Windows 7 in EU without Browser!

[Chrysantine]

Originally Posted by KefMaster

Guys lets be honest, is it necessary to punish a company for being successful.

For a free market system to work properly, it needs competition - look at how long Internet Explorer stagnated the web: for years and years web site owners couldn't implement new features because IE didn't support them or had to make elaborate hacks around issues it presented - merely because "it ships with every computer on earth!"

It was easier to merely assume that the user was running IE than implement functionality other browsers had.

As for Opera who is currently getting flak over the issue - what were they supposed to do?

Year after year they rolled out new features, new innovations, better compliance to w3 standards but couldn't make a dent in the IE dominance because it once again shipped with every Windows automatically - a good portion of the userbase didn't have any clue there ARE even other browsers, they only knew they could click "E" and whoops, the Internet!

Originally Posted by KefMaster

What if microsoft shipped without IE and an installer application to install other applications. What then???

We'd be a lot better off?

[KefMaster]

Even if MS doesn't include IE with their system, people will still be going out there to search and install IE because of not wanting to change. It will be like extracting bone marrow from a thigh bone without any tools, referring to MS and IE situation.

Again "Internet Explorer for exploring the Internet" MS marketing trick has a lot of users fooled. I'm a web developer myself and i know how hectic it is to have your website working perfect on all browsers except IE.

> Even if MS doesn't include IE with their system, people will still be
> going out there to search and install IE because of not wanting to
> change.

just because earth was slow to move against the MS anti-competitive
grab for dominance is no good reason to not do anything to try to
remedy their death-grip *now*..

--
natural_pilot

[consused]

Originally Posted by KefMaster

...Guys lets be honest, is it necessary to punish a company for being successful...

No, that is not the reason they are punished. They are being punished in EU for breaking anti-competitiion laws in order to succeed i.e. for Microsoft to control the market. Once a corporation is dominant in a market, rules that wouldn't be enforced against a weaker but successful player are applied to it. Free market doesn't mean total anarchy. It should of happened in the US, but it didn't for political reasons.

[TimButterworth]

I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if Microsoft decided not to sell their products in Europe. Who will small software houses that have not been able to establish a large user following ready and eager to spend money for their product file suites against then?

Would Opera per say launch an anti-trust anti-competition suite against KDE for including Konqueror or against the major Linux distro's for including Firefox and having it selected for installation by default? Would other companies begin to follow suite and try to tear away at the GNU/LINUX ecosystem to get there products included possibly with a royalty.

I am actually somewhat more interested in knowing if the EU requires all of these web browsers to be installed on all government computers so that those users have the option to choose which one they prefer. If anyone has a concrete answer to this please post it. It would be interesting to know if they are taking all measures available to promote competition or possibly just trying to pinch some fine money out of a wealthy company and create a little controversy.

Who knows maybe this will help Opera, FireFox and Chrome increase their market share. Since history shows this approach hasn't worked to well in the past I am going to assume that it will not work in the present.

Personally if I was them I would spend more time and efforts marketing the features my product has and informing the public masses as to why I believe my product is superior to the competition and then prove it to them. This is how you build a loyal following.

Another thing that is interesting is that if Microsoft removes IE then how would someone with only a single system be able to go out to the web to download one of the alternatives.
I guess one thing the EU did not think about is forcing a software vendor to include additional code or forcing a hardware distributor to include this extra software has additional cost to implement and sustain. Which would undoubtedly be passed on to the consumer by the way. Maybe Microsoft looked at this cost and found is was less expensive to simply remove IE and let the hardware vendor and consumer fend for themselves on how they would acquire a browser. If so then this may be nice to help GNU/LINUX adoption.

As far as for the cost differences for Microsoft products. Hardware vendors do pay less than individual consumers. This has to do with a large number of factors. First retail markup, packaging and shipping costs or course and the big one bulk purchase discount. Every large vendor in the world gives discounts for large bulk purchases. Why should Microsoft have to be different.

I personally believe the only person who should choose what OS and accompanying software they want to run is the person who owns the system. I use GNU/LINUX because its flexibility suits all of my needs the most efficiently. For me it also brought the enjoyment back into my working and playing needs. I personally can not say the same about the other options in the market. I am sure others feel this way about the OS and apps they use and don't want to do with out them. My better half feels this way about Windows Vista. All of the ISV products she likes to do her work runs on it and of course her favorite on-line shopping site to buy European Fashion, ironic except that it is a Korean distributor, is IE7 crippled.
http://www.otto.co.kr which she will not do with out. She's able to do what she wants and needs to do, I have to suffer the mild irritation of performing maintenance to her computers but where both happy and co-exist with our different choices.

[kastorff]

On 2009-06-15 06:06:01 -0400, consused
<consused@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> said:

> It should of happened in the US, but it didn't for political reasons.

True. Whether or not we like the way the EU has handled this, they've
at least had the courage to try.

--
Keith Kastorff

[ReferenceSeete]

Interesting topic.

I feel for both sides on this. I do agree that IE, especially IE6, resulted in a lot of extra work being done on the part of designers. But the stagnation argument seems dangerous to me for a couple reasons:

1. If the issue is W3C compliance, then a solution is to make MS issue a W3C compliant browser. However, this doesn't seem to be a satisfactory solution for the EU (please correct if mistaken).

2. If the web was truly stagnated by IE6, then the web should still be frozen to the technology of IE6. Clearly this isn't the case, so it seems peculiar to say "IE caused/causes stagnation" when the web has demonstrably moved forward despite IE.

Still, the success of Firefox seems to put a significant damper on Opera's argument that 'Windows + IE = no market share for anyone else'. Mozilla and their Firefox browser accomplished what Opera didn't (and hasn't) under the same conditions. It's not just about being innovative, there are many examples of innovative companies and individuals not capitalising on their work.

The dissenters here have a point about the potential chicken-and-egg problem by having no browser on the PC. Clearly some other mechanism needs to be in place for a person to acquire a browser, whether that is an OEM pre-install or a downloader that lets one choose which browser they want.

I agree that in the case of a monopoly that regulators need to look more closely at what is going on - Certainly in the cases of price-fixing or locking out other vendors.

What makes me curious about the EU-Microsoft case is that an Operating System is somewhat unique. An OS is a platform for a broad array of other software. And some types of software are more profitable than others. Even in the case of a monopoly, at what point does the competition argument make no sense? Especially if the OS is not designed to lock-out competing software?

What if I start a company with a competing calculator for Windows...Do I really have a legitimate complaint of 'anti-competitive behaviour by bundling'? Even after years of little traction? Is the presence of a company attempting to provide an alternative piece of an OS enough conclude 'this bundling is anti-competitive'?

Lastly, where does the money from these fines go? Are the fines used for assisting the harmed enterprises? Or does the EU just use it like tax revenue?

Perhaps those who have been following the case more closely can inform me of the pertinent details so I have a better understanding. Thanks.

[Chrysantine]

Originally Posted by ReferenceSeete

1. If the issue is W3C compliance, then a solution is to make MS issue a W3C compliant browser.

For years people complained and Microsoft did nothing about it - IE5 was horribly broken, IE6 was amazingly broken, IE7 was still broken.

Originally Posted by ReferenceSeete

2. If the web was truly stagnated by IE6, then the web should still be frozen to the technology of IE6.

Stagnation does not mean standstill - it means slowing down of development. Much like religions have slowed down human development over our history so did the existence of a market leader browser slow down the adoption of new ideas.

Originally Posted by ReferenceSeete

Still, the success of Firefox seems to put a significant damper on Opera's argument that 'Windows + IE = no market share for anyone else'.

That's not really a fair comparison - no other browser (and there have been many) has been able to snatch market share from IE apart from Firefox and let's see why - perhaps it has something to do with the multi-billion dollar company that was sponsoring Mozilla?

Originally Posted by ReferenceSeete

Mozilla and their Firefox browser accomplished what Opera didn't (and hasn't) under the same conditions.

Not even close - Firefox has been sponsored by Google from the start up. Opera started as Payware while Firefox started as Open Source, mainly because at the time Opera didn't really have much of a choice - someone had to pay the bills.

Originally Posted by ReferenceSeete

Lastly, where does the money from these fines go? Are the fines used for assisting the harmed enterprises? Or does the EU just use it like tax revenue?

In the case of AMD and Intel, AMD was awarded 60% of the punishment, rest goes to EU - however in the case of Opera they won't get much if anything at all.

[Chrysantine]

Lovely, the quote tag was broken there and now I can't fix it because I can't edit here at all.

Sigh, I wonder why I bother to post here in the first place - guess I'll go and post elsewhere in the future.

[TimButterworth]

[QUOTE=Chrysantine;2000233]

For years people complained and Microsoft did nothing about it - IE5 was horribly broken, IE6 was amazingly broken, IE7 was still broken.

Doesn't this statement actually go against the finding of anti-competitive behavior by the EU and the rationale that IE prevented widespread adoption of other web browsers. If there product was horribly and amazingly broken than should that not have driven up the market share for other products?

I personally do not care for Windows or IE and I personally find both to be flawed but I do not hold Microsoft personally accountable for hindering innovation of web development or consider them to be the root of all evil, as a lot of folks try to make them out to be.

There are a lot of web site's that I would like to use today from FireFox and Konqueror that I can't because a script immediately redirects me to download IE7. For me this is the problem preventing wider acceptance of other browsers and something that needs to be corrected on the web server side of the house. For me I just choose not to use these sites but some people can not just simply make that decision.

Web developers wanting to use technology that does not work properly in IE could easily implement this same type of mechanism and tell people that to access their site to download a browser capable of supporting their technology. The public embarrassment for the failure to implement international standards would do more to drive Microsoft to fix these problems. I know that in a enterprise environment this is not feasible. Having personally had to build packages to push patches and upgrades across a large enterprise network, I know the challenging and time consuming nature of this. It would be nice to see for a change though.

As far as the major computer manufacturers distributing computers with Microsoft preloaded. I have been putting together all of my own computers for years so this does not affect me to much. Why though someone has not started a desktop computer company specializing in selling systems designed to work with and preloaded with Linux I will never understand. As this would be the company that gets my business.

I personally do not agree with these types of cases or the EU findings. First Microsoft has not built any mechanism into windows to prevent a competitive web browser from being installed. Second even after IE started being bundled most computer manufacturers still offered and often included Netscape Navigator, for a while at least.

Second I do not like the precedent these cases set for future cases. Microsoft has been beat up for: Office, Web Browser, trying to make security improvements, and for bundling an instant messenger, of all things. Personally I think they should be able to bundle what ever they want or make what ever improvement they see fit to there operating system. People have been complaining for years that they want a better product for the price they charge for the POS now. I do not see how this affects competition in any way as long as they do not start restricting what can and can not be installed on it, people are after all fully free to make there own choices on what programs they want to use and how many of each type they want to use.

The person who made the analogy to car companies was in my opinion was almost right on. I say almost because engines are to hard to interchange and very expensive which makes it impractical. A better example would have been to make this analogy with car stereos. When I go to a car dealer they do not offer me the choice to purchase the car with whatever brand car stereo I want. There technology, in the past at least, was usually behind the current market technology and came at a much higher cost than an after market unit. How many people still have a car that was produced well after CD's came out that came with a cassette tape player? As the automotive manufactures hold a monopoly on which stereos they sell with their products should they not also be forced to offer car stereos from competing companies.