Imagine if Tesco started doing so well though that Asda, Sainsburys et al all went out of business - if you wanted to buy groceries there was zero competition. All that would happen is that Tesco would start raising their prices and generally start doing whatever they wanted. Competition is necessary in any marketplace.
EU says Microsoft violated law with IE on Windows
- Thread starter BlackDragon
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Imagine if Tesco started doing so well though that Asda, Sainsburys et al all went out of business - if you wanted to buy groceries there was zero competition. All that would happen is that Tesco would start raising their prices and generally start doing whatever they wanted. Competition is necessary in any marketplace.
Wrong - the EU spends huge amounts on projects within the UK each year. Why post if you don't know what you're talking about?
So where does this stop?
There are plenty of messenger programs out there- well remove messenger
There are plenty of movie making programs out there - out with that
Photo gallery software? Plenty - Bye...
Paint? Alternatives - Bye...
Calander software...
DVD/CD writing software...
Video codecs...
mp3 codecs...
Games? Plenty of those out there! - Bye solitare, inkball, hearts, minesweep...
Sound recorder...
Windows skin? Alternatives out there too
In fact the EU shoud carry on until microsoft can only give out the core of windows, much like the DOS system, where they need to install everything from a command prompt (although you could argue there are microsoft alternatives for those out there too)...
It's such a stupid idea, yes I can see the argument they have about anticompetativeness but the reason people choose to buy Windows over other alternatives is usually because of the user friendlyness, you can just turn it on and have every basic thing you need at your touch.
I assume they are fining Apple for the same things right? They have integrated music players and web browsers, in fact their obsession with forcing everyone who buys an iPod to install itunes is IMO far worse than anything microsoft have done, with regards to adding usable apps to THEIR OWN software.
And I assume they are soon going to fine the likes of Dell and Packard Bell etc. for providing their own bloatware and "free" subscriptions to Norton and Mcafee?
There are plenty of messenger programs out there- well remove messenger
There are plenty of movie making programs out there - out with that
Photo gallery software? Plenty - Bye...
Paint? Alternatives - Bye...
Calander software...
DVD/CD writing software...
Video codecs...
mp3 codecs...
Games? Plenty of those out there! - Bye solitare, inkball, hearts, minesweep...
Sound recorder...
Windows skin? Alternatives out there too
In fact the EU shoud carry on until microsoft can only give out the core of windows, much like the DOS system, where they need to install everything from a command prompt (although you could argue there are microsoft alternatives for those out there too)...
It's such a stupid idea, yes I can see the argument they have about anticompetativeness but the reason people choose to buy Windows over other alternatives is usually because of the user friendlyness, you can just turn it on and have every basic thing you need at your touch.
I assume they are fining Apple for the same things right? They have integrated music players and web browsers, in fact their obsession with forcing everyone who buys an iPod to install itunes is IMO far worse than anything microsoft have done, with regards to adding usable apps to THEIR OWN software.
And I assume they are soon going to fine the likes of Dell and Packard Bell etc. for providing their own bloatware and "free" subscriptions to Norton and Mcafee?
We'd all use Linux (probably Ubuntu), find out that it's not that difficult to use and in fact it's actually better than Windows (doesn't crash as often, handles network outages better etc). Microsoft would not allow that to happen.
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I agree with your sentiment, but realpayer is not a viable competitor to anything, as I am sure most will agree, the market place IS competetive, look at the ammount of firefox users, including me - despite the inclusion of IE with pretty much all PC's, firefox continues to grow. its the natural way of things - if the product works then it will be used, we do not need EU intervention! you average polititian probably thinks firefox is some kind of cruel bloodsport - who are they to make these kinds of choices?
For some uses i agree linux is better, but it is nowhere near ready for full on home use. For example i need to use a virtualised copy of windows xp if i want to use any half-decent usenet apps, when i mirror my display onto my HDTV its horrendously overscanned and the very-much-unfinished nvidia drivers don't allow me to fix it.
Not to mention the complete lack of games.
Soldato
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The shop is meant to be an analogy of Windows and to my knowlegde MS has not prevented Mozilla from making their own OS. Telling MS what they can sell.... or even give away for free in their shop is out of order.
What is the EU's stance when Sony Centre give away free Blu Ray players with selected TVs? It has an impact on the sale of competitiors products, but that is business. It's about competing to find your edge and for MS to be told what they can and cannot do with a platform that they have created and developed is not right.
Associate
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Thats not Tesco's problem is it? Instead of penalising Tesco by forcing them to sell at a price the government thinks fair or forcing them to sell certain products in their shops, they should instead encourage competition in the industry. Probably by reducing barriers to entry (a good start would be to lower taxation and reduce regulation burden). But thats not what our government likes to do.
If it moves, tax it; if it keeps moving, regulate it; if it stops moving, subsidise it and if it dies, nationalise it
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Soldato
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I'll just ignore the fact that setting up wireless on Ubuntu is a nightmare for 3 months after every release then shall I? I can get it working but my Mum would be on the phone every 20 minutes lol
Soldato
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again, if people wanted the alternative and the alternative made itself appealing enough then people would take it.
Soldato
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the EUs stance is that sony don't have enough money to bother with.
The technical qualities or lack of them in RealPlayer is kinda irrelevant. What is relevant is that there is/was a company called Real who had a presumably successful business, which was totally undermined because Microsoft decided to leverage its market dominance to force Real out of the market. Real aren't the first company Microsoft have done this to.
Regarding firefox, I think it says it all that the only serious competition Microsoft has in the browser market is given away free and written by a bunch of talented enthusiasts. Despite what you may thing, Internet Explorer is not free, but the cost is hidden within a Windows license, which is in turn usually hidden in the price of a PC. When almost every PC comes pre-loaded with a windows license and IE, how is anyone supposed to compete?
Anyone who thinks that Microsoft should be able to develop and abuse a monopoly should remember the days before Firefox, and what IE was like before no competition. If anything we need more competition not less.
Soldato
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Nad there endeth the debate...... the investigation is not about the public interest.
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IF this were to be the case then you're missing an important point.
The responsibility to distribute other browsers should not be MS' problem. If you're speccing a desktop from Dell then let Dell give you the option to preinstall another OS. If people want to use it then they will. Alternatively, force OEMs to install a range of browsers, at worst people will have to uninstall them.
This is all well and good, but I can't see why this is MS' problem and removing it will be against the consumer's best interests.
Carving it up how? The OS side and the addon side? From past experience the only people that lose out when things like that happen are the people who are the ones supposedly being helped, the customer.
So what would have happened if MS had been carved up, you would have to pay ~£70 for the OS (almost certainly the same as you pay today) and another say £50 for all the bits you would have got for free anyway. So instead of just getting a computer you can set up and go for an extra ~£70 (now) you wuold have two options...
1. Pay the £70 and £50 and be out of pocket by £50 but in the same boat as you were before.
2. Pay £70 and spend days finding software to replace the stuff that was taken out, and probably then ending up paying more than £50 to get certain bits of software (as certainly the general population would just go with the big names such as Roxio, Nero etc) to make their computer do what it used to do from the off.
Now you could argue that the Hardware sellers such as Dell would stick in programs to replace the ones missing, but IMO that is no better than what you have with MS at the moment, especially considering that they already provide alternatives now. So all you end up with is a computer and population that ends up more confused, with software that is completly inconsistant with every computer you go on. You may have gone for the £50 microsoft package and use WMP for example, but you friend got his dell with Winamp, and your other friend with itunes, another with realplayer, another with another program... Complete and utter carnage.
The other option would be the majority of people would just buy the £50 add on or (as dell and other vendors do at the moment) everyone will just use one or two big names (for example almost every new pc sold in shops comes with norton or Mcafee) and anticompetativeness would move from microsoft to the next biggest names...
But again that is incomplete, imagine we had a highstreet full of different shops selling electronics, but everyone started buying from one particular shop. The others started loosing money and were forced to close or move to side streets and the one everyone bought from expanded to take over the stores they left.
That is more the analogy you want. There were (and are) alternatives to MS (as far as I know there were OS types out before microsoft came along). They just couldnt compete and fell by the wayside or became more specialist. The only people to blame about microsofts dominance are the software makers who didn't change with the times.
If you don't like Microsoft you have alternatives, you could use OSX (but apple allow it only on their hardware), Linux (but it's too complicated for the average person and isn't as user friendly), Unix, but that is to specialised, same with the (probably) dozens of niche OS's out there.
But a single shop is not the marketplace, I guess we could call the high street the marketplace. If 90% of shops on the high street were Panasonic outlets, it would make it that much more difficult for Sony or any other competitor to operate.
The problem for the market that Windows dominance is in, is that standards and interoperability are a massive issue - monopoly is almost inevitable in that marketplace, which MS Windows has achieved and there isn't really anything that can be done about it. What can be done however is making sure that MS don't abuse their monopoly in that marketplace to gain an unfair advantage in others. IIRC in '99 after MS were first found guilty of violating anti-trust legislation, the plan from the Clinton administration would be to split MS into two companies - an OS company and an Applications company. This really should have been done by now, but "Big Business" Bush got elected
It's fine because Sony do not have a dominant market position in the TV marketplace.
Apple and iTunes on the other hand is also being investigated by the EC, because Apple have a dominant position in the mp3 player marketplace and may be abusing that dominance to gain an unfair advantage in the music downloads marketplace, just like MS has been doing.
Dell already allow you to choose Linux instead of Windows, the question is how many people have bought it over windows? If Linux was selling anywhere near as many boxes as windows don't you think Dell would capitalise on that and start providing more options, the thing is they obviously aren't.
What people don't seem to be realising is it's not just microsoft that are to blame for them being a monopoly, there just arent any OS's out there that are as good to compete against it. Arguably OSX is as good, but Apple in their wisdom (probably something to do with the difficulty of the task, and the profit they make on their hardware) have decided not to let people use their software on PC's not made by them.
That's the point. The average user isn't going to care and will stick with it, artificially inflating IE's popularity and removing any chance other browsers have. This is called a monopoly.
Take IE away, and users are forced to do research into what would be the best browser for them, and huzzah, a competitive marketplace!
All is well and good.
Well done EU!Microsofts main counter against this lawsuit is that IE is a vital part of the Windows operating system, and is so deeply rooted that it cannot be removed. If this is taken to be true, then the only alternative is to make them distribute other browsers with Windows as well, otherwise you let them get away with a monopoly.