EU Launches Yet Another Antitrust Probe Into Microsoft 373
Connor writes "The EU has announced a new wide-ranging antitrust probe into Microsoft's practices of bundling software with Windows, as well as whether its products interoperate sufficiently with competitors' products. 'The first area of investigation will concern interoperability of some of Microsoft's products, including Office 2007, the .NET Framework, and some of Microsoft's server products.' The other prong of the investigation is a response to Opera's antitrust complaint, but will look at other products, too. 'The Commission will also look at desktop search and Windows Live as well in addition to other products. The EC says that its investigation will "focus on allegations that a range of products have been unlawfully tied to sales of Microsoft's dominant operating system."'"
Another one? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Another one? (Score:5, Informative)
They paid about 500 million euro in 2004, while they were still appealing the decision. Their last appeal was turned down last year.
Also, they made available the specs for the SMB protocol, which the Samba team bought (for about $14k).
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Haven't they been forced to hide there Monopolistic ways more carefully now? Possibly find new ways and means of extending their tentacles just a bit further without rousing suspicion? Just a though...
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Re:Another one? (Score:5, Informative)
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Sure, they've been forced to hand over cash in fines - but fines aren't terribly effective against companies that can make more money in 3 hours than they are likely to be fined in 3 years.
As far as I can tell, every antitrust suit (in the EU at least) has focused on punishing specific actions rather than preventing general behaviour - for instance, "you bundled media player, don't do it" rather than "you systematically use your existing monopoly in one product to try and establish mon
Andrew Tridgell certainly can (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another one? (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree.
No they prosecute MS because MS constantly breaks the law and other companies complain to them, knowing the US courts have been paid off.
Sure it is, but "bundling" isn't illegal in and of itself. Leveraging a monopoly in one market into another market is illegal and if you have a monopoly, bundling is one way to do it. Apple doesn't even compete in the desktop OS market, since they refuse to sell OS X to Dell or any other OEM. Apple does compete in the "desktop computer system" market against Dell and HP and Sony, but they certainly don't have a monopoly there, so there is no way such bundling can be illegal.
That shows what you know. The EU does have an ongoing probe against Apple, not for their OS since it is not a monopoly, but with regards to their iPod line, which at 70% is close to being a monopoly on portable digital music players. If they decide Apple has enough influence, they will charge Apple for bundling the iTunes software with iPods and for tying it to the iTunes store.
The EU investigates lots of companies for antitrust abuse. If you her about MS being charged more often their are two reasons, one it is more likely to be reported in the news sites you read, and two, MS has built their entire business model on breaking antitrust law and hoping the fines are smaller than the money it makes them.
Shudder... (Score:5, Funny)
It ties back to making a profit (Score:4, Interesting)
I do rather wish, though, that it was the QC department rather than the legal department that got all the funding for these ventures; the strategy of 'sue everyone and who cares about the product' didn't seem to work too well for SCO, and with the rather notable--especially in Europe--rejection of Vista, M$ would do well to take note of the problems with their product. Legal muscle and dominance of the marketplace will take you far, but such things are no excuse for honest innovation (or, if you can't do it honestly, buying it or stealing it from someone else--anyone heard of any actual production plans for those nifty tabletop computers from a few months back yet?)
The word you are looking for is "Ethical" (Score:2)
Within the bounds of ethics! Microsoft is at a minimum one of the least ethical companies.
On the other side, they have to do so in a way that keeps various governments off their backs, and keeps from being -overtly- anti-competitive--because, let's face it, the maximum possible profit will be made by M$ being a monopoly.
Ummm, that's ethics as well.
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All facetiousness aside, the investors -can- sue the board of directors etc. for malfeasance if M$ does not take every effort to make the maximum possible profit--so that's not really so much 'ethics' as 'staying on the investors' good side'
The probe isn't meant to be an analysis of ethics--because, yes, frankly, M$ has all the ethics of a kitten-and-puppy sausage maker. It's meant to figure out if they can bring a case against 'em
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Well, it seems that a lack of ethics has undone more than one company and harmed its investors. Maybe Microsoft's illegal and unethical maintenance of their monopoly will get them at some point, and their investors will push for more ethical behavior.
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I think they would have to demonstrate that the directors were grossly negligent. It's arguable that choosing a strategy of ethical business practices and good relationships with governments and public sector organisations might decrease profit in the short-term (e.g
Waiting for the diplomats. (Score:5, Informative)
Diplomats? Don't hold your breath! (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, I haven't seen any signs recently that the EU is at all impressed by the US opinion in this matter since it demonstrably operates well within the WTO framework.
Last but not least ... the US has enough troubles of its own to head for a trade war with its largest trade partner in the world. And just about the only major one with which, by the way, doesn't have a massive deficit.
So no. The
A New Reality For Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a certain, and strange, Microsoft fanbase that is roughly of the mindset of "Microsoft is always teh winner". They might not even like Microsoft products but somehow identify with the company as somehow being badass and that "Bill Gates will just buy his way out of this with pocketchange LOL!" type sentiments.
Tough times ahead for that crowd. Look for much crying about how life isn't fair from them.
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Currently there are over 75 posts in this topic and several are pro-MS. (although obviously they are in the minority and modded below comments like yours) Can you point to a single one that has the sentiment "Bill Gates will just buy his way out of this with pocketchange LOL!"?
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There is a certain, and strange, Microsoft fanbase that is roughly of the mindset of "Microsoft is always teh winner".
Well, Microsoft WAS the winner as far as pretty much everything computer-related was concerned for almost all users. The past ten years or so has seen hugely increased Apple adoption, as well as a number of products that are distinctly NON Microsoft that are beginning to compete. Google, Firefox, all the rest. Instead of the giant Microsoft conglomerate, there are a half dozen or so specialized competitors that, while never coming near to combating Microsoft, can whittle away at one specific aspect of t
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Good EU! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, this dont mean that Microsoft could not sell them or develope those. Just that those users who dont need a Microsoft own webbrowser or a WMP. Can remove them. OEM manufactures can install Opera or Firefox or OTHER webbrowser instead IE and VLC or any other mediaplayer instead of WMP.
How many remembers what is definition of Operating System?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system [wikipedia.org]
"An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. An operating system processes system data and user input, and responds by allocating and managing tasks and internal system resources as a service to users and programs of the system. At the foundation of all system software, an operating system performs basic tasks such as controlling and allocating memory, prioritizing system requests, controlling input and output devices, facilitating networking and managing file systems. Most operating systems come with an application that provides a user interface for managing the operating system, such as a command line interpreter or graphical user interface. The operating system forms a platform for other system software and for application software."
And what we have left if we remove all applications what dosn't remove any of these definition parts? Just pure OS.
It would be much better if a Microsoft would become as two corporation, other to build and sell basic OS and other to sell all other software like WMP, IE, Office, Games, Outlook etc etc. Together user could get windows as it is now and every one would be happy.
And those who needs just windows OS, would get Operating System and nothing more. They could install just their games to it or software what are needed and use computer happily.
Whats wrong with including apps anyways? (Score:4, Interesting)
(warning car analogy ahead)
It is kind of like telling auto manufacturers that they cannot include built in AC, CD player, or any other ameneties with their cars because it kills the third party market even though these are things that consumers expect to come with their cars.
Re:Whats wrong with including apps anyways? (Score:5, Informative)
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By offering them as free downloads and by convincing OEMs that your product is the best so they should install it for their users... you know the same as every other software vendor on the planet that doesn't have a monopoly to abuse.
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I've never had any trouble running third-party browsers, media players, or apps on a Windows system (far less trouble than I usually have getting things installed and working on Linux, in fact). Although they are never as well-integra
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The reason you cant totally remove IE isnt because MS is secretly hoping you will change your mind and start using IE again. Its because windows nee
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It's ridiculous that people think MS should include less in Windows and that this would somehow help consumers. Consumers expect to be able to l
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RH and Ubuntu do not sell OSs (they can't: they own neither the OS itself nor the apps). They sell a service.
Debian does not sell anything.
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They offer you the chance to send them $2 in exchange for mailing you a CDs with their release on it. This is "selling it".
Furthermore, they would be within the scope of the license to package and charge you to download their distribution (as long as your payment included the right to obtain source code).
What they would NOT be able to do, is stop somebody from setting up an FTP site and giving away the copy they bought to everybody and anybody who wanted it. Thus, Red Hat users can get CentOS instead
Re:Good EU! (Score:4, Insightful)
.NET Framework? (Score:2)
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I bet IBM can remember what this feels like. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a Monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
I just saved the EU a lot of money. Now, if they skip the probe and start barring monopolies like Microsoft at least from doing business with the EU governments, they might actually save the EU's people some money, and get some better products out of a more actually competitive environment.
Ironic (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if/when governments are going to start going after Apple. OS X is 10x "worse" than Windows when it comes to bundled software. I use "worse" lightly, of course, because I actually want bundled software.
-matthew
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Gee, don't hold back or anything. Doesn't the fact that Apple is a viable (and increasingly popular) option for home computers pretty much destroy the idea that Microsoft has a monopoly? At best you could say they have a monopoly on PC ha
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Get it through your fucking head. Apple is not a monopoly. It's market share is too fucking low. As such, it is not held to the same rules as Microsoft. End of fucking story.
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You mean I don't have to pay for Leopard? Awesome! I'll hop down to the Apple Store and get my free copy today.
Apple is selling a complete package, true, but that doesn't mean you're not paying for the development of the OS (and upgrades)
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and, if Apple doesn't "care what you run on it," why can you only buy one with their OS installed on it? Why won't they sell me one with Windows or no OS on it?
Finally! (Score:2)
The browser, or the video player, all that were only just whatever the current incarnation of the real crime was. Looking into the bundling issue independent of a specific problem is what should've been done long ago.
And interoperability as well! Someone in the EU has looked at and really understood what it's all about.
That's one of the days where I'm proud to be a European.
Prepare to take your neuroinhibitors! (Score:3, Funny)
European commissioner Neelie Kroes has expressed deep anger at smart people's obvious monopolization of the job market and abuse of that monopoly to keep the mentally challenged from being hired. She has vowed to investigate and take whatever action is necessary to reduce smart people's stranglehold on competition, including both fines and the prescription of neuroinhibitors to put them on an equal footing with the mentally challenged. She then said that success would be when less than 50% of the world's employees had IQ's greater than 100.
While I am sure nobody at Microsoft thinks so... (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft can no longer do anything without the specture of Anti-trust law looming. I think its caused them a great deal of uncertainty in terms of product roadmap and generally taken away from their focus. The only products of theirs that seem to be improving are Exchange and Windows Server itself which are becoming functionally more like the Unix and VMS systems that inspired them in the first place. They are certainly not doin anything new; because their ain't much new to do, and skipping logical points of intergation to avoid stepping on toes that might go crying to the DOA.
Don't get me wrong I hate what Microsoft has done to the industry as much as the next Slashdoter. I also think two or three Microsofts would more then likely suck all the oxygen out room just as much as the one monolith does; but at least we might see some real progress.
Over the last six to eight years we have gotten just about exactly nothing from Microsoft of real value. Oh and don't say DotNet was inovative. It took Microsoft two years to figure out what DotNet was themselves and its not new either. Sandboxed byte code interpreters existed already; JAVA as well as others. Ok so Microsoft made some more compilers for other languagues targeting their byte code. Big deal its was an obvious move, anyone wanting to invest the man hours could have done the same thing with Java; and if nobody had well CPUs have gotten fast. Pure interpreters would have filled the space.
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Re:Oh, No, Not again! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a ridiculous statement. Cars used to be separate from air conditioning too; people used to have to add a window evaporative cooler to their coupe back in the forties. Just try convincing the majority of people that cars don't need air conditioning! (If you go back even farther, cars used to regularly come without heaters, too, so we can do this all day...
EVERYONE uses a web browser as an OS component today. No, really! Sun has been doing HTML documentation for a long, long time; they used to bundle Netscape 2 for the purpose of reading it (and websurfing.) Microsoft, of course, has been doing it since they integrated Aieee! Apple, naturally, uses HTML fairly liberally.
Naturally, no one else uses it to the extent that Microsoft does, to the point where folder views contain HTML. But why should Microsoft not be permitted to do this?
Microsoft bundling IE wasn't the problem. Microsoft forbidding their customers (OEMs) to bundle other web browsers (and other competing products) was. Your statements make it clear that you do not understand the problem.
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Konqueror was just an interface that heavily utilized KHTML, but lots of other programs embedded it as well.
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Re:Oh, No, Not again! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is NOT AT ALL the argument used against Microsoft, and I wish you would pay a little more attention. You are clearly an unreasoning Microsoft-hater. I am a reasoning Microsoft-hater, but I won't talk about why I hate them right now, only about why trying to claim that they should not be able to bundle IE is stupid.
First of all, your assertion that you can simply remove Firefox from Ubuntu Desktop is incorrect. Oh, you can remove it... but you must remove the package 'ubuntu-desktop', which depends on firefox! This will result in autoremoval of a lot of other packages (if you are doing autoremoval) and the failure to track some updates to ubuntu.
Second of all, Microsoft does not force you to use Internet Explorer for anything but HTML help and where it is embedded into applications. You can turn off web folder view. Of course, you still have to use IE to use Windows Update, but frankly, that is an entirely reasonable restriction.
Third, it is actually possible to embed gecko in the place of IE, although some applications will crap on it. The fact that they do not work the same in all situations is reason enough for Microsoft not to make it too easy to do that - they do not go out of their way to make it difficult.
Your main complaint seems to be that having IE on your system makes it potentially less secure. But making an insecure OS is not (yet?) a crime.
IT IS POSSIBLE TO REPLACE IE WITH ANOTHER BROWSER. It is possible to trap the loading of the embedded IE component and load embedded gecko instead. I have personally patched applications to do this (I don't know if the patcher is still around and/or still works, though) and had them work. However, that browser must behave just as IE does! Similarly, it is possible to replace any and all air conditioning components in any car with those from any other car, but if you expect them to work properly they must work the same way the originals did. This is no different from IE in windows! The car manufacturer does not tell you what you need to know in order to change compressors, either. They do not tell you what the bracket bolt pattern is, so that you can have another fabricated. They don't tell you what the belt thickness is. You have to figure these things out for yourself if you want to alter the system. They don't go out of their way to stop you, although they WILL void your warranty if you start tampering with things!
So basically, you have utterly failed to show any way in which Microsoft can reasonably be restricted from bundling their own software. Once again, the problem was never that they bundled their own software, but that they forbade OEMs to bundle ANOTHER web browser, remove any icons that their install process created, et cetera. THIS was the anticompetitive behavior. Part of the legal response against microsoft was to force them to unbundle certain applications, as a punitive measure. It was not because it was felt that bundling was wrong, but that it was felt that microsoft was not responsible enough to bundle. The truth was VERY different; the right that Microsoft cannot handle is having a monopoly position and being in a position to dicate terms to OEMs. If Microsoft was going to be prohibited from doing something, it should have been one of these things. The USDOJ should have broken Microsoft up into pieces when it had the chance, but as you probably know, the Bush administration effectively pardoned Microsoft by way of Ashcroft.
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your assertion that you can simply remove Firefox from Ubuntu Desktop is incorrect. Oh, you can remove it... but you must remove the package 'ubuntu-desktop', which depends on firefox! This will result in autoremoval of a lot of other packages (if you are doing autoremoval) and the failure to track some updates to ubuntu.
If so, then that is just boneheaded packaging. I can remove Iceweasel (aka Firefox) from Debian Sid just fine.
sudo apt-get remove iceweasel
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
iceweasel iceweasel-gnome-support
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 245 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 27.5MB disk space will be freed.
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This is a ridiculous statement. Cars used to be separate from air conditioning too; people used to have to add a window evaporative cooler to their coupe back in the forties. Just try convincing the majority of people that cars don't need air conditioning!
Your analogy (like most that will be presented in this article) is flawed because it does not include a monopoly for one of the markets. No one has a monopoly on cars or on air conditioners or people might feel very differently about it. As a result of this, the AC market is not broken so people have no incentive to want change. If there was a single monopolist on cars and AC cost $5000 dollars per car and released a gas that broke other car add ons not from the car maker, then you might have an accurate
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If there was a single monopolist on cars and AC cost $5000 dollars per car and released a gas that broke other car add ons not from the car maker, then you might have an accurate analogy.
Uh, if Microsoft had a monopoly on web browsers, or if the existence of IE caused Mozilla-based browsers (or others) not to work, then you might have a point.
Am I the only one who stayed awake for my Econ 101 class? MS has monopoly influence on the desktop OS market. When they bundle a borwser with their OS, they break the Web browser market such that regardless of which browser is best, most people use IE.
Except that, once again, this wasn't the real problem. Microsoft was come down on not because the bundled a browser, but because they forced OEMs to not bundle other browsers. Computer users WERE asking for a better browser, and OEMs wanted to provide them, but Microsoft refused to allow them to do so. THIS was the truly anticompetitive behavior.
Re:Oh, No, Not again! (Score:4, Informative)
Sigh, not again. How many bloody times do I have to explain it. Antitrust law makes bundling a monopolized product with a product in another market. The US, EU and several other jurisdictions have already convicted MS of abusing their monopoly in the desktop OS market, thus they legally have a monopoly in the desktop OS market. They bundled IE with that monopolized product. This is the same as someone with a monopoly in the car business bundling car accessories.
That's just exacerbating the abuse. MS has already been convicted of bundling IE, which is illegal all by itself.
Bundling is the very first example of tying listed in US antitrust law and is the most common form of antitrust abuse prosecuted. Please learn the facts rather than arguing what you wish was true.
MS sells a bundle which includes both Windows and IE. Some of that money goes to develop IE. Users don't have the option of buying just Windows for a price that is lower than the bundle. Thus, users are forced to buy IE, rather than saving that money and buying a competing offering.
No it is a violation of the Clayton act. MS has already been convicted by the US on this count, how can you claim it isn't illegal?
Wrong, direct sales are not the only way to cause financial harm. For example, Firefox is paid for directing users to Google. They are paid less because of MS's actions using their monopoly to push IE.
It doesn't matter because Netscape didn't have a monopoly and aren't relevant. This is about what MS is doing today to affect the market.
Sigh, you are the worst MS apologist ever. You'll take any farfetched claim and make it, regardless of the facts. Sad.
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Come on Drinkypoo - you're old enough to have seen loads of "IE" only web sites thanks to gems like ActiveX and IE specific bugs. These aren't as common now days, but you still find it all over the place. Loads of the Google labs tools start as IE only, or still don't support Safari. Our office uses some shite intranet system that requires ActiveX. T
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Not to defend microsoft, but to explain the stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
Taking your car analogy for a moment. Internet explorer is like the display engine for 80% of the in dash LCD systems, without it your car will run, but you won't be able to tell what your tac is doing, how much gas you have or how fast you're going.
Truly, without Internet explorer, you can't use windows explorer (without modifications anyways) the two are linked in the most godawful way humanly possible. The bar along the right, with all the crap options, the search feature with
Re:Not to defend microsoft, but to explain the stu (Score:2)
Explorer search can be configured back to the old behavior, which doesn't even use the animated search character, which can be turned off in any case. IBM Update util and IPCheck are not Microsoft's fault - they didn't force these people to embed IE. Blaming Microsoft for the laziness of others is pretty ridiculous. If you don't want to use windows GUI crap, don't use it! It's possible to install cygwin on top of NT :P
Basically you're complaining about the reliability, which is stupid, because we are ta
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Re:Oh, No, Not again! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Oh no! Did a company make products that go well together? Could it be that they were designed for eachother? Seriously, afterwards, let's launch an antitrust case against playstation because their platform doesn't play wii and xbox games.
The problem is not simply that they make products that work well with each other, it's also that they do it while owning the desktop OS business.
Not to mention their attempts to squeeze the life out of open formats like ODF.
Also, it shows the EU has the balls to stand up to MS and their anti competitive practices, something the US has been unable to do for a while.
Re:enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
They have laws and they try to force everyone to obey those laws. Every time Microsoft has done something that would be illegal in most countries, it itself has said that it will obey the laws of the place where it operates. So Microsoft should be quite happy with this. EU is just helping them to obey the laws.
Microsoft has a lot of business and they might have broken several laws. Should rest of these crimes be forgotten simply because they were already judged?
I have no doubt that EU will handle the issues professionally and Microsoft will only get what it deserves. If they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
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To me this sounds like the creators of Opera are not happy their market share isn't has high as they'd like, so they hopped on the "blame Microsoft for the world's problems" bandwagon and are hoping the Socalist leaning EU will give them some handouts.
The antitrust complaint is primarily about Microsoft's atrocious standards support; standards which Microsoft themselves had a hand in creating are almost invariably poorly supported, with both little coverage and massive bugs which basically go unfixed forever. In the mean time, web developers end up wasting huge amounts of time and effort working around problems, often to the detriment of support for other browsers. If Microsoft actually had to compete in a market for web browsers they'd never get a lo
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Re:Poor Microsoft... (Score:4, Funny)
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China for sure, the EU? maybe, the USA i doubt it...
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Re:The World (Score:5, Interesting)
Economic strength is reason that the United States it the world super power; military is over-rated and a result of economic strength. American assets are priced in US dollars and as the dollar drops so does the value of the country. Additionally, a huge amount of America's debt is owed in foreign currency and as the dollar drops the debt's value increases proportionally; again making America poorer and therefore weaker. Also, as the dollar's value drops against world currencies (particularly the Euro) foreign reserves are switch from being dollar based to being Euro based; again diminishing the economic might and influence of the United States.
At this point in time the US is so dramically richer than any other state in the world that it doesn't really matter - how ever over the next decade we're likely to see the rise of two new super powers that rival the Unites States: European Union (the confused, sluggish super power) and China (the unified and aggressive super power).
The last time we saw the Unites States challenged it was by the USSR and Japan. The USSR was fundamentally flawed by actually being a totalitarian state which are inherently flawed over the long run. Japan wasn't as flawed, but it inflexible work force (worse than Europe's) has severely limited its ability to compete. In both cases the US system simply out spent and maneuvered them. I don't think the US will be able to do this again unless China's one-child laws begin to damage their economy with the upcoming population drop and Europe's reformist governments get voted out.
As for the article and topic on hand: good. M$ needs to be pushed to be competitive and not just handicapped by overly relying on their OS monopoly. Their censure by the EU will only work to improve the US economy (in the long run) and the EU consumer. Kudos to the EU for having the balls to do this and showing up the US government.
Re:The World (Score:5, Insightful)
Beeing European and living in the so called European capital: Brussels. I can assure you that the European Union won't become a super power anytime soon.
The European union is a bunch of independant states with strictly no common foreign policy and a real difficulty to define even the most basic common interest & strategy.Part of this mess are countries live with grandiose illusions (Uk, France), others with a difficulty to accept themselves (Germany), lost in domestic affairs (Italy, Belgium,Spain), eager to enjoy their hard won independance (Poland), focus on regional conflict (Greece), or simply not interested (Netherlands, Denmark, etc).
When I see the current trends, I don't see any European common foreign policy in a reasonnable future.
What would worry me if I was American would be: China and Russia in some ways...India in the long term, the rest (particularly Europe) is sleeping.
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You could tax someone like Steve Jobs at 10% and he'
It's the monopoly stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft's monopoly control makes it bad. With greater than 90% of the personal computer market, it does not need to work with others in order to continue to do business. In fact, the normal feedback processes of capitalism are inverted with monopolies. To maintain their position they must push against a level playing field.
Re:It's the monopoly stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
And last time I checked, Best Buy, Comcast, and those laptop manufacturers are seperate companies from Microsoft. They could just as easily sell all their computers without Windows.
Of course, the next step in that argument is that no one would buy them. Going along that line of thinking, who is at fault here; Microsoft, or the people and companies that continue to buy and use their products?
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100% absolutely correct. It is Microsoft MONOPOLY that makes real competition impossible. The barriers to use of another product make it almost impossible to not use Microsoft products.
Of course, the next step in that argument is that no one would buy them. Going along that line of thinking, who is at fault here; Microsoft, or th
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But once again, who made Microsoft a monopoly? We, the consumers. 90% of us use Windows. Unless Bill Gates went to the home of every Windows user that you know and held a gun to their head unless they used his products, people CHOSE to give Microsoft THEIR money...Microsoft didn't take it from them, it was given BY them.
I'
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You really misunderstand what it means to be a monopoly. Consumers had little if any choice in what they wanted to buy. Blackberries only work with Microsoft Exchange. Why? Because Microsoft'
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Here you go:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8398673&type=product&id=1179877238756 [bestbuy.com]
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Apple runs its OS on the same kind of computer windows runs on. Its just a different operating system.
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The canonical name "P.C." brings with it BIOS compatibility, ability to boot of standard boot sectors.
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And here is a laptop from best buy that ships with linux:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8625295&type=product&id=1193452147742 [bestbuy.com]
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First of all, Best Buy sells Linux laptops.
Secondly, then why is Microsoft being sued and not Best Buy and Comcast? Is the EU now holding Microsoft responsible for the behavior of other retailers? That's ridiculous.
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Number 1. Both of these are FREE PROGRAMS. You can download any version of IE and WMP for free directly from Microsoft (and yes, I am aware they don't retain older versions for downloading). You won't see Internet Explorer or WMP sitting on Best Buy's shelves.
Those programs are "free"? I mean, can I legally instal
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Can you legally install iTunes on Linux?
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Number 4. LINUX AND OSX!!!! It's not like Windows is the only game in town...it is perhaps for gaming, but that is not Microsoft's fault...you wouldn't try to sue Sony because your PS3 can't play an Amiga game, would you?
It's a little bit more fault than you might think. Making windows the only game in town to play games on has long been Microsoft's strategy.
1. DirectX was made to pull people away from OpenGL which makes games MUCH harder to port. To accomplish making people use DirectX, the made Microsoft make the DirectX tools much better and more complete than using OpenGL-mabobs.
2. Microsoft bought the last great Mac Developer Bungie.
3. The Xbox was originally made to funnel developers to Windows.
4. I hate lists tha
RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
The other half is that the web browser bundled with Windows does not follow "fundamental and open" standards for how web browsers render pages. Essentially, Microsoft is getting busted for trying to subvert the commonly accepted web standards and replace them with proprietary IE-style web standards.
Same goes for the Office file interoperability, although that seems to not be mentioned in the ars technia article, but is mentioned in this one. [smh.com.au]
mod parent up (Score:2)
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Re:I don't get it... (Score:4, Informative)
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So far as I know, only a few browsers are completely standards compliant.
No, I doubt any browser is, but have you ever done any Web development? If you create pages based upon the standards and then test 99% of the time it will work just fine in every browser except IE, where it never works. MS doesn't even try and the leaked internal e-mails show that this is intentional.
...with the announcement that IE 8 should be ACID 2 compliant, that argument starts to fail. Should IE be allowed to be bundled if it passes that test?
You're completely misconstruing what the ACID-2 test is. It is not a general compliance test for Web standards. It is an edge case test, meant to be used to see if a compliant browser correctly handles so
Re:I don't get it... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying that MS was not guilty of antitrust violations. I am asking though what are the merits of the new accusation? Is it the same accusation, or is it different?
One of the charges is the same thing MS was convicted of in the US, but has not been charged with in the EU. Previously the EU convicted them of abuse in the server OS market and audio player software markets. They are now looking into web browsers (which they've been convicted of in the US) and other, unnamed markets.
Frankly, the market has change SIGNIFICANTLY, for better or worse, than it was in the mid 90's. Consumers expect browsers included in the OS.
Back in the day, consumers expected to have to rent a standardized, rotary phone from the phone company, not to be able to buy any phone from the store. It has nothing to do with what is legal or best for the market.
Yes, OEMs should be able to include other browsers with their systems.
Sorry, not good enough. OEMs need to consider MS's software on an even playing field with other software, with no incentive to include o not include it other than the merits of the software. The market needs to be a level playing field for everyone, or the law is being broken. OEMs should include or not include IE because they think their customers will prefer it based on its merits, not based upon artificial problems introduced into competitors (broken standards in use). If IE is included, OEMs may simply leave it and not bother making the choice and consumers will suffer and developers will still target IE because they know it will be included, while they don't know if a different browser will be. They have to bundle all of them or none of them or the market will still be broken.
it's hard to argue that with competitors doing well in the EU: adoption of FireFox ranges from 20 - 40% in some member countries
Yes, and a lot worse in other EU countries. So you consider say 30% market share, versus 60% market share when the one with 30% is faster, has dozens of features the other lacks, is more secure, and properly reads pages while IE does not, and has been that way for many years. I'd say when it takes MS six years to implement something as simple and widely acclaimed as tabbed browsing windows, that competitors are not doing well to have only 30% of the market (and that 30% is pretty generous).
If Opera were doing as well, I would imagine that they wouldn't complain.
You completely mistake Opera's market. Opera makes most of their money selling an embedded browser of phones and the like. They sell fewer browsers because they can't handle all the pages broken to work with IE and can prove that in court. They do fairly well in that space, but are still losing largely to embedded IE based upon artificial problems, not real problems with their browser.
If IE were really so abusive these days, would they have such viable competition?
All of their competition has to give away their browser just to enter the market since everyone is forced to pay for IE's development when they buy Windows. As it is, most of the big competitors were started by frustrated users as a way to get another option since no business felt entering the market against an abusive monopoly was worthwhile.
Can you tell me one good reason why MS should be able to force every windows machine to ship with IE, but the Firefox team and Opera can't force every Windows machine to ship with their products? MS does it simply because they have a monopoly and no one stops them from leveraging it. As a result, we all suffer. IE 7 still doesn't implement 8 year old standards every other browser has complied with basically forever. Moreover, there is evidence this is an intentional attempt to keep the Web itself crippled so that people can't bypass their desktop OS monopoly using web based apps. You don't see the Web itself being crippled and held bac
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You lose: Windows media components for Mac [microsoft.com]