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Forums - PC - Microsoft ends 10 year fight with EU.

WereKitten on 19 December 2009
Jereel Hunter said:
WereKitten said:

Maybe I wasn't clear. The monopoly is in the OS market, not in the browser market, but MS always exploited their position of advantage in the OS market to push their other product lines.

Now it's great that Firefox and to a lesser extent Safari, Opera and Chrome have been chipping in the browser space, and in the case of Firefox even became first-tier players. It's a testament to the dismal quality of IE6 that Firefox could make the inroads it did.

But even the most entrenched fans of laissez-faire in economic matters know the dangers of exploitation of a monopolistic position to hamper competition in related fields.

In that sense, I think it could be a pragmatical necessity to push for ways to level the field when it comes to browser choice, as it's arguably the most important piece of software when it comes to most users, and at the same time one that is transparent to most of them.

That's not illegal though. MS is big, rich, and yes, has the vast majority of OS marketshare. But the EU is taking shots at them wherever it can - even if it's not valid. <60% and falling marketshare doesn't show them as an abusive monopoly. They don't own, the market, and they are on pace to continue losing the market. How do you call that abusive? By that logic companies with bigger advertising budgets, or popular brand names could abuse their position of advantage.

In short, if they used one near monopoly to create another, there's a case to be made. When using your influence does nothing other than slow down your rapidly falling marketshare, you're in the clear.

What does "not illegal" mean, exactly? They've been fined and requested to alter their products and conduct, so their position has been found legally faulty by courts and commissions.

As for them not having a monopoly in the browser market that doesn't excuse them from exploiting the one in the OS market, because that makes the browser market a not fair play ground and that is against the interest of the european citizens. The fact that they have now 70% of the browser market instead of 99% is not fundamental. In absence of exploitations of their dominant OS position maybe they could have 20% by now, so that's still a 50% market share that the competitors could feel has been held by dubious means (I'm exemplificating, here, not giving realistic numbers).

More importantly, the deliberation that the user must be prompted to choose for a browser is a statement that the browser and the internet access has become so important that informing every user that she/he has an option comes before MS own decision about how to present their product.

In absence of such a step an entire first generation of non-savy users grew up with the impression that the internet was the blue "e" icon on their desktop, and never knowing that they could even choose a different browser and get a better use out of the web. Not to speak of the clock of web content development being set back maybe 10 years by the former stranglehold of IE5-6.

Again, forcing to inform the user that such a choice is at least an option in the OS that is in an indisputed monopolistic position is a pragmatic stance, and one I think is in the interest of every user.



"All you need in life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." - Mark Twain

"..." - Gordon Freeman

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Alby_da_Wolf on 19 December 2009

^^

Agree. And artificially increasing IE share was only the most evident (*) abuse of Windows dominating position, MS should consider itself lucky that the commission didn't investigate EVERY abuse MS committed and was fined for only a few of them.
Every time authorities were too kind towards MS about similar issues, they were fooled and MS kept on behaving unfairly.

Edit: (*) (for the tech not savvy)



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Gnizmo on 19 December 2009
WereKitten said:

What does "not illegal" mean, exactly? They've been fined and requested to alter their products and conduct, so their position has been found legally faulty by courts and commissions.

As for them not having a monopoly in the browser market that doesn't excuse them from exploiting the one in the OS market, because that makes the browser market a not fair play ground and that is against the interest of the european citizens. The fact that they have now 70% of the browser market instead of 99% is not fundamental. In absence of exploitations of their dominant OS position maybe they could have 20% by now, so that's still a 50% market share that the competitors could feel has been held by dubious means (I'm exemplificating, here, not giving realistic numbers).

More importantly, the deliberation that the user must be prompted to choose for a browser is a statement that the browser and the internet access has become so important that informing every user that she/he has an option comes before MS own decision about how to present their product.

In absence of such a step an entire first generation of non-savy users grew up with the impression that the internet was the blue "e" icon on their desktop, and never knowing that they could even choose a different browser and get a better use out of the web. Not to speak of the clock of web content development being set back maybe 10 years by the former stranglehold of IE5-6.

Again, forcing to inform the user that such a choice is at least an option in the OS that is in an indisputed monopolistic position is a pragmatic stance, and one I think is in the interest of every user.

Nonsense. If this were in the interest of every user then they would be forcing all major OS companies to do the same. What is good for the goose is good for the  gander, as they say. So long as it is solely targetted at one company then this decision is just crap. Unless they want to waste the same ridiculous amount of money on legal fees if/when someone else dominates the OS market then they should be looking for a universal cure, and not a specific one. This is just a penalizing one company because they can get away with it. It is bullshit that should not be tolerated.



Starcraft 2 ID: Gnizmo 229

Kasz216 on 19 December 2009
Gnizmo said:
WereKitten said:

What does "not illegal" mean, exactly? They've been fined and requested to alter their products and conduct, so their position has been found legally faulty by courts and commissions.

As for them not having a monopoly in the browser market that doesn't excuse them from exploiting the one in the OS market, because that makes the browser market a not fair play ground and that is against the interest of the european citizens. The fact that they have now 70% of the browser market instead of 99% is not fundamental. In absence of exploitations of their dominant OS position maybe they could have 20% by now, so that's still a 50% market share that the competitors could feel has been held by dubious means (I'm exemplificating, here, not giving realistic numbers).

More importantly, the deliberation that the user must be prompted to choose for a browser is a statement that the browser and the internet access has become so important that informing every user that she/he has an option comes before MS own decision about how to present their product.

In absence of such a step an entire first generation of non-savy users grew up with the impression that the internet was the blue "e" icon on their desktop, and never knowing that they could even choose a different browser and get a better use out of the web. Not to speak of the clock of web content development being set back maybe 10 years by the former stranglehold of IE5-6.

Again, forcing to inform the user that such a choice is at least an option in the OS that is in an indisputed monopolistic position is a pragmatic stance, and one I think is in the interest of every user.

Nonsense. If this were in the interest of every user then they would be forcing all major OS companies to do the same. What is good for the goose is good for the  gander, as they say. So long as it is solely targetted at one company then this decision is just crap. Unless they want to waste the same ridiculous amount of money on legal fees if/when someone else dominates the OS market then they should be looking for a universal cure, and not a specific one. This is just a penalizing one company because they can get away with it. It is bullshit that should not be tolerated.

Not to mention it's forcing Microsoft to go out of their way to put extra programs in there.

A web browser is an intergral part of a modern OS.  IE and Windows are the same.   IE is as much a part of Vista as the startup menu, clock, or Windows Exploerer. 


You can change any if you so perfer... but they're all part of the OS.  Much how a Ford car is made with all ford parts.  The Radio is as much part of the car as the door or the tires.



WereKitten on 19 December 2009

@gnizmo

You gleefuly ignore the fact that the "one company" means about 95% of the OS market and that everything started because some competitors asked for the spotlight to be cast on MS' specific case, not on the general lack of a legislation.

I do agree that better legislation is in order so that any company would be automatically subjected to the same restrictions, were they in a dominant position. But that doesn't make any less useful imposing those restrictions on 95% of the OS market in one swoop.

And I hope you're conscious that proceedings against firms guilty of price-fixing or rigging often happen on a per-case basis because the legislation will always be outpaced by the economic and technical specifics.

 

@Kasz216

They are not being forced to ship an OS without a browser. They are being forced to show a screen to the user giving the option to choose between several browsers, or in other words they are being forced to inform the user that he/she can freely choose to substitute the most vital single piece of software according to their liking and help even the less tech savy in doing so. The similtude with cars and radios doesn't hold for so many reasons that I don't feel the need to pursue it.



"All you need in life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." - Mark Twain

"..." - Gordon Freeman

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Kasz216 on 19 December 2009
WereKitten said:
^You gleefuly ignore the fact that the "one company" means about 95% of the OS market and that everything started because some competitors asked for the spotlight to be cast on MS' specific case, not on the general lack of a legislation.

I do agree that better legislation is in order so that any company would be automatically subjected to the same restrictions, were they in a dominant position. But that doesn't make any less useful imposing those restrictions on 95% of the OS market in one swoop.

And I hope you're conscious that proceedings against firms guilty of price-fixing or rigging often happen on a per-case basis because the legislation will always be outpaced by the economic and technical specifics.

Actually it's more like 89%... and shrinking

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

 

If 70% is your "barrier" for acceptable... you only have to wait like 6 years according to current trends.



WereKitten on 19 December 2009

^I don't see a big difference between a 95% dominant position and a 90% dominant position, and those statistics page don't disclose the exact source of the numbers. They are probably extracted by the user-agent strings received on a set of visited pages, hopefully more indicative of the general public than those of w3schools themselves, tech-savy and interested in development themselves.

Even with all those caveats, and with my 10+years personal experience in the field suggesting more radical numbers than 89% here in Europe in the non-tech-savy market, an 89%-90% of users is still utter dominance. And I can't see why we should wait decades for the OS market to level when the net is such an important part of everyday's life right today.

Enough damage has been done already, more computer literacy is sorely needed.



"All you need in life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." - Mark Twain

"..." - Gordon Freeman

Gnizmo on 19 December 2009
WereKitten said:

@gnizmo

You gleefuly ignore the fact that the "one company" means about 95% of the OS market and that everything started because some competitors asked for the spotlight to be cast on MS' specific case, not on the general lack of a legislation.

I do agree that better legislation is in order so that any company would be automatically subjected to the same restrictions, were they in a dominant position. But that doesn't make any less useful imposing those restrictions on 95% of the OS market in one swoop.

And I hope you're conscious that proceedings against firms guilty of price-fixing or rigging often happen on a per-case basis because the legislation will always be outpaced by the economic and technical specifics.

Doing it per case is stupid in this situation though. It is literally the exact same thing. Apple ships with Safari. Instead of attacking both companies and settling it once and for all, they decided to penalize one company. It is useless because the next up and comer will once again have billions to fight against this same scenario which will waste more tax payer money, and more court time. Apple essentially flaunts the fact that they hold all rights to which software will run on their various devices (iPods et al) and no one bats an eye over it. One sided, Nanny State bullshit.



Starcraft 2 ID: Gnizmo 229

Kasz216 on 19 December 2009

Also, something i don't think you realize Werekitten.

Microsoft will still be shipping with IE. It will just shift with many other programs.

If the EU really cared about monopoly law. Instead, it would force Microsoft to not ship with ANY internet explorer and instead force people to go out and find their own.

They however did not go this route because... Internet browsers are an integral part of any modern operating system.


Just like say, car radios. An analogy i keep making, yet everyone keeps ignoring for some reason.



JerCotter7 on 19 December 2009

Wow what a stupid lawsuit. Nice way to waste a lot of money in the middle of an economic downturn...