Microsoft Responds to EU Antitrust Case

[7amood]

Just explain to me... how do you expect an OS to be delivered without a web browser?

I'll have to use an example I don't like:
Apple uses safari in their OS... they should be targeted too.

Am thankful enough that Microsoft are giving the option to disable their stupid browser.

Oh no... what's wrong with me... I am being absorbed by the field of Windows 7 ~_~

 

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]acecombat[/nom]What about MacOS bundling Opera or whatever comes with that OS?!? Also Ubuntu packages Firefox and majority of other Linux distro's with a GUI package some form of browser with it too, do we open an anti trust case with them? And what about Android?? That has a huge amount of Google apps installed by default, do we start a case against that too because Tomtom can't compete against Google maps etc.???[/citation]
MacOS comes with Safari. I don't use Mac so I can not tell you if safari can be removed or not. But I know that Safari is based on WebKit rendering library and this make Safari very compatible with Web protocols. I believe WebKit is the only library that is passing the ACID Web Standard test. Safari may brake the OS X, but does not brake the Internet.
In Linux any browser can be installed or removed with out breaking anything. The choices are to many to list.
Microsoft is insisting from most of OEM vendors not to sell new PC without Windows. The only the big OEMs like ASUS, DELL, HP have the power to negotiate with MS to sell other OS. All small shops are forced to install Windows other wise they will be out of business because have to install $200+ retail version of Windows. On the top of that Microsoft is forcing the IE that is horrible when it comes to Web Standards.
The EU charges are pending for many years. Microsoft was given long time to comply, but instead Steve Ballmer went on war against EU commissioners. Dirty?! Oh Yes it is dirty game the big business.

At the same time I have to agree. Every time something is bundled it is not for consumer's good. It is to maximize the profit. In US and other industrial countries through the constant adv bombardment they script everyone that bundles are good deal, but they are not. In long run you paying much more. Great examples are the cell phone. Why you think they force you to buy 2 year contract?!

 

[Flameout]

I think every operating system has the right to include the products they want, including MS. The REAL problem is that Windows is on most x86 systems where IE just happens to be a part of. If Google's Android gets onto more systems, than it's most likely that they will use Chrome

 

[matt87_50]

doesn't intel have a monopoly owning the rights to x86? doesn't apple own the rights to multi-touch phones and REFUSE to license it to anyone else? the EU is pathetic, going after microsoft seemingly only because the US did it (how many years ago now?). for the majority of ppl who use browser, windows is not a necessity anyway.

 

[mitch074]

@matt87_50: no, Intel doesn't have a monopoly: they have licensed x86 to other makers, and as such we currently have 70% of currently running chips that are Intel-branded, 25% that are AMD-branded, and the rest is a bunch of Via and some Chinese manufacturers (these are approximations). However, Intel also got sued several times in several countries, by AMD, for unlawful abuses of dominant positions, where Intel bribed PC OEMs to include only Intel chips, and discouraged motherboard makers from making AMD-compatible products (the white-boxed, unadvertised Abit K7 motherboards from 2001 tested by THG did have a reason to exist).
The EU goes after Microsoft on the matter of browsers because other actors (Opera Software, helped by the Mozilla Company, and Google) complained. Had their claims been unsound, they would have been rejected. Instead, we got Microsoft adding the ability for IE to be 'completely disabled' in Windows 7, 4 days after the EU notice.

 

[mitch074]

Just to add a bit of food for thoughts: in Mac OS X, you can completely remove Safari and replace it with your browser of choice. Protocol handlers will then be oriented towards the browser you install in its place (say, Chromium 2.5 alpha 1 "with Mac OS X extended support") and be done with it. Same thing, you take a current Linux desktop (or Solaris, or BSD, whatever) and you switch from Firefox to use, say, Gecko-based Epihany (Gnome), or a Webkit-based one, or KHTML (KDE 4) to Qt4's Webkit...

Not in Windows: if you try to remove IE, the system will restore the files. If you try to replace or otherwise modify the files, you need to hijack and/or shutdown the system files protection service (indeed, hack the OS). If you want to replace the components and obtain similar features (such as COM objects), you'll have to sift through huge amounts of improperly documented 'internal' properties. Thus, it is POSSIBLE, it has been DONE, but then you have to cherry pick the OS updates you apply because it will try (and more than probably trash your machine along the way) to restore IE instead of whatever you've exchanged it with.

The problem isn't actually that you should be able to choose which browser you want to use; it's more that you should be able to not run nor host a piece of software you don't want.

As for Windows Update, the update service that runs inside Windows does NOT depend upon IE: it scans currently installed patch sets, downloads a list of published patch sets online, compares the two and downloads the missing ones. Tools that can download data from a web site exist, they're not browsers: wget and curl, to cite only two. Both of these tools are very small (a dozen kilobytes each), and indeed, a simple front-end to download and install this or that browser would take an hour to write and would work beautifully: you'd get an up-to-date browser right away! No need to ship soon-to-be-outdated browsers, just a small utility and a GUI front-end, and there! You're done.

After all, it wouldn't be much different from the time when Windows shipped with installers for AOL, Compuserve etc.

 

[ThePatriot]

I hope that this will MS get so sick and tired of the EU, it will stop selling their "products" in the EU.
Good riddance.
Now, let's get some innovation here. One decade over due.