
But yes, nice "flaimbait" quote.
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I followed the whole damn rediculous case. Get them on their licencing practices, not on this baseless Media Player argument
A better analogy would be that there was a dominant shoe maker that refused to make the shoelace holes in a way that would allow other shoelace makers to create a product that worked with their shoes.
Good point. I forgot that Quick Time won't run on windows. I also forgot that when the Real Player programmers finally got it to work on Windows, Windows fought back and installed spyware, blaming it on Real Player. The whole "DirectX" thing is a sham -- only Microsoft gets to use it.Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Cool. So I can play WMV files using Quicktime?
Oh, wait. WMV is a locked MS format and they won't let anyone tap into it.
The correct solution here is not to make MS bundle this or unbundble that. Simply require that ALL MS file formats, protocols, etc. be released IMMEDIATELY to the public domain. NO fees, no license restrictions.
100% lie (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, I guess Winamp uses magic powers to play WMV/WMA files.
Re:100% lie (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Just where can I go and get the open specs for Sorenson used in just about all of Apple's QuickTime files?
It is real easy to see that Apple is doing most of the stuff that MS is doing, with the only difference being that Apple has an extremely small market share. I personally think this EU ruling is silly and will only strengthen MS's position. The EU had the chance to make some real progress in stopping the MS monopoly and they blew it. The EU should have ruled that MS can include what they will, however since they are a monopoly, thus MUST INSURE interoperability by opening up specs to audio/video formats, office formats, API's and protocols. Otherwise, MS's products have an unfair advantage in the marketplace since they have access to the OSes hidden "stuff" whereas the competition does not. And actually some of the leaked MS source showed just this. There were tweaks/fixes made in the OS code for non-OS products such as MS Office. I would not have a problem with that if any competitor were allowed to have tweaks and fixes put into Microsoft's OS code for their products. Since no competitor can get tweaks/fixes into MS's OS, it gives MS an extreme advantage in the market place.
If the EU made a ruling along these lines, I would stand behind that. The EU's current ruling is just silly and will have no effect.
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
How many times does this have to be said? (Score:5, Insightful)
The other difference is that Microsoft is a monopolist, and has been convicted of this in a court of law in the U.S. This is a sufficient difference, because the law applies differently to monopolies than it does to other companies. That's how antitrust laws work.
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think there are two major differences, aside from the monopoly issue that others have already posted about. 1) Quicktime is bundled with the OS, but it isn't integrated (it can be removed if the user doesn't want it). 2) Apple doesn't force retailers to bundle Quicktime. If they choose to offer a customized solution (w/o Quicktime) they don't suffer the price penalties or license revocations.
Now that I think of it, there is a
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
See:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/ M acOSX/Co nceptual/SystemOverview/SystemArchitecture/chapter _43_section_2.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000980/CH DBJCFH
It would be just as hard to remove that as it would be to remove DirectShow/DirectPlay from windows.
Apple doesn't force retailers to bundle Quicktime?
Huh?
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
What spyware? Care to cite a single example?
The whole "DirectX" thing is a sham -- only Microsoft gets to use it.
Nobody is forcing you to program for DirectX. Use SDL if you want. Or OpenGL. Or the myriad of other libraries out there that just wrap to DirectX or Win32. Cocoa is only for OS X, as well...where's the bitching?
Oh, that's right, everyone just hates "M$" and so mindlessly bashes. I find the low comment count (for an anti-Microsoft article) to
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft contends it should not have to do so, saying: "When is it unlawful for a dominant firm to incorporate new components or features that demonstrably improve its finished product?"
I'll take "Illegal monopolies" for $590 million, Alex.
- Tony
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Example: I once talked to a programmer from a not to be mentioned company, they primarily use Cobol for their database front and back end (non SQL query based). After some discussion, I asked the question of if they have ever considered modernizing their systems. Her response was that what they had was faster then anything else on the market today. Note: She did not say that their systems were able to handle more transactions per clock then anything else, or that they could do data processing faster then any packaged software today... her comment on speed had had poorly to do with the cost of upgrading in terms of time.
Even if every Windows user on earth had the completely free option (financially) to get a new operating system, office package, web browser, media player, etc (No, I don't need any links as I know they exist). The time required for the user to learn all of these new packages would cost them huge amounts of time!
So goes the old axiom: "Which word processor is the best? Mine is! Why? Because it's what I know!"
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Informative)
The GUI API for OS/2 was almost the same as the one for Windows. IBM and Microsoft started developing OS/2 together. In fact, the very early GUI for OS/2 (1.0?) was almost visually and functionally identical to the one that Microsoft used with Windows 1, 2, and 3. The API was so close that IBM had a conversion system (called Mirror??) where the vendor had top make a few changes, then could re-compile for OS/2. Of course the extra CPU time required for the conversion was a huge performance hit (think 386/33, 8M RAM), so it really never became mainstream.
What was developer unfriendly was the pricing of the NDK. Microsoft practically gave its NDK away, whereas IBM sold theres for big bucks (over $500 as I remember).
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They do this by making a loss in this market until such a time as their competition is forced out of the market, then it's time to start making money. They can do this by using their other sections to provide revenue whilst losing money in the other markets...think XBox for a current example.
Microsoft seems to fit this definition to me.
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, exectly, Heinz [heinz.com] has some 90% of the U.S. ketchup market, this even though you can make your own ketchup [topsecretrecipes.com], and firms like Hunt's [hunts.com] offer ketchup. Yet the anti-trust people have not been knocking down Heinz's door. The key reason being that Heinz has not abused their position in the ketchup market. For example:
Re:Interest in Microsoft-bashing is dwindling (Score:5, Interesting)
In case you haven't noticed, Slashdot is full of 'foaming-at-the-mouth' loons from both sides of the aisle. The difference between the two groups is minor, even trivial; they both want everyone else to think the same lock-step, ask-no-questions, vomit-the-party-line way that they do, and view any opposition to their blather as heresy. The actual argument is irrelevant when it comes to fanatics; they're all the same animal, all looking to impose their morally/intellectually superior view on everyone else.
Fanatics are the bane of civilized society. Fanatics oppose freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of action. Fanatics are little would-be tin-pot dictators whose most cherished goal is to gain power over everyone else around them. The actual point of contention is is just a means to achieve this; it's the fanaticism itself, and the imposition of it on everyone else, that's the real goal.
So we have groups like this:
- MS is evil. Down with Satan!
- I worship Bill Gates! I dream of blowing him!
And like this:
- Open source = communism! Communists suck!
- Open source is divine writ!
Not to mention this:
- monopoly capitalism and corporate oligarchy are they greatest economic systems on the planet! I know, 'cuz I'm so smart and cool I'm going to be in the inner circle someday - I just know it!
- socialism is the only way to go! For the 'greater good'. Which is defined by my own morally superior self, of course. Bow down before me, you ignorant, capitalist swine!
And like this:
- Free software is anti-capitalist!
- All software should be free! Kill the capitalist pigs!
And, of course, this:
- The RIAA/MPAA are the Holy Church! Kill the piratical, thieving infidels! Oh, and ignore the fact that copyright violation is neither piracy nor theft, we'll be sure to buy enough Congressmen to change that soon enough!
- information wants to be freeeeee! Unless it's my credit card number, and social security number, and my email password, and, um, forget that, at least it wants to be free when I'm downloading music that I'm going to keep and have no intention of ever buying!
Fanatics, one and all. Filthy little vermin who take great joy in trying to make the vast majority of us moderates miserable - because how else can you tell whether or not you have power over someone, unless you make them miserable?
Would that we could sterilize them all at birth. Or at least conduct some post-natal abortions.
Max
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for your ignorance again - it was fun stating the obvious (and it was just a simple example, if you were minimally inclined to think before you c&p for karma, you could have come up with zillions of examples that would show why MS's claims are half-truths and plainly wrong in the larger picture. Besides, this was explained plenty of times before here on ./ for the likes of you, but you keep beating the ./ is biased drum without addressing these explanations.
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Naturally one wouldnt expect to buy shoes without the laces however; shoe laces are easy to remove and there isn't one single shoe manufacturer that (excuse the pun) ties shoe wearers into wearing a particular type of shoe. Also shoe laces from different manufacturers (including manufacturers that dont even make shoes) will work on any pair of shoes without requiring any modification to the leather e.t.c.
Its common sense really!
I'ts not the fact that there is or isn't a market for the built i
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Since history shows that Microsoft is capable of building only nonreplaceable parts, what other recourse is there but to demand that they not install those parts in the first place?
(Quick poll: how many of you have figured out how to completely remove Media Player, for instance from a server (where one has no conceivable use for it), so that Windows Update doesn't plague you with offers to patch or upgrade it?)
Re:Common Sense ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fact is, lots of people would happily sacrifice the ability to replace or upgrade a component in return for a cheaper initial solution, or some other benefit. Indeed, that's the entire trend of the last century or so.
It used to be a a shoe could be re-soled or re-heeled four or five times over its lifespan. No
Sometimes I wonder.. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sometimes I wonder.. (Score:3, Funny)
Fortunately, Microsoft has instituted a new policy called "True Words". Now, all internal memos are available to anyone who is interested, including the general public -- no legal mucking around needed!
Here is a sample from a memo sent yesterday;
Truth is stranger than fiction... (Score:4, Funny)
Ha! (Score:3, Funny)
This is news to whom?
memo stated teh obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:memo stated teh obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
They're smart enough to realise that they don't have to.
K
Well It's About bloody time! (Score:2, Funny)
I can't wipe my ass without Micro$oft patenting the technique!
Re:Well It's About bloody time! (Score:3, Funny)
Pricing (Score:3, Interesting)
Or would the EUC be so bold as to tell some company how their products should be priced?
Re:Pricing (Score:4, Interesting)
That's why. Having MS Windows bundled with WMP offered cheaper than MS Windows alone is considered a discount and such not allowed under the indiction.
Customer Loyalty? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't exactly say patience is the right word, how about ignorance? It was very difficult for most computer users to leave the more comfortable Windows enviroment, but then again I learned DOS when I was 6 yrs old to play Montezuma's Revenge. So it cant be that hard.
Re:Customer Loyalty? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but in most parts of Europe it is illegal to use underage labor force.
Re:Customer Loyalty? (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows users, more often than not, do it out of ignorance that there are alternatives, even *better*, or at least sufficient, than their existing solution.
To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me just say, there is no switching cost: you have been fooled. It's not your fault; Microsoft has been fooling billions of people the same way you have been fooled. Offset training and allocation of new resources in your company for purging out Microsoft as being standard operating costs (upgrade costs), not "switching" costs; it's a farce to think otherwise.
Long term benefit in using a reliable system makes any switching price worth every penny. Short term benefits are that you can simply ignore the next bout of viruses, your staff will love you and you can also take credit for the increased profits from operating a tight ship.
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:3, Insightful)
I am an IT professional who works mainly with Linux. How you migrate to Linux is as follows:
1. Accept that it won't be a 100% migration. At least not at first.
2. Write down every application your business uses.
3. Investigate Linux equivalents. This is the difficult bit. Commonplace stuff like Office has equivalents. Specialised business software is less likely to have equivalents; however Freshmeat, Sourceforge, Google & Google Groups can help here.
4. Some apps won't have a direct alte
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, that turns out not to be the case. Think of any random business requirement that can be addressed by software - say, "Capital Depreciation Analysis". Google for a set of products to evaluate.
Note that at least 99 out of 100 products you find to meet that need are Windows apps. If not 99999/100000. And if you tell me "run it under an emulator", I am afr
Re:boxed product (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it is -- Every small business I've worked with has at least one, and sometimes many special purpose or vertical application (and that's excluding accounting apps). Last year I worked for a firm in the legal industry, and they had at least 10 "essential" Win32 apps, excluding internal stuff. There's also an enormous amount of VB/Access/MSOffice "talent" out there grinding out new solutions on the cheap.
In larger organizations, the situation is orders of magn
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:3, Informative)
We're talking about SWITCHING cost. There is ALWAYS a cost to switching platforms/software, etc. You're talking about operating costs. Completely different.
There's only a cost if that time exceeds the amo
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:4, Insightful)
It's always easy to play with numbers to make them say anything you want unless you look at the bottom line. In the case, the bottom line is the cost difference between setting up and running the two systems. That's the number that matters.
We don't spend any time with "typical MS problems like Outlook viruses and the like". We don't use Outlook for anything,
Then it sounds like you aren't typical.
Our computers are zero maintenance,
Then your computers must be from some magical fairy land where patches never come out, new versions of XXX are never released and users never break anything.
Mwhahahah (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh Jesus! That made me laugh really hard. I remember trying to show a new website to a manager once. The site was coded with XHTML and CSS. He was running IE 5.0 at the time; this was about a month ago. I guess up until that point, he thought his system was running perfectly, too. And he was wrong. When he pulled up the site to look at it, the CSS didn't show up so all he could see was the basic web page -- and he got hopping mad about it; asking why we spent so much money developing it. He basically shot first and forgot to ask questions later. He's the manager nobody likes very much, so I guess IT just kept skipping his office upgrades, as punishment. When I updated his system, he asked what I did with the old crappy site because he wanted to show someone how much money we wasted. He liked the *new* site though.
Re:Mwhahahah (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:3, Funny)
Ahhh.. You must be running Netware. Good lad. :)
Re:To the Owners/Managers of Any Company (Score:3, Interesting)
I even think that for-pay Open Source might be a great advantage
before you say at least the EU does something (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that they are convicted twice won't change a thing until they actually *PAY* the fine.
Re:before you say at least the EU does something (Score:3)
And in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:And in other, even more relevant news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you really sure about that?
I live in Spain, which had a dictator (who was sometimes brutal) up until about 25 years ago. But if you ask people today I think most would tell you that they wouldn't have wanted the USA to invade to get rid of him.
People everywhere have pride. They like to sort out their own problems. That's as true in the USA as anywhere else. I'm sure if Bush suddenly decided he was a dictator and was going to halt democratic elections the people of the USA wouldn't be clamouring for the Europeans or Chinese to "liberate" them.
MS execs know ... (Score:3, Funny)
Run for your life! (Score:5, Interesting)
Black urged them not to intervene. He said Microsoft was pressuring the U.S. government to pressure the European Union to ease off Microsoft.
Am I the only European here scared by this snipet from the Reuters article? Are we going to be bombed? Colin Powell is involved, next will it be Rumsfeld? What kind of excuse will he find this time?
Re:Run for your life! (Score:5, Interesting)
There have been a number of high profile spats over competition law recently, notably the GE v Honeywell merger - accepted in the US, and then rejected by EU competition authorities (but later allowed after GE gave specific undertakings to divest certain business units and so on). Not to mention the banana wars
In general though, the US has been getting a little techy about the growing independence of the supra-EU state. The next biggest issue is the EU's design to create its own defence forces, the US sees this as a worry because it weakens the need for NATO and creates two large divisive superpowers (witness the continentals vs. US wrt. iraq).
There are other good examples (Airbus vs. Boeing a good one for indication of how EU has succeeded in generating huge manufactures; EU space programs another one).
Re:Run for your life! (Score:3, Insightful)
Or to sum it up briefly, the US would like to continue to be the world's only superpower. While the European Union is quite different from Soviet Russia, it's a lot easie
Re:Run for your life! (Score:4, Insightful)
Same with the Brits unfortunately!
Different people, but working together for the good of all of us.
You try telling that to the Brits!
The american way is "are you with us, or are you against us?".
Come on that's not fair. It's the Bush way, not the American way.
Re:Run for your life! (Score:3, Informative)
You have a key point there.
While the US is a federation of states, its citizens largely see themselves (in front of the rest of the world) as being US in identity - whatever state they come from is less important.
On the other hand, the EU is also a federation of states (in a slightly weaker way), but its citizens see themselves distinctly as having national identities and would represent themselves by their nationality rather than being of the EU.
Anyway, this is just tangential
Re:Run for your life! (Score:5, Insightful)
When I read stuff like this it makes me think "get stuffed USA". No disrespect to the nice Americans reading this, but your current administration is too big for it's boots. Don't tell us how the USA is all about freedom and then try to bully us into doing what you want us to do.
Re:Run for your life! (Score:4, Insightful)
No disrespect taken. I don't think you really understand the situation. A lot of us don't like him and his, either. Heck, most of us voted for the other guy, last time around.
Now, if you go picking on the country as a whole, that's kind of a different animal. We tend to get a bit nationalistic when insulted, as do a lot of other places.
Don't tell us how the USA is all about freedom and then try to bully us into doing what you want us to do.
Oh, another cultural misunderstanding. When we say "freedom", we mean OUR freedom, not YOUR freedom. As far as most of us are concerned, as long as we're happy, the rest of the world can "get stuffed", to borrow your phrase.
We've a pretty insular culture, for better or worse.
m-
Re:Run for your life! (Score:4, Insightful)
You do know that the plan is that Iraq is going to pay for its reconstruction from oil revenues? So all those American companies getting contracts worth billions of dollars are going to be paid for with the proceeds of Iraqi oil, however much the oil costs. So the net outcome is a huge movement of worth from Iraq to the USA.
That's why the administration isn't worried about being massively overcharged by the contractors like Haliburton. In fact, that's what they want - the more the Iraq war "costs" the more worth will eventually be moved from Iraq to the USA. Also, the administration is trying to make it so that most of the big companies in Iraq (services like telephones, water, electricity etc.) are american ones, so in the long term even when the Iraqi's are spending money at home there will be a tranfer of wealth to the USA. It's great business!
Re:Run for your life! (Score:3, Insightful)
You keep repeating that but as I've said, when people say the war is about the oil they don't necessarily mean the USA physically getting their hands on the oil. It's about the wealth and power that oil represents and owning/controlling that.
So it's not about "getting oil". But it is about the oil.
Huge switching cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
This exec spreads fear and dissent. But it is all lies. He lies. Alternatives to Windows for individuals (Customers, if you will) are often obtained for the cost of 720MB of bandwidth, which is often "unlimited" or "unmetered" over the course of a month and already paid for. The only cost involved for an individual to switch is the time and effort to learn the other operating system. The cost for a company will be high since they are expected to compensate their employees for their time. But the cost for individuals to switch is low. If they are a homeless greasy bum with nothing else to do, naturally this cost will be very low.
We will surround their pricey vendor lock-in, and then it will be they who will be surrounded. We will continue to give away our free alternative operating systems for the price of what it costs you to download it, and a shoe.
Re:Huge switching cost? (Score:3, Insightful)
Too sad, that is not true
We have still to do a lot work on alternatives, or to be more precise
Linux is ready for a more widespread deployment on corporate desktops now, but it is not ready
Win32 API (Score:5, Interesting)
And really, MFC gets a bit of a bad rap. Sure, Document/View is horrible, but other parts of MFC are pretty well done. That, and one thing MS has done pretty well is release a good IDE. It's mostly consistent, and yeah, .NET IDE is drastically different at first, but it took me about 5 minutes to get it to behave like VC 6.
Now please just don't get me started on the clusterf*ck known as COM/DCOM or the abomination that is .NET... both of which make me glad I switched to Linux 3 years ago at home.
Re:Win32 API (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who spent many years with MFC and has (or had) a huge skill investment in it -- you're wrong. Almost every single class is riddled with special cases, exceptions, bizarre hacks put in to maintain compatibility with earlier bugs... it's a classic example of an underengineered design that has required the most brutal and tortuous maintenance to keep going. Why, surely only someone with no ability to judge the elegance and utility of a system could say what you said!
the abomination that is
I was right!
Re:Win32 API (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been thinking all week why the NIST [nist.gov] should standardize the windows API.
I think that NIST would be better than ISO/ANSI/IEEE, and they have a working agreement with ANSI. Also the specification would cost less (if at all) than an ANSI/ISO version.
By standardizing the API, you immediately have the government buy the software that uses this standard. It would make our country secure not to be dependent upon one single supplier of an OS (as much as Microsoft thinks otherwise).
It also means that Windows stops being the moving target that it is.
Before you troll me with free enterprise/right to innovate/unnecessary/linux blah blah blah, anything that lessens the cost for everybody is a good idea. The OS is the only thing that has increased in cost as compared to other parts to the computer.
I know linux is free, but the fact remains that the vast majority of computer users use a Microsoft product, and wants to keep their software investment minimal (even though all the software companies want us to continually upgrade).
Re:That's why (Score:5, Insightful)
How to write a memo (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. It is sometimes one's duty to point out that one's employer has weaknesses. These are exactly the sort of things one *should* write in internal memos to people who can and should do things about them. *Good* leadership wants to hear about the company's weak spots so that they may be addressed.
Yes, sometimes bearing bad news gets you fired. In the short run that's really bad, but in the long run I'd rather not be working for weaklings and cowards anyway.
Sexy version, or sexy vision? (Score:4, Informative)
bad analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention... (Score:4, Insightful)
The switching cost definately is a reason for large companies not to switch to Linux, but there is a totally different reason for small companies. I have been working with, for, and around small companies (25 employees) for years and almost all of them are running some flavor of windows/windows server because Bob from accounting knows about computers and knows how to fix issues if they come up. These companies do not have the budget for a full time system administrator, so they make do with what they've got. Since most people are running windows at home, Windows is going to be the easiest thing for these companies to use at work.
A worth reading (Score:5, Informative)
Difficult for today's Americans to comprehend... (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans of the late 19th century would have understood. Having been beaten into economic submission by the railroad and oil trusts, they howled for reform. That's how we got the laws that occasionally have been used to protect us: citizen action. Unfortunately, the sorry history of US antitrust law since is one of big money obstructing progress and undoing results at nearly every step.
If we're ever to get out from under the yoke of our Microsofts and Wal-Marts, which depress innovation, cripple competition, batter markets and saddle society with a host of costs and social ills, we'll need to resurrect that lost spirit of the engaged American--the citizen who knows his interests and how to fight for them.
Re:Windows...Sexy?! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Windows...Sexy?! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As a web streaming provider (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably because there hasn't been any alternatives, since Microsoft has been stifling them. User indifference matters here; re Netscape vs. Microsoft.
Try using the free Media Player Classic.
Re:As a web streaming provider (Score:4, Insightful)
For years, I hated installing RealPlayer. For a long time it was the standard when it came to streaming media. I hated having to mount Sherpa guided expeditions through real.com in order to find the real player. Only to have to do so again a month or two later after my version 'expired' and had to be 'upgraded'. I hated having to uncheck multiple check boxes in order to keep from being bothered by requests to buy the full version, but those prompts would still appear.
I came to prefer Windows Media Player for most streaming as it offered a far better experience then Real did. Feel free to blame Microsoft for driving Real to such tactics if you want... always remember that it was up to Real in the end how to treat their customers.
Yes, there are alternatives to Real, however for my needs, Windows Media Player does handles most of them. (although more recently, iTunes is beating it out for almost anything audio).
I for one welcome our new/old Microsoft masters! Almost everything I need in a single box? I call it Windows 2000.
Re:Here is a question. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I read what you said right... free products, regardless of quality will win out against products which cost money. If this is true... why does Windows have such a larger market share than Linux on the desktop?
I'll grant you a point that
Re:As a web streaming provider (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is exactly one of the reasons the competitors get no chance and why the EU has made this decision.
BTW, QuickTime works just fine on Windows afaik and I see it used quite a lot by people other than Apple (though often alongside other formats, rather than as the only format)
Re:As a web streaming provider (Score:5, Informative)
Kinda like how it's nice to rely on the fact that everyone uses Internet Explorer. How irritating.
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
But, since it is so prevalent...you gotta make exceptions for it, so the sheeple can view your site with it...
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually that IS a valid point. (Score:4, Insightful)
#1, they feel the need to load it down over and over with spyware - especially that Gator crap. And then they put in the constant-nagware messenger of their OWN with that "Real Messenger" garbage.
#2, their encoding schemes SUCK. Compared to the visual quality of Divx encoding, WMF, or even earlier-series Quicktime (which had some real nasty blocking problems), even modern Realplayer blows chunks.
Re:Actually that IS a valid point. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:As a web streaming provider (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As a web streaming provider (Score:5, Insightful)
My options are
At a cost of CAD $399 (not including the box) my choice will be #2
Re:As a web streaming provider (Score:3, Insightful)
Taking a look at MPlayer's page which you kindly linked to, I'd say there's another big reason why no one who uses Windows uses MPlayer: I didn't see any pre-compiled Windows binaries available for download, just source and a Red Hat RPM. Maybe more people would download and run MPlayer if
Re:Here we go (Score:3, Insightful)
'There is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system [as in not Windows],' he [a MS exec] wrote Gates. 'It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy version at times...'
and
'In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago,' from
Re:Ironic that the EU used Windows pdf software (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is a monopoly and they've just said so. It would probably be MORE ironic if they WEREN'T using Windows.
Re:Serious question... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you USED their operating systems? Now, have you *USED* Linux and OS X extensively. I have placed each platform in front of myself and used it solely at home for months on end with each. The Windows box almost got thrown out the Window, but stopped myself short (good hardware) and reformatted Linux and used that. Then I put a Mac in front of myself and continue to use that to this day (Linux is still plugging away in the basement, thank you).
Have you ever used & maintained a Windows Server? How about BSD? Linux? QNX? Netware? Well, again, I have. It also happens to be my job. There's little wonder why there are -0- Windows servers in the data-centers
And people don't wonder why I've been mythodically replacing the Windows boxes in the offices with Linux and Mac's. Particularly after they're up and running on their new system.
As for Microsoft business practices... Yeah, I still want my many THOUSANDS of dollars back for Windows licensing that I _had_ to purchase if I wanted decent hardware through normal OEM channels from many years ago. Funny, but those servers are still running Linux to this day...
I don't care that they dominate the market. Their operating system, well, does suck pretty bad. They've never been leaders, but wanna-be followers who have stolen and cheated their way to the top.
I love Apple's offerings today -- if you've worked with their stuff you'd understand. I wouldn't be without my iPod, and until you sit in front of a iSight you just won't understand. I also have little doubt that if Apple had risen to the top they'd pull the exact same tricks IBM did, Microsoft is, and the next big company probably will. In the mean time
Re:Serious question... (Score:3, Informative)
Despite the fact that Windows is more prone to things like viruses and malwares (which'd not be the case if it's not the dominant OS), its API is a pain in the ass to use compared to POSIX. Their Platform SDK documentation in MSDN isn't very useful either. Yes MSDN is big, but that's just because it includes a lot of useless information that you don't want. The Win32 APIs themselves look ugly compared to POSIX's. Say, for example, I want to do an mmap.
In Linux, it is:
void * mmap(void *start, s
Sorry about that. Here's one with sane formatting. (Score:3, Insightful)
>Let's say Apple ruled the domain. Everyone ran on Apple's hardware, ran OSX, etc. Would everyone start treating them like they treat Microsoft?
>I guess where I am going is... is the hatred /.'ers have toward Microsoft truly due to their business practices, or simply because they dominate the market?
Though I cannot speak for all of /., I think it's the former because of the latter. After all, if they didn't dominate the market, then their business practices wouldn't matter nearly as much.
Re:Most people dont care (Score:4, Informative)
It's true that markets aren't fair. But they *are* supposed to be "free markets". A market in which any new entrant has no chance of getting a foothold, and the factors causing that are 100% predictable/static, is not free. And non-free markets are very bad, because they screw up the core ideas of capitalism. Maybe not everyone can have a share of the money/market, but everyone should have a *chance* of doing so, not be frozen out by 100% predictable/static factors. Capitalism depends on some chaos and instability in the system.
MS is singled out for two reasons. First, because Windows is a monopoly. And second, because Windows maintains its monopoly, not by being good, by just being a monopoly. Windows has a monopoly because it supports a wide range of hardware, right? Nope, it's the other way round, Windows is a monopoly because hardware devices support *it*.
Re:surprised, NOT (Score:3, Insightful)
Businesses are not like nature. Nature is not directed by self aware entities making choices.
Businesses don't think or make choices for themselves. Businesses are ethereal structures that only exist by the permission of the society/government.
Businesses are made of people that wield power and make decisions.
Those people will try to convince society/govern