EU launches new Microsoft probes
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Bloody ridiculous. EU launches new Microsoft probes[^]
Kevin
When the EU Commission needs more cash, it uses the law to steal money from companies. Since Microsoft has a lot of cash, Microsoft is an easy target for bureaucrats to increase their paychecks. Bureaucrats assume a God-like attitude toward citizens and the private sector, seeing themselves as representing “good” and fighting against “evil.” The irony is bureaucrats face no competition and have no idea about software quality. Their decisions are based on vested interests, including their selfish need for power and money.
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Bloody ridiculous. EU launches new Microsoft probes[^]
Kevin
So what? If they're guilty of breaking european competition rules, then they'll just have to pay the fine, or leave. Neither side wants Microsoft to leave, so the only option left is to play by the rules. Also, this isn't a verdict. They're probing!
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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Frankly, Bill ought to just buy the damned EU outright and shut them up permanently.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^]It'd be way cheaper and easier if Microsoft would play by the rules...
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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When the EU Commission needs more cash, it uses the law to steal money from companies. Since Microsoft has a lot of cash, Microsoft is an easy target for bureaucrats to increase their paychecks. Bureaucrats assume a God-like attitude toward citizens and the private sector, seeing themselves as representing “good” and fighting against “evil.” The irony is bureaucrats face no competition and have no idea about software quality. Their decisions are based on vested interests, including their selfish need for power and money.
danmorin wrote:
it usse the law to steal money from companies
Nah, they'll just raise the membership fee.
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
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When the EU Commission needs more cash, it uses the law to steal money from companies. Since Microsoft has a lot of cash, Microsoft is an easy target for bureaucrats to increase their paychecks. Bureaucrats assume a God-like attitude toward citizens and the private sector, seeing themselves as representing “good” and fighting against “evil.” The irony is bureaucrats face no competition and have no idea about software quality. Their decisions are based on vested interests, including their selfish need for power and money.
I agree.
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So what? If they're guilty of breaking european competition rules, then they'll just have to pay the fine, or leave. Neither side wants Microsoft to leave, so the only option left is to play by the rules. Also, this isn't a verdict. They're probing!
-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
Jörgen Sigvardsson wrote:
Also, this isn't a verdict. They're probing!
Yeah, I know. But they have a track record...
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It would probably be funnier if MS refused to sell anything in the EU. Imagine the chaos that would follow as everyone clammored to find replacements for all the tools they are used to using. And yes, I too downloaded Firefox using good old IE.
Pualee wrote:
It would probably be funnier if MS refused to sell anything in the EU. Imagine the chaos that would follow as everyone clammored to find replacements for all the tools they are used to using.
And imagine the smugness when they (eventually) found new ways of working without MS products and MS lost a sizeable chunk of their revenue. MS have perhaps lost sight of the old adage: the customer is always right.
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Bloody ridiculous. EU launches new Microsoft probes[^]
Kevin
Yeah - Euopeans have a unique version of the spirit of competition. They were banning all inports of GMO corn, soybeans, etc., that is, until their labs caught up with their own GMO products. Sure, Micro$oft is anti-competitive, but then, by definition, every business is. How often does Airbus recommend you purchase a Boeing jet because it's more fuel efficient and doesn't require you rebuild your airports? French subsidies of their farmers are legandary (in the US, it's the biggest welfare system). The real anti-competitive beast to be wary of is the hydra known as the EU !
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to go away?" - Balboos HaGadol -
Andre Buenger wrote:
I don't really like WMP but I was too lazy so far to figure out which one is better.
And so your justifying your self proclaimed laziness by blaming it on Microsoft for bundling WMP?
Andre Buenger wrote:
Today Windows comes with WMP and IE, in the next version they bundle it with Office for an extra $200 (just hypothetically).
Microsoft would never bundle a cash cow like Office with Windows. Design for, absolutely, but bundle with? That would be insane. First, they're on two different product cycles (two years for Office if I'm not mistaken, three to five years per OS version last I checked), and second, if they did bundle it with Windows, then all down-level Windows operating systems users would be forced to update to the latest Windows to get the latest Office. And the users and corporations would never go for that. Here's my point. User/system security and privacy aside, NO government should be telling a commercial enterprise how to design their software or what to include in it as "bundled". The only reason governments do is because of competitors and very loud alternative OS users (who by your own number for desktop market share are in the minority). Why is that right? Justify it to me please. Because unless you can come up with a seriously compelling reason that truly involves compromised world security or the loss human life, it's not. And even the loss of life isn't always a compelling reason because look at what car and motorcycle companies are allowed to create and market for street driving!
Mike Poz
Mike Poz wrote:
Microsoft would never bundle a cash cow like Office with Windows. Design for, absolutely, but bundle with? That would be insane. First, they're on two different product cycles (two years for Office if I'm not mistaken, three to five years per OS version last I checked), and second, if they did bundle it with Windows, then all down-level Windows operating systems users would be forced to update to the latest Windows to get the latest Office. And the users and corporations would never go for that.
Historically both were on 2-3 year cycles (the windows one being complicated when they had both 9x and NT builds), but longer recently. Office went from 03 to 08, and unless you count the media center editions (03 and 05) there was a 5 year gap on the consumer OS from XP to Vista. Ditto on server03 to server08.
Otherwise [Microsoft is] toast in the long term no matter how much money they've got. They would be already if the Linux community didn't have it's head so firmly up it's own command line buffer that it looks like taking 15 years to find the desktop. -- Matthew Faithfull
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It seems to me that some people are forgetting fast, I thought most of us knows the browser history of the last 10 years. Once there was a browser war between Netscape and Microsoft which Microsoft finally won because they bundled IE with Windows. And then? Nothing for 5 years, until Firefox gained more and more marketshare. Without Firefox we would still be using IE5.5 nowadays.
IT wasn't the bundling that won the browser war for MS. It was the fact the NS 4.7 was a buggy unstable piece of crap. MY old win98 system needed rebooted twice or thrice a week, and 80% of them were because nutscrape blew up and couldn't be restarted. Times when I was barely touching the browser but doing lots of other stuff I could generally get double the uptime. NS lost because they let their codebase get unfixable and writing a replacement took too long.
Otherwise [Microsoft is] toast in the long term no matter how much money they've got. They would be already if the Linux community didn't have it's head so firmly up it's own command line buffer that it looks like taking 15 years to find the desktop. -- Matthew Faithfull
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Kevin McFarlane wrote:
Bloody ridiculous.
No, it's not. First and foremost is the EU comission only reacting to complaints by Microsoft competitors. And I also think that Opera is right, the Internet Explorer shouldn't be bundled with Windows. 90% of the IE users don't use it by choice but because it came preinstalled with Windows.
If IE loses it's market share and something else (lets say firefox) gains enough market share (let say about 30% or so), remember that you would then have to make SURE that your code works in all browsers. This means more cost, and more complex code. At the moment, the fact that IE is so dominant makes our lives as developers much much easier. If I could have my way, I would have them have a 100% maket share.