Microsoft, Internet Explorer, and the EU court decision

[dtugg]

Yeah and that might just be because the EC is still making a fuss about Microsoft and its business practices.

If Firefox's rise came after the EU's insane regulations, you might have a point. But as of now, IE, and IE only still ships with every version of Windows in Europe. Firefox's success is proof that it is possible to compete with Microsoft.

 

[roger]

To all who are missing the point by arguing what should be included in an OS/distro or whatever, I'll reiterate:

It is not about bundling per se. The whole case is about leveraging one's quasi-monopoly power to drive off competition. Period.

We know what the case is about. We are arguing whether the decision is appropriate.

The first thing I do with a new Windows installation is launch IE and type "firefox.com" (okay second thing, first thing is turn off the annoying default sound scheme).

 

[funk de fino]

How exactly do I have less choice in the US where IE comes with Windows 7? I have five different browsers installed and it was no hassle at all.

As for breaking the Microsoft monopoly, fat chance. Not unless Microsoft decides it's too expensive to do business in Europe and packs up and leaves. That would likely hurt the EU just as much if not more than Microsoft. I would laugh and tell you guys to have fun with your overpriced Apple hardware and million different Linux distros.

Not quite getting the against the law thing are you? Microsoft have been pulled up in the US also where they were given a real pasting in court for unethical practices in the passt. I guess we should let them do what they want and unchecked eh?

Yeah, I wouldn't be too keen on distributing competitors' software either. I think Microsoft made the correct decision.

So do I

Microsoft is in business to make money. Do you think they will just write off a billion dollars?

Prove they are getting it back from me.

I doubt it, but I guess we'll see. I predict that OEMs will install IE so nothing will have really changed. Except companies like Opera can't go cry to the EU over Microsoft's supposed unfair business practices.

It seems to be someone else who is crying about the EU bullying the US Microsoft.

 

[dtugg]

Not quite getting the against the law thing are you? Microsoft have been pulled up in the US also where they were given a real pasting in court for unethical practices in the passt.

They were actually acting improperly back then and US regulators acted reasonably.

I guess we should let them do what they want and unchecked eh?

Nice stawman. Nobody is saying they should be able to do what they want unchecked. What I am saying is that EU regulators are irrational and their actions benefit nobody besides the pockets of the EU. I hear that forcing Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without Media Player was a great success. It sold all of a thousand or so copies.

Prove they are getting it back from me.

Of course I can't prove that. I don't have access to internal Microsoft documents. It is logical though. If you ran a company, would you just write off billions of dollars or would you recover it by passing it on to consumers?

It seems to be someone else who is crying about the EU bullying the US Microsoft.

I don't really care that much. I am mostly bored and looking for an argument. I do think it's funny that Microsoft basically told the EU to f off.

 

[Bobert]

It seems to me that by bundling it with IE like they do everywhere but the EU, they do offer options to download others. One of the first things that I did when I installed Win7 was open up IE and use it to download Firefox. If others don't want to or are too dumb to figure this out, I fail to see how it's Microsoft's fault.{/quote]
EXACTLY!
This is just absurd!
It seems people love to take shots at Microsoft.
Funny but within IE they allow me to choose for example which search engine I want to use so its not like Microsoft is trying to prevent me from choosing a browser other than theirs or a search engine other than theirs.

I also wonder which browsers the EU thinks Microsoft should have included as other options. If they were interested in being fair, it would have had to be all of them, rather than say just Firefox, Opera, Safari, and Chrome.

And why stop at web browsers! Why should Microsoft be allowed to use their position in the market to give Windows Media Player an unfair advantage? I think they should be forced to distribute competitors' products too. And so it's fair, it has to be every single one of them, not just the popular ones.

And what about Paint? Force them to include every competitors' product also. And Windows Firewall too. Other companies make free firewalls. Why should Microsoft have an unfair advantage over them? And why should Microsoft's desktop gadgets be bundled with Windows over similar products by Google and Yahoo!? Something should be done about the unfair advantage Microsoft holds there.

Don't get me started on the free games that Microsoft includes in Windows. That is just totally unfair. If Microsoft wants to include free games with Windows, they should also distribute every free game in existence along with them.

Yup seems only fair!
Again always someone looking to take a shot at the bigdog.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Because try to seperate IE7 entirely from a system, you'll shortly note it's impossible, and you'll also note it's impossible to tie in any other browser to that degree.

In essence, MS is being told to stop attempting to dominate every market. So sad.

 

[Mitchell314]

There's always dual boot.

 

[jsiv]

If Firefox's rise came after the EU's insane regulations, you might have a point. But as of now, IE, and IE only still ships with every version of Windows in Europe. Firefox's success is proof that it is possible to compete with Microsoft.

Not really, because Firefox is a free and largely volunteer-based project that was born from the ruins of Netscape. This kind of legislation is really about protecting the market so that all companies have a fair shot at competing. Theoretically that means more choices and better deals for customers.

 

[cyborg]

Why shouldn't Microsoft be able to control what their distro contains? Red Hat ...snip etc...

I refer you to my previous comment on the nature of competition and monopoly laws being inherently unfair towards the monopoly - that is the point.

If you disagree with such laws that's a separate topic.

In short, I really don't think the courts should be designing software, whether it is in your interests or not.

They aren't - that's hyperbole.

You'll note all the various linux distros include scads of stuff you say shouldn't be bundled for exactly this reason

No, what I'm saying it's in my interested that Microsoft's lives aren't made easier because history shows they won't do a damn thing to improve anything otherwise. And that affects me whether I use their software or not by virtue of their market status.

But again, the Operating System is far more than the kernel. Everyone in the world calls the collection of kernel + utilities the Unix operating system. Source. When every modern operating system uses the term differently than you, it's time to stop arguing, don't you think?

I don't have a problem with that - but I wouldn't call IE a core tool any more than I'd call KDE a core tool.

 

[laca]

If Firefox's rise came after the EU's insane regulations, you might have a point. But as of now, IE, and IE only still ships with every version of Windows in Europe. Firefox's success is proof that it is possible to compete with Microsoft.

I think Firefox's moderate success in Europe is attributable to the different mindset of european people, which is reflected to some degree in the EC's decisions.

 

[laca]

Nice stawman. Nobody is saying they should be able to do what they want unchecked. What I am saying is that EU regulators are irrational and their actions benefit nobody besides the pockets of the EU. I hear that forcing Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without Media Player was a great success. It sold all of a thousand or so copies.

Micorosft had years to comply with the EC's requests. They didn't. Now th EC is pissed off. How is that a surprise?

 

[dtugg]

Micorosft had years to comply with the EC's requests. They didn't. Now th EC is pissed off. How is that a surprise?

Where did I express any surprise that irrational, vindictive EU bureaucrats are pissed at Microsoft?

 

[laca]

Where did I express any surprise that irrational, vindictive EU bureaucrats are pissed at Microsoft?

Suppose you have a parking ticket. You have 30 days to pay it off, or they tow your car. You wait 3 months. One morning you wake up and your car is gone. And you go: "Those irrational, vindictive bastards!!". Yeah, that makes sense...

 

[dtugg]

Suppose you have a parking ticket. You have 30 days to pay it off, or they tow your car. You wait 3 months. One morning you wake up and your car is gone. And you go: "Those irrational, vindictive bastards!!". Yeah, that makes sense...

Here is a more apt analogy:

And irrationally and useless cop tries to tell me that I can't park at my usual parking space because it is supposedly unfair to other people. I just ignore him because there is no good reason that I shouldn't be able to park there. I am not surprised when I get a ticket which I eventually pay. But in the end, I am able to work it so I can park it in the same place anyway. So essentially, all that happens is that I am extorted some money. Nobody that I supposedly harmed by parking there is helped.



The EC should go back to regulating the size and shape of fruit.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Here is a more apt analogy:

And irrationally and useless cop tries to tell me that I can't park at my usual parking space because it is supposedly unfair to other people. I just ignore him because there is no good reason that I shouldn't be able to park there. I am not surprised when I get a ticket which I eventually pay. But in the end, I am able to work it so I can park it in the same place anyway. So essentially, all that happens is that I am extorted some money. Nobody that I supposedly harmed by parking there is helped.



The EC should go back to regulating the size and shape of fruit.

You know, you shouldn't write analogies when angry. As that missed the point.

 

[realpaladin]

Here is a more apt analogy:

And irrationally and useless cop tries to tell me that I can't park at my usual parking space because it is supposedly unfair to other people. I just ignore him because there is no good reason that I shouldn't be able to park there. I am not surprised when I get a ticket which I eventually pay. But in the end, I am able to work it so I can park it in the same place anyway. So essentially, all that happens is that I am extorted some money. Nobody that I supposedly harmed by parking there is helped.

So the next time the fine gets higher and the next time it still gets higher, and then you need a raise.

But because you become to expensive for your company, they rather hire a less skilled but way more inexpensive person that comes to work on his bike.

 

[Molinaro]

Computer scientist here - NO that is NOT the prime function of an OS.

The prime function of an OS is to provide the appropriate abstractions to allow underlying and diverse hardware to be controlled in a consistent way, to provide task scheduling, memory management et al.

You are not the only computer scientist in the room. I've been programming since the early 80s.

I did not say THE prime function. I said one of the prime functions.

Yes the kernel and hardware abstraction layer is original prime function of an OS. However, since the introduction of graphical user interfaces, that is no longer the only prime function.

People rightly expect an OS to also provide a level of utility on top of the base functionality.

 

[Molinaro]

Again: that is not the point of contention. It is not simply a browser. It does not behave like a normal piece of shrinkwrap software - it has tenticles all over the place. You cannot simply extract the beast and expect Windows to be happy with it.

That's because Microsoft realized creating a seperate program to render your desktop was pointless when IE could do the job. Therefore, your desktop is a tightly integrated instance of IE.

But no, conspiracy theorists jump to the absurd world domination agenda instead of realizing that it was an efficient solution to a need.

 

[cyborg]

However, since the introduction of graphical user interfaces, that is no longer the only prime function.

Again: on a consumer level these things are all interchangeable because they're not really meaningful to them.

People will call "that beige box" "the hard drive". "Office" is "Windows". "Internet Explorer" is "The Internet" et al. I'm not going to start calling my PCs hard drives based on the ignorance of the consumer of the correct terminology, Office is not Windows and Internet Explorer is not the Internet (nor for that matter is the World Wide Web - not that anyone uses that anymore). Nor am I going to pretend that windowing systems are operating systems just because people don't differentiate with Windows because they don't really understand the difference.

People rightly expect an OS to also provide a level of utility on top of the base functionality.

No, I might expect software to be bundled to provide a level of utiltiy, but I would not call it "the OS".

That's because Microsoft realized creating a seperate program to render your desktop was pointless when IE could do the job. Therefore, your desktop is a tightly integrated instance of IE.

That's not really the issue - I don't think anyone's used Active Desktop since it died about ten years ago.

But no, conspiracy theorists jump to the absurd world domination agenda instead of realizing that it was an efficient solution to a need.

There is nothing CT about Microsoft's desire for world domination since:

1) They have it for several markets
2) It's prudent from a business perspective to keep it
3) They are not shy about leveraging their OS and Office dominance to try and attain dominance in other markets

There's no need for a conspiracy theory since it's simply the Microsoft business model.

 

[Molinaro]

Again: on a consumer level these things are all interchangeable because they're not really meaningful to them.

People will call "that beige box" "the hard drive". "Office" is "Windows". "Internet Explorer" is "The Internet" et al. I'm not going to start calling my PCs hard drives based on the ignorance of the consumer of the correct terminology, Office is not Windows and Internet Explorer is not the Internet (nor for that matter is the World Wide Web - not that anyone uses that anymore). Nor am I going to pretend that windowing systems are operating systems just because people don't differentiate with Windows because they don't really understand the difference.



No, I might expect software to be bundled to provide a level of utiltiy, but I would not call it "the OS".



That's not really the issue - I don't think anyone's used Active Desktop since it died about ten years ago.



There is nothing CT about Microsoft's desire for world domination since:

1) They have it for several markets
2) It's prudent from a business perspective to keep it
3) They are not shy about leveraging their OS and Office dominance to try and attain dominance in other markets

There's no need for a conspiracy theory since it's simply the Microsoft business model.

I have to say that you are completely wrong. The definition of OS is not some biblical statement carved in stone. You may want to drop anchor and insist on restricting it to the original functionality provided by OS's, but reality has moved on.

And I'm not talking about Active Desktop. Your desktop is an instance of IE, regardless of having Active Desktop on or off.