Dont want E

Daegan · 16 Jul 2009 at 17:53

Mattey1 said:
Well in my opinion it shouldn't be one rule for one company & another rule for another, that is just pure idiocy.

Apple doesn't have a 90% market share though, that's the difference.

Macky · 16 Jul 2009 at 18:18

Go into Control Panel, Programs and Features, Turn Windows Features on or off, and you can easily untick IE and other unwanted things. I haven't done it and not sure how much I reccomend it as some things/apps rely on IE.

muon · 16 Jul 2009 at 18:25

The broswer market is the only one with a semblance of competition. Just look at how the media player market has been destroyed by bundling of WMP.

Although using the ipod, apples have leveraged itunes into the music player market.

Glaucus · 16 Jul 2009 at 19:11

ghost101 said:
The broswer market is the only one with a semblance of competition. Just look at how the media player market has been destroyed by bundling of WMP.

Although using the ipod, apples have leveraged itunes into the music player market.

power dvd and vlc have a decent percentage I would imagine.

And as you said Itunes but also winamp should have a large percentage for the music side.

so plenty of competition there as well.

D D Danneh · 16 Jul 2009 at 19:28

Wait, I just read this looking at a preorder of W7:

Includes Internet Explorer 8 CD-Rom packed seperately

So, IE8 is still there, it's just not pre-installed? This is going to change absolutely nothing then. If you don't include a browser at all, at least maybe some of the PC vendors will pre-install an alternate browser, but if you include the disc, then there is absolutely no point in removing it from the install. PC vendors aren't going to install an alternate browser if the IE install is there right away. Some smaller ones might, as a personal preferance, but usually the smaller ones are niche and are aimed at slightly more knowledgeable users who probably know about different browsers already. Average Joe isn't going to open up his home premium box, find an IE disc and think "I know, I'm going to install this disc, then use the browser to find a different one, then remove IE". :rolleyes:

Glaucus · 16 Jul 2009 at 19:30

great news. I thought you had to pay extra

Matteysan · 16 Jul 2009 at 19:43

Daegan said:
Apple doesn't have a 90% market share though, that's the difference.

Who cares about market share really, If people wanted to use mac they would have done by now, people still have choice to choose another browser, it isn't like Firefox/Chrome/Opera are exactly hidden from the world now is it?

As I say again one rule for one & another rule for another is pure idiocy. Lets jump on Apple for locking down their products too :rolleyes:

Daegan · 16 Jul 2009 at 20:12

Mattey1 said:
Who cares about market share really, If people wanted to use mac they would have done by now, people still have choice to choose another browser, it isn't like Firefox/Chrome/Opera are exactly hidden from the world now is it?

As I say again one rule for one & another rule for another is pure idiocy. Lets jump on Apple for locking down their products too

I'm not arguing for or against, I couldn't care less. The point is the EU Commission ruled that Microsoft abused their dominant share of the OS market and stifled competition in the browser market by only bundling IE with Windows. You can't compare Apple only bundling Safari with OSX when they don't have that dominant market share to leverage.

m4cc45 · 16 Jul 2009 at 20:20

Daegan said:
I'm not arguing for or against, I couldn't care less. The point is the EU Commission ruled that Microsoft abused their dominant share of the OS market and stifled competition in the browser market by only bundling IE with Windows. You can't compare Apple only bundling Safari with OSX when they don't have that dominant market share to leverage.

So the EU's decision wasn't based entirely on how much money they could extract from Microsoft and are now doing the same with Intel?

If you break a crime then it doesn't matter whether you're the head of the most successful company or the guy who cleans the toilets you all should be treated the same.

I, for one, hate the EU with a passion. I personally think they are a bunch of corrupt money-grabbing *****!

M.

Daegan · 16 Jul 2009 at 20:50

m4cc45 said:
So the EU's decision wasn't based entirely on how much money they could extract from Microsoft and are now doing the same with Intel?

Intel's situation is different again, with the allegations being that they actively discouraged vendors from carrying AMD products by refusing those that did rebates and access to new product lines. To me that's significantly worse than what Microsoft did.

muon · 16 Jul 2009 at 20:53

i ahve to do this all the time because of some people's ignorance.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/news_archive.html

That new archive has all the fine given in the past few years. Show me a US bias. Also lots of smaller fines for smaller companies exist. Including lots of state aid cases.

The largest fine I can see at a glance is this

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressRelease...format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

The European Commission has imposed fines, totalling €1 383 896 000 on Asahi, Pilkington, Saint-Gobain and Soliver for illegal market sharing, and exchange of commercially sensitive information regarding deliveries of car glass in the EEA, in violation of the EC Treaty’s and the EEA Agreement’s ban on cartels and restrictive business practices (Article 81 of the EC Treaty and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement). Asahi, Pilkington and Saint-Gobain are the three major players in Europe. Between early 1998 and early 2003 these companies discussed target prices, market sharing and customer allocation in a series of meetings and other illicit contacts. The Belgian company Soliver also took part in some of these discussions. These four companies controlled about 90% of the glass used in the EEA in new cars and for original branded replacement glass for cars at that time, a market worth about €2 billion in the last full year of the infringement. The Commission started the cartel investigation on its own initiative following a tip-off from an anonymous source. The Commission increased the fines on St Gobain by 60% because it was a repeat offender. Asahi provided additional information to help expose the infringement and its fine was reduced by 50% under the Leniency Notice. These are the highest cartel fines Commission has ever imposed, both for an individual company (€896 000 000 on Saint Gobain) and for a cartel as a whole.

edit:

Also note this comment from the EU to what Microsoft have done

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressRelease...format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

The European Commission notes with interest Microsoft's announcement of its plans for Windows 7, and in particular of the apparent separation of Internet Explorer (IE) from Windows in the EEA. The Commission will shortly decide in the pending browser tying antitrust case whether or not Microsoft’s conduct from 1996 to date has been abusive and, if so, what remedy would be necessary to create genuine consumer choice and address the anticompetitive effects of Microsoft’s long-standing conduct. In terms of potential remedies if the Commission were to find that Microsoft had committed an abuse, the Commission has suggested that consumers should be offered a choice of browser, not that Windows should be supplied without a browser at all.

Although, not providing a browser at all will result in anti-trust compliance.

Dolph · 16 Jul 2009 at 21:57

Daegan said:
Apple doesn't have a 90% market share though, that's the difference.

should not matter though, the ability to serve customers should not be diminished based on market share in an attempt to reduce that market share. the eu are on record ashaving a problem with large market share irrespective of how it is being used, and wish to reduce the share ms has in the os market...

Dolph · 16 Jul 2009 at 22:01

ghost, its not ignorance to realise the eu's solution of expecting ms to supply and default support software they have no control over is ludicrous, especially with the number of browsers they would have to supprt to ensure fairness to all developers...

muon · 16 Jul 2009 at 22:13

Dolph said:
ghost, its not ignorance to realise the eu's solution of expecting ms to supply and default support software they have no control over is ludicrous, especially with the number of browsers they would have to supprt to ensure fairness to all developers...

The ignorance part was pointed it the opinion that mostly large US firms are targetted for money.

As far as the solution to IE bundling, thats a debatable and different issue. (My opinion is that what Microsoft are doing is fine, since PC manufacturers now can put in a browser of their choice)

Also your comment of looking at how market share is being used, it doesn't matter. Microsoft (or any firm for that matter) will always attempt to use their market share to maximise profits. There are no natural monopoly arguments as far as web browsers are concerned.

Rich43 · 16 Jul 2009 at 22:17

Mayb they could ship browser cd's via post?

muon · 16 Jul 2009 at 22:19

Rich43 said:
Mayb they could ship browser cd's via post?

I suspect as this develops what will happen is similar to the dial up internet era. In stores, there will be IE dsics, or Firefox discs which you can pick up for free. People like you and me are savvy enough to download what we want with ease, while people buying from the big PC manufacturers will have the most popular browser preinstalled.

Phatjayunoi · 17 Jul 2009 at 01:26

ghost101 said:
I suspect as this develops what will happen is similar to the dial up internet era. In stores, there will be IE dsics, or Firefox discs which you can pick up for free. People like you and me are savvy enough to download what we want with ease, while people buying from the big PC manufacturers will have the most popular browser preinstalled.

That certainly bought back some memories from where I would pickup some ISP CD-ROM's from shops just to get the likes of Internet Explorer 4 and then 5. I remember how the yellow Freeserve CD's was like everywhere. Ahh the good old days!

Matteysan · 17 Jul 2009 at 05:47

Daegan said:
I'm not arguing for or against, I couldn't care less. The point is the EU Commission ruled that Microsoft abused their dominant share of the OS market and stifled competition in the browser market by only bundling IE with Windows. You can't compare Apple only bundling Safari with OSX when they don't have that dominant market share to leverage.

I wasn't trying to argue with you, all I'm saying is that if Microsoft want to include a browser in their operating system they should be allowed, just like Apple are allowed to include their browser in their operating system.

It shouldn't be the way the EU is dictating it. Not when other companies are doing it also, If MS aren't allowed to include it then the same should be happening to Apple as well no two ways about it.

Just my two cents & I'm not trying to provoke an argument from you.

m4cc45 · 17 Jul 2009 at 07:14

Rich43 said:
Mayb they could ship browser cd's via post?

I beleive they and Mozilla are providing a service by post - it's £4 ish quid though.

I'd personally do anything to stick two-fingers up at the EU - and not including a browser I think is the only way to do it. If they do include browsers then they will get support calls when they go wrong for other products so I don't think it's fair. No doubt then the EU would put pressure on MS to update them via Windows Update which adds another problem for MS where by if they release an update for a different browser and it breaks something else.

M.

m4cc45 · 17 Jul 2009 at 07:23

ghost101 said:
Snip

I wasn't suggesting a US balance I was suggesting that the EU were a bunch of money grabbing gits. Your links pretty much proved this. I couldn't find any decissions where money was not involved - surely there are companies out there that warrant a differernt course of action. Especially in financial turmoil that we are currently in.

Having looked into the budgets I came across a link.

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/publications/financial_pub/pub_eu_spending_en.pdf

In the PDF it mentions complete transparency, openess, etc. Yet the information is hard to find.

I then came across this:

http://ec.europa.eu/budget/index_en.htm

The draft budget for the EU is 139 billion euros. How can they survive with such a massive ask in these times? Obviously the only way they can survive is fining companies massive amounts.

M.