Microsoft Loses Anti-Trust Appeal in Europe

[VibroAxe]

BBC NEWS | Business | Microsoft loses anti-trust appeal

So, Microsoft has lost it's appeal against the Competition Laws in Europe and an £343m fine. I completly agree with the fact that in some cases Microsoft has a monopoly over other companies. However, they got that way by their own hard work, and because, to be quite fair, although buggy, they generally offer beter integration for the widespread market.
I don't feel that this rulling is correct in anyway I feel it is up to other major companies (apple?) to come back fighting and catch Microsoft, as they have started to do with recent improvement to OS 10 Server.
But what REALLY annoys me about this ruling is the comment about Windows Media Player. Apparently this is monopolising the media player market, and MS should offer a version of windows without WMP shipping as standard. Now I just don't buy this, for starters if this is true then surley apple should not be allowed to ship iTunes with OSX. But more to the point, I've used a variety of media players, but I've never yet found WMP to cause me not to use them, I see no reason why if someone wants to, they can't go and download another player it's not as though your actually paying for the WMP line as it's a free download jobby. Also, one of window's main target markets is the "I don't know about computers but want to be able to browse the net, check me email, and listen to music" demographic. I quite like the fact that I can recommend Windows OR OS X to someone and know that the default product suites will do all of this.

I guess what i'm getting at is, why would anyone want to pay for a version of windows without WMP, when you can get it, and if you don't like it uninstall it (And yes, I have just verified you can completly uninstall WMP if you so desire)

[/RANT]
thoughts?

 

[thatbloke]

I think that the main issue here concerning WMP is that other companies should have the option to bundle THEIR software either alongside WMP or in its place.

But I do agree with your statements actually...

 

[VibroAxe]

HMmm, I just realised this should probably be in the soap box if a mod type person could move it

 

[Traxata]

Its just like the damn Vista basic edition isnt it, I don't know a SINGLE person who actually bought it I went with Home premium because i wanted to get vista with the features that were supposed to be in it.

Also, i don't use WMP, in all its 'usefullness' it fails when it comes to the types of mp3 players i've had before the ipod, i eventually just settled with itunes and then was given an ipod afterwards ( see i cannot claim that i went out and bought it myself )

 

[Tetsuo_Shima]

I use Windows Media Player all the time, and I also use Internet Explorer. I must be one of those 'demographics' you're referring to I'm firmly with Vibs on this one; I actually read about this lawsuit last year, I think it was RealPlayer that started it off, and my bullshit alarm went off the rails. The reason nobody uses Real over WMP isn't because Microsoft have monopolized the market, it's because Real is shite. It always needs upgrades to open files, it's very basic and you always get annoying Real messages popping up in the taskbar. WMP is easy to use, looks pretty, is fairly versatile (I use it for ripping all my CDs, now) and just plain works! As Trax says, it isn't really that great with mp3 players (it tries to 'sync' my Creative Zen and my mobile phone all the time, thus wiping my media libraries) but I got round that and just use the Creative software for my mp3 anyway.

Essentialy, Microsoft have been punished for being successful.

 

[KillCrazy]

[mod]Moved thread to the Soap Box as per request[/mod]

 

[Taffy]

The problem with rulings like these is that they both go with and against capitalism. They are with capitalism in the sense that they safe-guard against monopolisation and allow competition into the market. They go against capitalism because, like you said Mr Axe, Microsoft got there by their own hard work (although I do believe Mr Gates 'borrowed' other peoples ideas and just meshed them together)and they've done exactly what you're supposed to do in capitalism: dominate a market to make maximum profit.

That said, I agree with the ruling. Microsoft have the power to completely drown competition. Without laws and rulings like these, they would. Then they would have a monopoly on the market. Which would be awful. Esentially, it's the lesser of two evils.

 

[Haven]

There is no capitalism when its a one party shop.

 

[thatbloke]

There was something I read a couple of days ago that was saying that vendors (like Mickeysoft) should not be able to bundle their OS's on their computer because it limits choice - when you already have one, why buy another one to replace it?

Here's the slashdot link.

Article referenced by slashdot

 

[waterproofbob]

OK yes the price of OS would perhaps drop in a competitive market, but we don't have one of those so who gives a monkey's ass. Unbundling of Windows from PCs, WHY??
Alright from my point of view it would be great I could get the pc and do what I wanted to it as far as partitions go. However what about the 99% of PC users who don't know what an operating system is or does and can only use a computer as microsoft have done a damn fine job making them idiot safe.
If you unbundled windows then it becomes like the custom PC market where they charge you a whole load extra to install the OS as part of the build.

Also I love wmp, its always done everything i ask of it, it plays music and doesn't try and destroy all my lovely music by breaking it into filthy i-death format.
Long live the Windows I say.
If another OS comes along that actually can compete then fine then unbundle and just give ppl the OS choice, but at the present there's no need to do that

 

[Haven]

If another OS comes along that actually can compete then fine then unbundle and just give ppl the OS choice, but at the present there's no need to do that

How can other OS's compete when windows is forced onto PC's and taught as the only OS in schools. Unless you are very technically competent you never have any exposure to anything other than windows under these conditions. This is why the EU is trying to unbundle Windows from hardware as well as ubundling the individual applications within windows (why try another music player/web browser when microsoft includes one for you etc - same argument.).

Sure once things are unbundled people can pay an installation fee and have windows on their new hardware should they choose. Allowing them to choose is the important bit here.

 

[thatbloke]

How can other OS's compete when windows is forced onto PC's and taught as the only OS in schools. Unless you are very technically competent you never have any exposure to anything other than windows under these conditions. This is why the EU is trying to unbundle Windows from hardware as well as ubundling the individual applications within windows (why try another music player/web browser when microsoft includes one for you etc - same argument.).

Sure once things are unbundled people can pay an installation fee and have windows on their new hardware should they choose. Allowing them to choose is the important bit here.

That's precisely it. Although things have now been made "idiot-proof" the way they are, people will NEVER learn anything about how their computer works if they don't get their hands dirty and install an OS themself...

The problem is that no other OSes have even been allowed to get off the ground becuase Microsoft won't open up their standards/protocols for other people to be able to follow...

However, another problem is the whole gaming thing... All of us here in THN have PCs and we use them for gaming. If something like this were to happen we would then be splitting up the PC market in a similar way to how the console market is split up... how long before "OS exclusives" start appearing once (if) another Windows software compatible OS manages to get a foothold in the market?

But then again... something like this may (as if) cause Apple to stand up and be counted, and instead of offering their OS on custom hardware they could get a version out that will run on standard PCs... not too difficult as they already have their OS running on Intel based processors.

It may be quite interesting to see Apple enter the market in such a way. Perhaps games companies would start using OpenGL more, meaning that the Apple OS could play the games with the right drivers...

We now also have OpenAL too for audio...

 

[elDiablo]

...how long before "OS exclusives" start appearing...

Sorry dude, but I think you're a little late with that one. Sure you get wine (or whatever the hell it's called now) or Parallels to get games running on Linux and Mac machines, but we've already seen Microsoft try and make games "Vista only", because they NEED DX10 (which is, again, Vista only...) even though they run on XP machines with a little crack or two.

And really, I think that this has made this whole conversation pointless. As bob said, we don't have a competitive market in this area really. We should do, and MS should be sued for creating a monopoly, etc., but now that current generation (by this I mean current group of people ranging from 10-80 that uses PCs) has grown up with Windows, and is playing games on the machines, I doubt that the average Joe is going to care about other Operating Systems. For the most part, gamers will be just happy with Windows, and won't want to learn a new system, older people who just browse the internet and check emails won't want to learn a new system, and the middle aged (everyone from 25-60, sorry, it's a big range for this argument) will again be doing whatever they do with little care about learning a new system.

As Haven pointed out, only the tech-savvy or curious will likely try a new Operating System unless distributors start selling Linux PCs cheaper then Windows PCs, or Mac gets it's act together and stops being so elitist. I know for a fact that most of my family don't want to change from Windows as they are happy with it.

In my opinion, I think that this battle was lost before it even came to light in the public eye. I'm sure Mac OS and Linux will be around as long as Windows, but I doubt Windows is going to lose much market share thanks to already being known by most.