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Microsoft is not a monopoly. Monopoly does not exist (naturaly), its a text book theory.
Microsoft must pay $1.4bn to EU
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Microsoft is not a monopoly. Monopoly does not exist (naturaly), its a text book theory.
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Why? Its thier product. Not yours, mine or the EUs.
That's what this whole case is about.
The EU justification is that "it breaks the laws we've created", that doesn't make it right, wrong or anything else. There are plenty of things that break laws that harm no-one, and plenty of things that harm people but don't break laws.
The point is, fundamentally, that the EU has decided that MS has to behave differently to every other company in the world, because of it's size. That's the bottom line. They also see the very existance of the MS monopoly as a problem, when in actual fact it's pretty much the sole reason for the PC explosion of the last 15-20 years. Consumers don't want choice in the OS market, they want compatibility. That's why everyone chooses windows. Consumers want the OS to provide various features that MS has now got in trouble for implementing, despite other operating systems being allowed to implement the same things (and in some cases in a much more restrictive fashion) than MS do.
I make an operating system. I restrict what information people can get to use the operating system except for the products I myself make, thus creating a business model for myself and the software I make, or charge extortionate amounts for access to that information, which even then does not allow other software to compete.
Its not a monopoly as of such, it is the process of creating a monopoly, and the proliferation of proprietary standards that could have knock on effects for years and years. Consider MS Office - if there had been proper competition we could already have office standards that would allow different specialist software from different vendors to compete and yet still interoperate... as it is we have 2-3 clones of the same software, and no standards (though MS are trying to force through their own "office standards" which are being heartily rejected by anyone with sense).
It doesn't have to be a complete monopoly to have huge knock on effect. We'll probably look back on this in a few years and be amazed that people fell for such dodgy business practices for so long... You wouldn't only buy your food from one vendor, the guy who sold you your cooker, would you?
Its not the size - its the precise service that they offer. The operating system is, in some ways, the backbone of western civilisation as it stands. Without it, businesses would not run as they currently do and so forth. Whenever major changes in society occur, there are usually other changes associated with it, however in this case they are *not* happening because a single vendor is using and has used their position and the current commercial business model to elevate themselves to be one of the most powerful groups in the world. However, we as a society are *not* benefitting from this when the business model makes the company fat and lazy, farming cash and casting litigation, restricting competitors etc.
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He means its incorrect, not that it's morally wrong.
Something which MS have not done, apart from possibly in the server market where they certainly do not have anything approaching a monopoly (circa 40%)
There are open document standards, they just aren't very good. And probably the biggest document standard these days is .pdf, which is certainly not open...
Please provide examples of where MS has stopped other people from providing software for their platform or prevented that software from working.
I don't understand what you've posted in relation to the quote. Can you clarify?
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I misunderstood you.
Dolph, the EU disagrees with you, and so do I. I'm sorry but I'm not going to bother spending time debating about how I think you're wrong - and I truly, truly think you are very wrong. I can see this thread is not going anywhere until you've debated 'to the death' and exhausted your arguments... 
Lets just say I'm just glad the EU is doing things the way it is, not the way you want them to
Lets just say I'm just glad the EU is doing things the way it is, not the way you want them to
Dolph, the EU disagrees with you, and so do I. I'm sorry but I'm not going to bother spending time debating about how I think you're wrong - and I truly, truly think you are very wrong. I can see this thread is not going anywhere until you've debated 'to the death' and exhausted your arguments...
Lets just say I'm just glad the EU is doing things the way it is, not the way you want them to
I think you and the EU are very very wrong, so it doesn't make a lot of difference.
Still, if you prefer a nanny state government, it's all good
As it quotes in that report, access to the documentation is €10k.
That is because, we are living a world already exploited by MS. My point was that without that restriction, we wouldn't be at this stage, we'd be far further along. The (non-iso, W3C so I understand they are "recommendations") standards for the web are due to the need for interoperability between the browsers, content makers etc. However, whenever microsoft has become involved, you can be guaranteed some "proprietry extensions" will somehow be introduced and things start to get shaky again. The entire IE web standards debacle is a classic example.
As I have quoted, a pretty steep price tag for those who want to develop on their system using the lowest level protocols. It often doesn't mean that they have "stopped outright" the development of software, but if the software doesn't, or *can't* work as well, then that is also anti-competitive.
I've no issues with a company producing software, but tell me - is MS an operating systems company? An business management company? Just because you can write software doesn't mean that you can write the *correct* software. I would classify Excel as a classic piece of the worst software for business imaginable... even if businessmen love to suck it up. Don't tell me... it works, it does spreadsheets, woop di doo. But it is dangerous in the hands of an amateur and has none of the original enforcement that business originally needed.
Knocking out a spreadsheet in 5 minutes in Excel is no problem! Which is the problem.
Still, if you prefer a nanny state government, it's all good
There needs to be someone keep businesses in-line, it doesn't mean we have to live in a nanny state. You could go as far to call the idea of police a 'nanny state' idea... it's just about finding the right balance of nannying and freedom. In this instance, I don't think the EU are pushing the balance
But obviously you do, which is fair enough. Each to their own and all that...Which, I understand, is the same sort of price as access to the competitions information, if they even make it available.
Given that no browser is 100% standards compliant (Opera and firefox certainly aren't), it seems a bit harsh to single out MS for this.
IE6 was a mess, undeniably, the standards compliance was bad, but that's now being addressed.
However, are you saying that, in the absence of an available open standard, MS should be prevented from creating a standard or file type to fill in the gap? (That was the driving force behind activeX after all)
In the context of the competition, it's not steep.
The number of people who think they can use excel because it doesn't tell them otherwise is quite scary, I will admit, however that doesn't follow that it's MS' fault for providing customers with what they thought they wanted.
Look at the hassle UAC is causing with vista, that's a method to try and correct the mistake of customers who think running routinely as admin for day to day tasks is a good idea. Now there are loads of people complaining that Vista doesn't let them do what they want, even though it's a bad idea.
MS' biggest failing seems to be they are successful, and once they become successful, everyone expects them to act like a public service. They aren't a public service or a charity, they are a business.
There needs to be someone keep businesses in-line, it doesn't mean we have to live in a nanny state. You could go as far to call the idea of police a 'nanny state' idea... it's just about finding the right balance of nannying and freedom. In this instance, I don't think the EU are pushing the balance
I agree about keeping businesses in line, I just disagree that MS has done anything recently that requires such action. The basic arguement for the EU shafting the consumer and MS with their demands is "we know better than your customers what they want and need" to MS, and "We know what you want better than you do" to the consumers, XPn proves otherwise of course...
"Recently" is a relative term. Even now, if you walk into PC world, they will sell you a PC with Vista on it, and will not lower the price / remove the operating system, because of the deal that PC World have with Microsoft concerning certain "financial incentives".
I completely understand and do not expect people like PC World to be selling PCs with Ubuntu on, supporting it etc, if there is no business model there (that is an argument for another thread). But if they won't even let me buy with my own choice "no operating system", then that is broken. Its a little like the "no claims bonus" of insurance companies - what is the point of insurance if you do not claim on it? Why are people punished for claiming? I digress.
EDIT : Why don't PC World rename themselves Microsoft World ? Apart from a token 2-3 macs, the PCs are almost indentical in spec (to within 10%) and all run the same operating system... where is the choice?
And how is it that no-one gets angry that the computers of yesteryear, which are probably now just as useable for 90% of tasks, are no longer available/supported? A top of the range laptop from 2 years ago, probably has enough computing power to run Windows XP, and perform 90% of tasks, and probably for < 100 quid. Theres your laptop per child. But, without the economic incentive to keep people upgrading, businesses like PC World would not stay up... without Microsoft coming up with more bloatware each year, we wouldn't need more powerful PCs etc etc...
EDIT : Bah I'm on a rant, might as well continue it...
As a software engineer, I know and understand, that software is potentially unbounded. You can keep writing, and writing, and making software bigger and bigger without it necessarily becoming *better*. There is no upper limit on the imagination. However, this mechanism should not be used as the sole purpose for upgrading computers every 2 years! Software is supposed to get *more efficient* less bug ridden with time, though I appreciate things like feature creep do exist. However, that should be up to the consumer to decide how much they want. Another reason I like Firefox - I can load up Firefox at work, and I have a lot of extensions like Web Developer that help me do what I want to do with Firefox - but at home and on my laptop, I have basic firefox and it loads ten times faster and consumers less memory. I have the choice to bloat it out if I wish, with whatever I want. Of course at a certain point, certain operations might require specialist operating system level support, but these cases are few and in between, and open APIs are developed for this purpose (3d graphics for example).
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Installing or uninstalling an OS takes time, that's more likely the reason why they won't discount it. A PC with no OS on cannot be tested to ensure it's working correctly either, which is a major consideration for somewhere doing 'off the shelf' or prebuilt systems.
As for no claims bonus, insurance is based on your risk factor, something which your claims history is a good indicator of
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I think you and the EU are very very wrong, so it doesn't make a lot of difference.
Still, if you prefer a nanny state government, it's all good
Can you explain why you think this classifies as an example of a 'nanny state'?
It looks to me to be a sensible and justified action to stop anti-competitive practise, not a restriction of personal freedom in the name of people's best interests (which I think most would define a 'nanny state' as).
Any situation where the state decides it knows better than the populace comes into the nanny state idea.
Given that the main definition used by the EU of monopoly is high market share, and that their aim is to reduce market share (as stated various times, including their disappointment that MS weren't losing market share following sanctions), it's clear they think they do know better than consumers what consumers want.
MS has not prevented any competitors from supplying programs for windows, nor has it integrated it's own features in ways the competition cannot. The EU see the failure of other companies to take market share from MS as a failure of MS or the consumer, when in reality it's neither of those things. Realplayer lost market share because it was rubbish, firefox gained market share because it was good. There's no issue here other than the EU deciding it knows better than the consumers.
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Surely your definition of 'what the consumer wants' is just what the consumer uses? They're not necessarily the same thing.
You could use the same argument to argure that we shouldn't have employment laws and shouldn't have stopped children working in factories, since that was what they wanted by working there, or that women don't care about being underpaid relative to men since they still continue to work.