This might have made some sense back in ~2002 when all other browsers were DOA. Seems almost cruel to watch the EU stomp a dying browser further into the pavement.
Surely it would be more fitting for the EU to look into UEFI or Windows 8 RT which IIRC will not allow other browsers at all.
Everyone is counting Chrome at 30% or higher. Net Applications is the only one that counts it at under 20% and IE having the most market share. What he hell kind of stats are they taking there? For some reason Ars Technica keeps using theirs stats over others, too, even though I'm sure their own website's stats are a lot more similar to the others than to Net Apps' numbers.
I agree this is a less important issue today than some years back. However is it worth noting;
1) MS 'might' get this fine. It is not a done deal so this headline of fining them for billions is a little sensationalist.
2) The fine is not now for anti-competitive behavior, but for breaching their settlement from 3 years ago, a time when MS did dominate, chrome was a distant blip on the radar and the browser landscape was quite different. See 2009: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-eu-monthly-200807-201210
I live in the EU and have legal install of windows for XP,Vista and Win7 and can saftly say I already installed another browser and found the whole chose one option provided as a required patch most annoying.
Sad thing is any user at the level of not being able to install a alternative browser are also the users more prone to have botnets and other malware installed upon there compter. That is the real issue that the EU has not addressed, Microsoft offered a alternative idiot install alternative and I for one found it most annoying.
The EU have better area's to attend to thesedays and I'd hate to suddenly find out one day that chromebooks suddenly have to offer Microsoft browsers as a alternative, or iPad's demanding user pick another browser or not.
It is when there is no alternative choice and for windows that has never been the case to date (not sure about tablet windows flavours). That can not be said for other operating systems and iOS at some point was a little rejecting of alternative browsers in its central dominating app store. Windows had netscape before microsoft had a browser, always been alternatives and easy to install and associate. The only issue is that they expect people who are unable to handle that trivial task on the internet blindly without even saying no Microsoft they must pick a antivirus program before they connect to the internet. That would of been useful inforcement, but nope.
At times I do wonder if I sent in a CV on punched cards to the main EU office that they would not only accept it and convert onto 8" floppy disc for me for free. I think that is an old joke, but there again so is the point in time the EU are on about and even then they missed the real issue.
For those not actually reading the article, this goes back to the multi-billion dollar EU ruling from 2004. Microsoft appealed it for years and eventually reached a settlement in 2009, which reduced their fine to a fraction of the original ruling. However, one of the key requirements of that settlement was the browser ballot, which Microsoft has been violating (as they admitted, but stated the noncompliance was unintentional). Since Microsoft breached the terms of the settlement, they're now potentially on the hook for the original fine plus whatever else applies.
Question: I think if you disagree with (software) patents, you must also disagree with these anti-monopoly laws. Everyone must be equal and free to compete, even companies with trillions of dollars in bank.
It's 3 AM here so I can't make a good case why I feel that way (so I rather not to, in case I'm misunderstood and people waste their time arguing about what I don't mean), but I want to know what others think about it. Most people hate IE and to a degree, MS. But it shouldn't matter whether we like them or not. They must be allowed to do whatever they want even if it hurts the industry.
> I think if you disagree with (software) patents, you must also disagree with these anti-monopoly laws.
...Do you have a reason for thinking that? The connection isn't obvious.
If your reason for disagreeing with software patents is an aversion to government intervention then, ok, sure, that reason would also extend to disliking competition law. But if your reason for disagreeing with software patents is, say, because you don't like that they grant the patent-holder a monopoly on the subject of the patent and you don't like monopolies, that's pretty compatible with having a high regard for competition law. And if your reason for disagree with software patents is something else entirely, that might not point to any particular position on competition law at all.
To be honest I can't understand your comment right now (I'm tooo sleepy - it's 5:35 AM!), so I can't comment on that. But the gist of what I was getting at was this: is government intervention in a free market "a good thing"? Even if it is to (temporarily?) protect us from the evil of Big Co.?
Like most legal issues I don't think this one is so black & white.
I'm still not sure if government intervention was the right answer in Microsoft's case but the fact that some kind of government involvement (patents) is clearly bad for the software industry doesn't necessarily mean that any government involvement is bad.
I don't know how this failure happened, but I'm certain it wasn't intentional. IE market research has been tracking the effect of the browser ballot closely and found it to be almost completely negligible - the people who don't pick IE from familiarity / brand recognition are the same people who would have downloaded another browser anyway. They wouldn't have risked another legal/PR/financial fiasco over that. I'd really hate to be whoever's responsible for whatever snafu was the immediate cause ...
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 80.2 ms ] threadSurely it would be more fitting for the EU to look into UEFI or Windows 8 RT which IIRC will not allow other browsers at all.
That turns out not to be the case.
1) MS 'might' get this fine. It is not a done deal so this headline of fining them for billions is a little sensationalist.
2) The fine is not now for anti-competitive behavior, but for breaching their settlement from 3 years ago, a time when MS did dominate, chrome was a distant blip on the radar and the browser landscape was quite different. See 2009: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-eu-monthly-200807-201210
Sad thing is any user at the level of not being able to install a alternative browser are also the users more prone to have botnets and other malware installed upon there compter. That is the real issue that the EU has not addressed, Microsoft offered a alternative idiot install alternative and I for one found it most annoying.
The EU have better area's to attend to thesedays and I'd hate to suddenly find out one day that chromebooks suddenly have to offer Microsoft browsers as a alternative, or iPad's demanding user pick another browser or not.
It is when there is no alternative choice and for windows that has never been the case to date (not sure about tablet windows flavours). That can not be said for other operating systems and iOS at some point was a little rejecting of alternative browsers in its central dominating app store. Windows had netscape before microsoft had a browser, always been alternatives and easy to install and associate. The only issue is that they expect people who are unable to handle that trivial task on the internet blindly without even saying no Microsoft they must pick a antivirus program before they connect to the internet. That would of been useful inforcement, but nope.
At times I do wonder if I sent in a CV on punched cards to the main EU office that they would not only accept it and convert onto 8" floppy disc for me for free. I think that is an old joke, but there again so is the point in time the EU are on about and even then they missed the real issue.
Being deemed a monopoly Microsoft Windows is held to different standards to all the other options that you mentioned.
That said, I think that we are approaching at time when Microsoft shouldn't be considered a monopoly.
did that happen just in the US, or did it also happen in the EU?
As Apple doesn't have a 60% market share on smartphones, they are allowed to do what they want.
It's 3 AM here so I can't make a good case why I feel that way (so I rather not to, in case I'm misunderstood and people waste their time arguing about what I don't mean), but I want to know what others think about it. Most people hate IE and to a degree, MS. But it shouldn't matter whether we like them or not. They must be allowed to do whatever they want even if it hurts the industry.
Isn't this the kind of thinking that led to the banking crisis?
...Do you have a reason for thinking that? The connection isn't obvious.
If your reason for disagreeing with software patents is an aversion to government intervention then, ok, sure, that reason would also extend to disliking competition law. But if your reason for disagreeing with software patents is, say, because you don't like that they grant the patent-holder a monopoly on the subject of the patent and you don't like monopolies, that's pretty compatible with having a high regard for competition law. And if your reason for disagree with software patents is something else entirely, that might not point to any particular position on competition law at all.
I'm still not sure if government intervention was the right answer in Microsoft's case but the fact that some kind of government involvement (patents) is clearly bad for the software industry doesn't necessarily mean that any government involvement is bad.
The EU cannot "go back" to the piggybank, given that Microsoft has still left its pre-existing obligations unfulfilled.
Microsoft is clearly in the wrong here.