Microsoft Fined £484M
Discussion
fadeaway said:
0000 said:
jesusbuiltmycar said:
As far as browsers are concerned IE is way behind Chrome and Firefox (which is a turd IMHO) browser-stats.
It is now, it wasn't in 2007 and that's kind of beside the point. It was the OS market share being abused not the browser market share.
It's exactly the situation the browser choice idea was intended to result in.Not saying how effective it was, just that in principle it was to increase usage of other browers. Now more browsers are used.
So, if I had a company called shall we say "Wallmart", and late one year they see that a toy retailing competitor called KayBee are doing badly, choose to launch a 'special promotion' and sell toys at slightly above cost (easily achieved as they have plenty of other income) and do so until Kay-Bee after a couple of years of hemoraging stores finally shuts down after 70 years in the business.
Is this the same sort of thing?
Is this the same sort of thing?
Derek Smith said:
As it was, once MS had destroyed Netscape by giving IE away free, the development of browsers all but ended. Instead of significant upgrades two or three times a year, we ended up with holes being plugged every two or three years. IE stayed more or less the same now that there was no competition. There were other browsers but they were slow to develop.
You missed the bit where IE became an intrinsic part of the OS, thereby forcing people to use it, whether they used it as a browser or not. The default behavior from this also resulted in the competition getting crushed.MX7 said:
I've just realised that you are that knob who hates everything American, and said that North Korea are not members of the UN.
Well if we're name calling now, you 
, sit down and shut up.Edit: Yeah I got that wrong, mea culpa. It changed very little to the point I was making in the thread.
As for this thread, you're blind to the facts. Microsoft was found guilty of abusing its monopoly position on the desktop to force the use of IE on people - specifically the tying of the browser into the underlying OS - it was a much bigger issue than merely choosing another browser back then, part of a deliberate strategy by Microsoft to make it impossible (or at least appear to be impossible) to use MS Windoes without IE. Microsoft and the EU reached an agreement to solve that issue, part of which was that Microsoft would offer a browser choice screen on every new desktop OS. Microsoft failed to comply with that stipulation for 14 months. This fine is about that failure of Microsoft to stick to their original agreement. It is the first time the EU has found such a commitment not to be carried out. The severity of the fine was, in part, to deter future indiscretions from any parties.
Edited by Carfolio on Thursday 7th March 07:18
To be honest I do find Microsoft’s behaviour with a number of their products to be terrible. Their bundling of Solitaire and Minesweeper with all their OS products since Windows 3.0/3.1 has completely destroyed any competition in the market, leading to people being happy with the pretty but limited software versions Microsoft dole out. The fine should be much bigger.
JDRoest said:
You missed the bit where IE became an intrinsic part of the OS, thereby forcing people to use it, whether they used it as a browser or not. The default behavior from this also resulted in the competition getting crushed.
You misunderstand. At best.The Microsoft 'way' has always been APIs, and to build new in functionality under them. This pushes new functionality into existing applications and allows them to maintain compatibility over a very wide range of hardware. 'Building in' IE did not force anyone to use it or stop anyone who cared from installing and using their own browser.
The Apple way has been to have a controlled ecosystem; that works too for those prepared to accept the more limited choices.
The Unix way has been the 'other way'. It has fragmented into failure on the desktop as Unix, and it looks like Linux is doing the same. It still works on the server because the compatibility layer there is little more than the file system anyway. Or Java, which is back to APIs.
Yes, but the APIs vary as to level and breadth of hardware. The MS level was "Windows on Intel", Apple's was "Apple on Apple", and Linux was/is "Well, <sucks teeth>, depends guv."
Anyway, I was more pointing out that "building in" the browser DLLs was not an Anti-Netscape measure, it was just how MS always did add new functionality. Netscape were busy fking up all by themselves. Google have since shown with Chrome that it posed no obstacle.
Anyway, I was more pointing out that "building in" the browser DLLs was not an Anti-Netscape measure, it was just how MS always did add new functionality. Netscape were busy f
king up all by themselves. Google have since shown with Chrome that it posed no obstacle.grumbledoak said:
The Microsoft 'way' has always been APIs, and to build new in functionality under them. This pushes new functionality into existing applications and allows them to maintain compatibility over a very wide range of hardware. 'Building in' IE did not force anyone to use it or stop anyone who cared from installing and using their own browser.
It had nothing to do with APIs. It was about preventing competition by using their existing monopoly and giving away more software in the standard bundle to get rid of the competition.IE wasn't their first rodeo either, they were spanked when they pulled the same s
t with Realplayer by including Windows Media Player.grumbledoak said:
You misunderstand. At best.
The Microsoft 'way' has always been APIs, and to build new in functionality under them. This pushes new functionality into existing applications and allows them to maintain compatibility over a very wide range of hardware. 'Building in' IE did not force anyone to use it or stop anyone who cared from installing and using their own browser.
The Apple way has been to have a controlled ecosystem; that works too for those prepared to accept the more limited choices.
The Unix way has been the 'other way'. It has fragmented into failure on the desktop as Unix, and it looks like Linux is doing the same. It still works on the server because the compatibility layer there is little more than the file system anyway. Or Java, which is back to APIs.
The MS 'way' has always been to maintain their monopoly. They are there to make money. Nothing else matters. If their 'way' restricts development then so be it.The Microsoft 'way' has always been APIs, and to build new in functionality under them. This pushes new functionality into existing applications and allows them to maintain compatibility over a very wide range of hardware. 'Building in' IE did not force anyone to use it or stop anyone who cared from installing and using their own browser.
The Apple way has been to have a controlled ecosystem; that works too for those prepared to accept the more limited choices.
The Unix way has been the 'other way'. It has fragmented into failure on the desktop as Unix, and it looks like Linux is doing the same. It still works on the server because the compatibility layer there is little more than the file system anyway. Or Java, which is back to APIs.
By bundling IE they stopped Netscape competing. It is a fairly common way of maintaining a monopoly: it's the old free coffee method. They had the OS so they used it to maintain their market share, or in the case of IE, take it from being nowhere to the dominant browser. Once there they gave up on it. We were stuck with it. It's like nationalised industries. No competition means no real incentive to spend money in development.
Even now they refuse to allow other software companies to compete by not releasing details.
MS' dominant position has limited choice and limited development. We have just the one OS for computers. Yet for phones we have a choice.
Thank GOD they killed realplayer.MS behaved pretty badly in places during the whole sorry browser affair a few years back although ironically the EU thin actually hinges on Opera being a bunch of bhy little girls - by the time that all kicked off other rival browsers were already thriving - IMO MS were being punished for their earlier behaviour rather than the specific Opera complaint. That said and whilst the "choose your browser" screen was immensely irritating they agreed to do it and then didn't comply so the fine is pretty much a case of "tough st"
Personally I like IE 9/10 and use them for the majority of browsing (with a smattering of Chrome) - and it's only really gotten as good as it has because of the competition that they faced. The EU can't claim any credit there - it was already happening long before they got involved. Anybody know anyone that chose a different browser purely off the back of that EU mandated screen?
hy little girls - by the time that all kicked off other rival browsers were already thriving - IMO MS were being punished for their earlier behaviour rather than the specific Opera complaint. That said and whilst the "choose your browser" screen was immensely irritating they agreed to do it and then didn't comply so the fine is pretty much a case of "tough st"Personally I like IE 9/10 and use them for the majority of browsing (with a smattering of Chrome) - and it's only really gotten as good as it has because of the competition that they faced. The EU can't claim any credit there - it was already happening long before they got involved. Anybody know anyone that chose a different browser purely off the back of that EU mandated screen?
grumbledoak said:
The Unix way has been the 'other way'. It has fragmented into failure on the desktop as Unix, and it looks like Linux is doing the same. It still works on the server because the compatibility layer there is little more than the file system anyway. Or Java, which is back to APIs.
UNIX has never been a desktop OS, it's a workstation and server OS. Linux is just a kernel but the desktop distributions are getting better all the time. How has it "fragmented into failure"? Not sure what Java has to do with the OS though.rxtx said:
grumbledoak said:
The Unix way has been the 'other way'. It has fragmented into failure on the desktop as Unix, and it looks like Linux is doing the same. It still works on the server because the compatibility layer there is little more than the file system anyway. Or Java, which is back to APIs.
UNIX has never been a desktop OS, it's a workstation and server OS. Linux is just a kernel but the desktop distributions are getting better all the time. How has it "fragmented into failure"? Not sure what Java has to do with the OS though.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operat...
^ if that's true then linux has well and truly failed. Don't you remember how over 5-10 years ago it was marked as up and coming, a game changer, going to disrupt microsoft's dominance? Well, it's had its chance but it was too crap.
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