Linux Format forums

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

Diagmato — Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:51 pm

Author: Diagmato

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:51 pm

EU fines Microsoft $1.4 Billion

It seems Microsoft didnt learn from being grounded, and now has to do the chores for a month. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The comments to that article goes to show how rather ignorant the population can be - comments such as "This isnt fair on Microsoft, they have done the world all this good, and they got there themselves - why should people be slated for achieving something".

Quote:

Why should Microsoft have to pay fines for something like this? All manufacture and trade is competition whether you want to accept it or not. If you fine Microsoft for competition then you have to fine every company and firm in Europe for competing with other companies and trying to be better than them. Some are always going to be better and you can't stop it from happening.
Elias Lammi, Vammala, Finland

Judging by that, is it ok for a company to absolutely dominate, brush out the competition with their far larger workforce and money, just to do a shoddy job? If someone even tries to inovate, along comes Microsoft with their patents division to file the patent as their own before that company does. If it does well, then along they come with lawsuits.

Speaking of Microsoft making a standards-compliant IE, they are. Theyre already working on IE8, and there is a beta available. It is currently rather slow, crashy etc (nothing new there then aye? ) - it STILL doesnt render the ACID2 test properly, but its alot closer than it was. It should also remove the need to develop a site for most browsers, and seperate rules for IE. So regarding web developers, IE8 is a good thing - regarding Firefox, it is not - IE8 has some rather "gimmicky" new features on the way which will appeal to the IE6/7 crowd, likely keeping them to IE rather than making the jump.

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

pootman — Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:15 pm

Author: pootman

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:15 pm

Winamp is great, but the interface is overkill for video, so I still use WMP for that.

Anyway, since this thread is rising from the grave again, who's heard about the plans for Microsoft working on a standards-compliant IE? Trying to dodge future nooses by the sound of it.
Anyway, lets all revel in the thought of all those web pages not rendering properly on any browser.

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

candy — Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:33 pm

Author: candy

Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 12:33 pm

I installed winamp the other week and love it. Making it easier for people to add the programs they prefer and to avoid conflicts with windows API's is a good idea.

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

GMorgan — Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:46 pm

Author: GMorgan

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:46 pm

The noise from the EU is this is the start of a concerted anti-monopoly campaign. It isn't designed to destroy MS, it's part of a continual series of measures they hope will eventually just make MS toe the line. The difference here is the EU won't get a Republican government and the EC be told to back off like the DoJ was.

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

nordle — Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:24 pm

Author: nordle

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:24 pm

Dark wrote:

I being from the US might have a different background from you all in the EU/UK but really what difference does it make if MS stops putting WMP in?

Dark, I'm from the UK, and agree more with what your saying. But I've not read exactly what the EU has done, so its possible that they have been sensible.

I mean, they should also sell a copy without Wordpad, Calc, IE, Paint etc Actually thats not a nad idea, just think how much more cash the EU can screw out of MS (and ultimately us as we've (some of us) paid for the software).

I think its right that the EU should force MS to allow people to seamlessly change components which don't break the system. ie IE should NOT be part of the kernel. If I want a different default browser, media player etc then I should be able to install them without the system going mental / breaking etc.
They should force them to do this because, a. its good practice and b. they do have a monopoly so should take into account this.

But to force MS to sell another version which is minus 1 app, completely pointless, its muscle flexing, weena envy, pi$$ing contest at best. The EU is like a little whiny 10 year old jumping up and down, shouting "its not fair mummy, its not fair".

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

mrguitarmann — Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:31 pm

Author: mrguitarmann

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 12:31 pm

I think the EU should take Microsoft back on now IE7 has (partially) been seperated from the OS, it has it's own interface now

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

wyliecoyoteuk — Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:56 am

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 11:56 am

The media player is only one part of the puzzle.
MS has regularly eliminated competition by deliberately breaking their APIs to give their own software an advantage, stifled innovation and competition.
Often companies that become "Microsoft partners" suddenly find themselves in competition with a new MS product based on their process model.
Others suddenly find their apps or clients start having problems they end up consumed, diminished or bankrupt.

some examples:
Netscape, Novell, Lotus, Pegasus, etc.

It is as if Ford gained a monopoly on roads and only Ford cars ran correctly on them.

Microsoft now have network client, browser, email, antispyware, antivirus, media player, search engine, etc integrated into the OS to eliminate competitors who might take even a small share of the software world. Their aim is to own it, lock stock and barrel.

Thing is if they succeed, and they do eliminate or consume all the competition, who will suffer? All of us.

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

nelz — Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:15 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:15 am

If having a superior product was all that was needed, there wouldn't be an MS monopoly in the first place.

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

pootman — Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:44 am

Author: pootman

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:44 am

Dark wrote:

No one gets a Windows machine for the media,
...
it doesn't help competition just makes it yet another task to install Windows.

If no one gets it for the media, why do they need to install a media player at all? It's not an essential part of the operating system, like internet explorer is
And assuming they do want media, who's going to bother buying something else when WMP is already there? How can other companies compete?
(except WinAmp, obviously, because they have a superior product)

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

Dutch_Master — Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:39 am

Author: Dutch_Master

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:39 am

Hey, it's a start! Any war won started with a first victory. And so does any fallen empire, losing the battle, one at a time. (SCO anyone? )

Besides, the important thing was what wasn't so clear in the media ('cause they don't care/know/understand*): M$ is forced to open up the inner workings of it's OS for 3rd parties. I.e. the nitty-gritty of NTSF should be opened up, for other companies to write defrag-tools and such. Yes, that means that Red Hat can offer NTFS defrag tools for Linux as well! But so do Novell, Mandriva and Debian, to name a few...

*choose any applicable

Re: All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

Dark — Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:23 am

Author: Dark

Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:23 am

I being from the US might have a different background from you all in the EU/UK but really what difference does it make if MS stops putting WMP in? Seems more like just not including a media player doesn't stop its monopoly.... No one gets a Windows machine for the media, its just an added bonus so really what is it but another hassle to download a media player for Windows? It doesn't stop anything, the Media business isn't what MS is having a monopoly on, if anyone has that its Apple and Patent Trolls, not MS. Sorry because Im not from the EU, but it seems pointless to simply stop the inclusion of WMP, it doesn't help competition just makes it yet another task to install Windows.

All together now.....Surprise!!!! EU fines MS and gets costs

wyliecoyoteuk — Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:58 am

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 9:58 am

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6998272.stm