DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

”The European Commission's order for Microsoft Corp. to ship a version of Windows without the Windows Media Player could stifle innovation and help Microsoft's rivals instead of promoting fair competition, the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust chief said Wednesday..."The U.S. experience tells us that the best antitrust remedies eliminate impediments to the healthy functioning of competitive markets without hindering successful competitors or imposing burdens on third parties, which may result from the EC's remedy," [1]

“This effort by the commission to address issues that were previously settled in the U.S. courts will undermine the global competitiveness of many U.S. firms, impede American job growth, and impair innovation in many U.S. sectors," Representative Robert Wexler” [2]

The EU commissioner Monti wrote in his statement about the Microsoft decision:

“In the end, I had do decide what was best for competition and consumers in Europe. I believe they will be better served with a decision that creates a strong precedent. It is essential to have a precedent which will establish clear principles for the future conduct of a company with such a strong dominant position in the market.“ [3]

I really don't get this. How are consumers better off having to pay $500 for their PC and then another $500 for software programs to handle every-day functions (such as media playback, web browsing, entertainment, and document creation)? Taking this future, can we expect that from now on every time a new technology comes out that consumers will have to pay for additional products to take advantage of it? So, when speech recognition becomes good enough for every day use, Microsoft won't be able to include speach recognition with the OS, you will have to go buy a copy of “Real-Voice“ to take advantage of it. When biometric security becomes a viable technology, you will have to go out and buy a copy of “Real-Bio“ too. And while you're at it, lets make people go buy a copy of “Real-3D“ to handle all the 3d computations, “Real-Transaction Manager“ for distributed transaction support and “Real-Pain-In-The-Ass“ for all their other daily needs.

Saying that Microsoft including a media player with their OS injures consumers is like saying Ford installing CD players in cars hurts consumers. It is just rediculous. Installing CD players in cars is not only good for consumers but it helps a boatload of others, such as the recording industry, by increasing the adoption rate of CDs. Microsoft including a media player with the OS is good for consumers in the same way, but also is good for the industries that will benefit from digital media distribution (the potential revenues there are HUGE). Nothing prohibits consumers who aren't satisfied with their standard CD player from going out and buying a new one, and nothing prohibits consumers who aren't satsified with their standard media player from going out and buying a new one. However, the simple fact is that the average consumer would much rather just use the free one, because if they had a choice between having to pay for one and not having one at all, they would end up choosing not having one at all, because they just don't have them money. At least with hardware, prices decrease over time, so people eventually switch when the cost is low enough that it no longer seems like a waste of money. However, software packages generally do not decrease too rapidly (if at all) in price as time goes on so they do not benefit from the “I'll just buy it when it is cheap“ mentality. Yah, maybe $20 for a media player isn't too bad, but add that on top of all the regular stuff (like AntiVirus, etc.) and you could very quickly add up hundreds of dollars worth of relatively basic items just to get your computer up to snuff.

Just because an operating system didn't used to contain X functionality and some third party vendor just happens to make a product that provides such functionality, users shouldn't be forced to dish out extra cash to take advantage of it. If we restrict the OS features to what they were in 1990, then software is not going to progress and all our software dev sure as hell is going to be shipped off to India, because creating quality software is going to be just to darn hard. Maybe in 1990 media players didn't make sense as a core OS service, but take a look at what MS has done with the Media Center PC and you can see a perfectly valid reason why media playback at the OS level makes sense (I wish every computer had that functionality out of the box because it is just so darn cool). You might say, “but Media Player is just a shell on top of the basic media services, you should ship the services, but not the shell.“ To which I would reply, “Are you freaking insane? The part of the OS that draws the start menu and all the windows you see popping up on your monitor is 'just a shell' too you dimwitted moron.“ How does the fact that something lights up some pixels on your monitor make it harmful to consumers? Maybe media playback doesn't seem like a core OS component to you, but maybe you just don't listen to enough music or watch enough videos. 20 years ago, graphical Windows and True Type fonts were not something that people would have seen as a core OS component. The OS was just about proving reliable and standard basic services such as file management so that users didn't have to write those complex INT 13h calls themselves and turn a user's hard disk into spagetti. I would contend that for a large number of college students who use their computers for nothing more than downloading songs from Napster, a media player makes a hell of a lot more sense as a core OS component than something like distributed transaction management, which no one seems to be complaining about. Providing as broad a base for application development as possible ensures that as broad a base of consumers can be satisfied.

Sun wants Microsoft to unbundle .NET. Real wants Microsoft to unbundle Media Player. Netscape wants Microsoft to unbundle IE. If everyone has their way users are going to bring home a pretty useless box of metal from BestBuy. Is Microsoft just prohibitted from adding features to the OS? Are they prohibitted from making the OS more useful to consumers? It's not like they are forcing people to upgrade their systems or developers to write code on newer platforms. If you want to run or build software on Windows 3.1, you still can. If you want to run or build software on Windows 95, you still can. But, you probably don't want to, because OS level improvements have made much of the software that you are using today possible, because they have lowered development costs.

[1] http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/25/HNcritique_1.html

[2] http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/25/HNeudecision%20_1.html

[3] http://news.com.com/2100-1014-5175160.html?tag=nl

Published Friday, March 26, 2004 1:50 AM by Jesse Ezell

Comments

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Thursday, March 25, 2004 9:23 PM by Shannon J Hager
HUH?!?!!!?

you made it to your 3rd sentence before you went completely off-track.

"How are consumers better off having to pay $500 for their PC and then another $500 for software programs to handle every-day functions (such as media playback, web browsing, entertainment, and document creation)? "

This is about the worst strawman I've seen in a while (slashdot posts aside). I'll just counter it with an equally [meaning not at all] valid "why would any consumer want to set their eyelids on fire?" and move on... Surely your post will start making sense soon, right?

"Saying that Microsoft including a media player with their OS injures consumers is like saying Ford installing CD players in cars hurts consumers. "

Ah... looks like I was wrong. Saying that MS including a media player as a non-removable part of the OS is like saying Ford installing non-removable CD players in their cars hurts consumers. Ford wouldn't be so bold as to say that users should not be able to remove their CD player and that their cars can't work without them. MS, on the other hand, has no problem making such claims. Luckily, not everyone is dumb enough to believe it.

You also keep introducing the $$ strawman for reasons I can't figure out. OEMs' freedoms to uninstall Windows Media Player and include another player with their PC systems has nothing to do with users being forced to buy a media player.

And if the "users will download and install the best player no matter what comes by default" is a true statement, then there is nothing to worry about at all because Windows Media Player is damn near the best player available. but MS knows that argument isn't valid and that is the only reason they pretend that Media Player is a required component.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Thursday, March 25, 2004 10:05 PM by RJ
LOL
Jesse Ezell
"Saying that Microsoft including a media player with their OS injures consumers is like saying Ford installing CD players in cars hurts consumers. "
Right on the point Shannon J Hager

But to put it even more lightly, It would be equivalent to Ford having 95% market share in cars (well another LOL), and then it starts making CD players and installing them on their cars and saying ripping them off with render the car useless. And after that it starts doing the same thing with tyres. Does not matter its tyres are not as good as say Bridgestone, but now it has a monopoly in all three markets. Now replace Ford with MS and CD player with browser and tyre with Media Player.

PS: Jesse, at a personal level I also do not like Real. It is full of c***. I use Winamp and mplayer2 with the newer codecs installed.

RJ

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Thursday, March 25, 2004 10:47 PM by Jesse Ezell
Shannon and RJ,
Ford installing non-removable CD players is an entirely different issue. The major difference here is that only one CD player is going to fit in your car's dash (perhaps you could get 2 cd players in some cars, but the extremely limitted dash real-estate would quickly become an issue). Compare this to PCs. The average PC shipping today could store 10,000 media players with no problem whatsoever. In fact, a large percentage of people have at least two of Quicktime, WMP and Real. Consumers quite simply are not hurt by having a default player. It does not make installing a new player any more difficult, it just makes installing a new player to play their media files something that is up to the consumer.

Shannon,
As far as users downloading the best player, you seem to be missing the entire point of what I was saying. My point is that a large portion of users (maybe even the majority) could car less about downloading another media player. I don't in any way believe that all users will download the best one. Users will only download a new player if it provides significant percieved value over their existing player. In most cases the significant percieved value is something like "WMP doesn't play quicktime," or "WMP doesn't play real-audio" but this is Apple's fault and Real's fault for not providing standard codecs. MS makes the specs available and hasn't told Apple and Real that they couldn't make codecs that work out of the box. However, Apple and Real have chosen not to create codecs that work out of the box, because they want to force people to download their players, hoping that some people will eventually give in to their constant advertisements and pay-per-view media subscriptions. If Apple and Real provided a downloadable codec, it could fit in a few 100k and they would effectively eliminate the download size barrier, which would truely enable users to choose which format they want to use. However, Real and Apple don't want to allow you to choose the best player, they want to be the only one installed.

RJ,
The vast majority of people (the ones that would enjoy having a stock CD player in their car) don't care where the hell the default CD player in their car comes from as long as it works well, so claiming that it would be any different if Ford manufactured the CD players themselves has nothing to do with the issue. Also, Microsoft doesn't claim that if you choose not to use WMP the OS will be useless, they claim that there should be some media technology that ships with the OS in order for developers (both internally and externally) to have a standardized way to create apps (thereby decreasing app development costs which is again a good thing for consumers). As far as tires are concerned, they face the same limitted resource issue. You must have 4 and only 4 tires on any given car. Microsoft is saying that computers must have 1 or more media players, which is completely different altogether.

Shannon and RJ,
Both of you fail to address any of the major points of what I am addressing here, you have simply shot off the standard banal banter.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 1:32 AM by Shannon J Hager
Well, Jesse, I seemed to have missed your "major points". Was I supposed to know that the completely wrong and unrelated points you started off each paragraph with were not your major points?


"I really don't get this. How are consumers better off having to pay $500 for their PC and then another $500 for software programs to handle every-day functions (such as media playback, web browsing, entertainment, and document creation)? Taking this future, "
I have no idea where or why you made up this nonsense, but it is untrue and unrelated, so there is no need to waste time on it.


"Saying that Microsoft including a media player with their ..." This point really doesn't matter because it is unrelated to the case. The case was about the inability to remove it, not including it. Strawman.

"Microsoft including a media player with the OS is good for consumers in the same way..." Strawman. Including is fine. Not allowing removal is not.

"the simple fact is that the average consumer would much rather just use the free one, because if they had a choice between having to pay for one and not having one at"
Again with the Strawmen... First off, the consumer would have bought the PC from Dell and it would have a default media player, for free, regardless of whether it was WMP or Winamp. Second, if the consumer did actually buy Windows without a media player (which is doubtful, why would they?), they would probably go install one of the many free competitors or Media Player itself. I don't know anyone who bought any of the Media Player competitors they use. Why would they? They're free! Your whole money rant is pointless. If I want to rip mp3 from CD I can download the FREE realplayer or I can pay $10 for the WMP add-in (I chose the latter, btw).


Regarding the next point, that MS should be able to move into new markets, the problem is that using a monopoly to leverage your way into a new market is illegal sometimes. According to the judges, this is one of those times. I should be able to speed freely in the desert but that doesn't mean I'm not going to get into trouble when I get caught. MS got caught. Time to pay the ticket and get back to work.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 1:36 AM by Shannon J Hager
Oh, btw, I think this issue will be gone with Longhorn because the media will be a part of the OS. It isn't at the moment, it is just another thing added on. Microsoft lying about that certainly didn't help them in court.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 1:59 AM by rj
Hmm. A few simple ground-rules Jesse. Analogies are just analogies. You do not ridicule an argument if the analogy does not fit in 100 percent. The argument being one company trying to extend its monopoly in one market to another market by leveraging/exploiting(take your pick) on it. It is just plain not allowed and is illegal. Most people still including software engineers have difficulty relating softwares to tangibles. Hence the Ford example. I bet you will agree on that at least.

On a side note, there is another issue also. I am a software consultant and have an obligation towards clients (equating them to consumers) to give them them a solution which meets there needs and does not hurt the pocket too much. But apart from this I have an obligation to the whole software industry itself to make sure it goes in general on the right path. Bundling of stuff to stiffle innovation and kill competitors is surely not the way it should. So, my point being a bit of harm to consumers for the sake of flourish of the industry should be a deal worth it. What do you think about it?

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 2:52 AM by Jesse Ezell
Regarding point 1
===================
Bundling of applications has been the focus of both this EU case and DOJ case. If you fail to see this, you are entirely missing the major issues on which these cases are hinging. Both the DOJ and the EU are arguing that MS including extra applications is a bad thing when these extra applications take market share away from competitors.

"The Commission is expected to rule on Wednesday that Microsoft abused the monopoly position of its Windows operating system twice. By withholding vital information about Windows from makers of software for servers, the firm gained an unfair advantage over them in the market for server software; it also competed unfairly by bundling its Media Player software into Windows, the ruling is expected to find"

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/22/HNeufine_1.html

My point is that MS including bundling any app that took a decent amount of time and thought to develop is going to cut into the market share of its competitors. It is rare for any operating system to come out with something completely unheard of before, because things don't make it into the OS until their use is widespread enough to justify putting them there. To increase OS security, Microsoft is going to start providing anti-virus software with the OS. Will this mean that Symantec has free reign to litigate against Microsoft for damaging their market share (which is definately going to happen)? IMO, the OS really needs to have this type of thing and this is definately something good for consumers, but using the logic applied in this case, it would be illegal. Instead, Microsoft would have to offer it's product standalone and consumers get the raw end of the deal, because if they really want to protect against viruses, they have to spend another $50. Virtually everyone accesses files stored in .ZIP format. XP includes native support for reading .ZIP archives, which is almost definately eating into the market share of WinZip. Does this mean that Microsoft should remove zip archive support (something that is clearly what the consumer finds useful) from the OS and that consumers should have to pay another $20 for WinZip? This same argument that is being used here could apply equally to many parts of the OS, however, the simple fact is that these things should be part of the OS. Consumers benefit from having these built into the OS, even if it means that a competitor is forced to innovate or die (isn't that what competition is all about?).

Regarding point 2
===================
Saying that the case is about removing it is not any different than saying that the case is about including it. Microsoft wants to include it, the EU wants to remove it. It is one in the same issue.

Regarding point 3
===================
You must not have paid any attention to the EU's ruling, because the ruling was that including it is not fine. The EU stated that MS must produce a version of Windows without media player.

Regarding point 4
===================
In order to compete with Microsoft for the OEM placement, Real and Apple will have to offer their software as full installs at no cost, which probably means they will end up giving a stripped down version (like thier free one that is full of crappy ads), which means that consumers will get a lower quality media player if Microsoft does not include theirs with the OS. Hence, not allowing Microsoft to include their media player is actually bad for the consumer.

Regarding point 5
===================
No one is debating that the people on the commission think that this is illegal. What I am stating is that it should not be illegal, because consumers are not being harmed.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 3:03 AM by Jesse Ezell
RJ,

I would argue that consumers are not being hurt at all by Microsoft's actions, and that Microsoft did not bundle the software to stiffle innovation. Quite to the contrary, the windows media player stuff that has come out of MS has had plenty of innovation.

# DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 5:44 AM by TrackBack
DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 9:03 AM by Shannon J Hager
I disagree with your interpretation of the EU's argument. They were concerned with MS tying Media Player to Windows. Not "including with", but "tying to". If simply "including with" was wrong or illegal, then the Commission would not allow that to happen. You can see that the Commission definitely allows MS to continue to sell Windows with Media Player included, but they now want MS to also allow a version without Media Player. The is the correction to the problem they saw: the impossibility of getting Windows without Media Player. Nowhere does the Commission indicate that simply "including" Media Player is illegal. However, they use the word "tying" and many lazy journalists have simplified that to "bundling" and even to "including" when the Commission obviously did not mean that.
The proof of this is obvious. If "including" Media Player were illegal, then it would still be illegal tomorrow. This sentence, from the Commission's press release, makes it obvious that the Commission doesn't think that "including" is illegal:

"Microsoft retains the right to offer a version of its Windows client PC operating system product with WMP."

If the EU did think that "including" WMP with Windows was illegal, they would not say that MS had that right and gets to retain that right. If the EU had said that "including" was illegal, I would agree with you on all on almost everything you've said.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 12:19 PM by rj
Jesse
It is not too difficult to argues point by point, but I did not want to do that for the sake of futility of doing it. But I feel a bit compelled to do so. You did not offer any commments on the side issue of utilitarism. I was just interested in knowing what you ( and others also) think of that.

"I would argue that consumers are not being hurt at all by Microsoft's actions, and that Microsoft did not bundle the software to stiffle innovation. Quite to the contrary, the windows media player stuff that has come out of MS has had plenty of innovation."

Consumers not hurt? If you start talking about sole fact people will need to buy the things instead of bundled together come on there is no argument against it. Of course MS can make available the same product free on their site and allow them to download right. Like any other product. Regarding Anti-Virus. First Question. Why should I need Anti-Virus?

What about the simple fact that people considering computers crashing a normality? Do not you die of shame(if you are an IT professionsl) because of that fact? MS has made a sort of mockery of whole IT industry by pushing sub-standard products. Try this for Media Player http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=windows%20media%20player%20vulnerability.
Who would have thought adding a skin to the player would leave the computer vulnerable? You do not consider this harm? Or the multitude of viruses. I am a competent professional and have difficulty keeping my system free of all malware. And you say there is no harm?

Innovation? By MS? Yes surely. IE made great leaps from version 3 to 4 to 5. Lets not talk how. The point being availability of higher quality rival Netscape(at that point, no point it sucked with numerous 4.xx versions). But what has happened after it got 95 percent share in the market. How old is the IE 6. What is the last thing you saw in the IE that you said wow. All the innovations are coming from smaller companies like Opera and open source Mozilla. So do not talk about "innovations" in WMP. It might have improved over last 2-3 versions with sole purpose of killing of competition. With adding advantage of bundling it might do so. Real can become another Netscape and Quicktime only existing on Apple. How the product will stagnate after that, I can forsee now only.

The real deal is MS has been known to abuse monopoly power and it needs to be curtailed for the sake of industry. Leave alone MS, if anyone does that, it will need to be curtailed. I do not know where you work, but if you do for God's sake if you do work in MS ask them to open up the Office formats and see where they can compete in the whole world based on their "innovations" and quality. Let the turf be even and then see how much innovation it can come up with.

Let me put it another way. I guess you might have like Spiderman movie. A great dialogue in there. "With great power comes great responsibility." MS has the power and instead of growing the industry with it. It is killing the industry with it.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 2:35 PM by Jacques Chirac can kiss my Ass
forgive my intrusion but what amazes me is the absolute acceptance of the huge EU judgement against a U.S. company, regardless the merits, with no qualms or concerns. What if the judgement was a prison term for Bill Gates? I mean at what point does the EU juristiction of an American company stop? From the EU's perspective it doesn't.

Case in point. The EU has unilaterally decided as of 7/03 to force U.S. companies to collect VAT taxes on digital goods purchased by European customers. The stated goal by the EU is to eliminate "discrimination" faced by EU software companies placed at a competative disadvantage by their own government. So now U.S. companies must collect, administer and disburse quarterly VAT taxes collection to the EU - to effect a goal of reducing thier own competativeness!

What of enforcement? Now it becomes real "Big Brother-ish". The EU has hinted at a variety of tactics including opting not to enforce copyright infringements that violate intellectual property concerns of target U.S. firms, suing companies and even criminal tax evasion prosecution of U.S. citizens who have never set foot in the EU.

But it seems for many U.S. companies enforcement will not be an issue as they have either sheepishly conformed or have been forced to by doing business with Digital River - which mandates this collection from U.S. firms.

Where does the EU get off? 200 years ago this country was born of a revolt against "taxation without representation" - today we bend over and take it? We can bomb Iraq into oblivion but can't protect our own software companies from threats and intimidation by the EU.

Here is a great article

http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/article16.html

if you work in the U.S. software industry take action!

Just go to: http://www.house.gov/ or http://www.senate.gov/ you can send email directly from there after looking them up.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 3:46 PM by IE all over
Jesse,
I disagree with your argument not on the basis of individual "talking points." No, I view it as more of the same old action from Microsoft. The lesson they learned from IE, they are applying all over again. Let me explain.

First, I have been doing web development for many years. I remember when IE was not part of the OS. I was responsible for developing a standardized configuration to rollout to 6000 plus desktops. With IE 3.0, Microsoft introduced IEAK, which made this easier. The browser was an application that could be configured and deployed.

This changed with IE 4.0 and for no real apparent reason. IE 4.0 was a bear to get a configuration properly deployed via SMS even using IEAK. Why? I could not determine at the time, but later found out via the DOJ case. The simple reason for bolting was marketing. They wanted to kill off Netscape. As a developer there was no good reasons to bolt it on. As a marketing ploy, however, it made great logic.

Fast forward to today, Microsoft is doing the same thing with Media Player. It is a seperate application that could be easily replacable, if programmed correctly. Microsoft in its marketing wisdom, however feels this isn't enough. They feel they have to bolt it to the OS so that it can't be removed without damaging the OS. Why? There is one and only reason. That reason is to kill of Real Networks. Instead of trying to compete head to head, they want to use their OS leverage to kill off a competitor. The EU shall through this sham and called a spade-a-spade.

There would be no problem if MS wants to bundle Media Player or any other software package with there OS distribution. There is a problem when then make it so that one can't remove this component because it is part of an OS.

I can envision configuration where I wouldn't want any media player installed. We ran into a similar issue with Windows CE based PDA's. Security wanted the Voice recorder disabled before they could approve them. Unfortunately, the only way we could come up with disabling the voice recording feature is to physically damage the microphone (e.g., stick a needle into the microphone).

The bottom line is the consumer should be free to choose what software they like on their PC, not the OS vendor. The OS is just the OS. Stop bolting on all these other things. Let them compete in the marketplace.

One final point regarding IE: IE has stagnated. MS won the browser wars and now is not furthering the product. Watch out, there may be a new browser war on the horizon due to MS's laziness in progressing the browser. If this is there approach, then it is good for consumers that the EU has called MS's bluff. Maybe Media Players will continue to improve since there will be competition. What is wrong with good, hard, clean competition? Let the chips fall where they may. Play cleanly and see who wins. MS stop using your OS monopoly to market your other products. Let the products stand on their own. If they truly are the best products, then they will win on merits, not because they are bolted to the OS.

Just my two cents.
TC

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 4:28 PM by Jesse Ezell
TC,
The argument that media player is bad because you can't remove it is not something that makes sense. You can't remove Internet Connection Firewall. It is definately eating away at market share of people providing firewall software (and more so as it gets beefed up). Do this mean that ICF should be removed? Should Microsoft be barred from building anti-virus software into the OS like they are planning on doing?

With IE, Microsoft was concerned that Netscape might render the operating system useless, so they really had reason to compete hard core against them. And the truth is that they did compete and they did develop a kick ass browser compared to what Netscape had around the time IE 5.0 came out. This competition was a good thing, IMO. IE has stagnated, because it is no longer a viable technology for the kinds of apps that people are wanting to develop. The HTML client world is going to fade away, to be replaced by Rich Clients and Smart Clients, and this is where Microsoft is now focusing their efforts. This has absolutely nothing to do with them winning the "browser war." The war ended on its own.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 6:38 PM by TC
Jesse,
Maybe one should be able to replace the ICF if a better product comes out on the market. Often MS will include a technology, but only half-hearted. For example, in Windows XP, MS includes CD burning. This functionality may work for entry level, but I prefer Easy CD Creator, which is much more full-fledged. My point is why should something like the ICF, Virus Protection, or CD burning, etc., be "bolted" to the OS. They should be replaceable components.

MS's point to the EU was that one couldn't remove the Media Player without damaging the OS. This is hogwash. As developers, we should give a load Bronx-cheer to MS for such garbage. Any component should be replaceable, if a better product comes to market. Let the competition decide. Don't use your monopoly just to get your inferior products used. Allow users to be able to replace end products with what they feel is the best product.

For example, what if a super-duper TCP/IP stack came out that was better than MS's, shouldn't we be allowed to replace it, as long as its interfaces were met all MS's calls. Isn't that where .NET is going? Isn't the purpose of .NET is to build reusable componentents that can be combined? Isn't NT/Win2K built on a small micro-kernel (as opposed to Linux is has a massive kernel) to allow for replacement of components?

My issue is the Microsoft is afraid to compete in the marketspace. They want to use their OS monopoly to stiffle competition. Do they not think their programmers are talented enough to compete on merits alone? One has to wonder.

My additional two cents worth.
TC

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, March 26, 2004 10:41 PM by Jesse Ezell
TC,

MS never said you couldn't replace it, they just said uninstalling it would break certain OS features. This is especially evident in the media center edition of XP, which really could not function without WMP integration. Media Center PCs are still a little out of the price range of the average user, but as the cost for the required hardware goes down, you can definately expect to see Media Center Edition features making it into the mainstream OS, which would be very good for consumers, unless the EU has its way and stiffles the innovation that is happening over in Redmond.

Sounds to me like you've never worked on a large scale software project. It costs a ton more money to develop things when you are going to allow swappable providers. Microsoft could make everything in the OS swappable if they really wanted, but the price of the OS would have to go up significantly in order for that to happen. With Microsoft facing heavy competition from Linux, that is the last thing they need.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, April 02, 2004 3:08 PM by Eddie S
I really have a problem with this statement:

"Sounds to me like you've never worked on a large scale software project. It costs a ton more money to develop things when you are going to allow swappable providers. Microsoft could make everything in the OS swappable if they really wanted, but the price of the OS would have to go up significantly in order for that to happen. With Microsoft facing heavy competition from Linux, that is the last thing they need."

Having worked on a number of projects large and small, it has almost always been the case that NOT making things swappable was far more costly in both time and money, at least in the mid to long run. Why? At some point you probably are going to have to "ear your own dog food" and when the time comes you can't just swap providers, but you have to modify or swap the consumer too. This is expecially true on large projects where different teams are producing the service consumer and supplier(s). Without pluggability you may not be able to rev your "Media Player" without revving the shell, kernel, and who knows what else.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, April 02, 2004 3:49 PM by Jesse Ezell
Sounds like your products must be pretty insecure or not quite as complex as what I generally think of as a large scale project. There is a HUGE difference between standard OO techniques that technically allow a provider to be swapped and supporting multiple swappable providers as an official feature. If you don't realize this, I'm not even going to waste my time explaining because you are so far off base that it would be pointless.

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Friday, April 02, 2004 3:50 PM by Jesse Ezell
PS: this is the reason modern OO languages have the "sealed" keyword. It is just common knowledge.

# Can Jesse Make One Post Without Being Condesending?

Tuesday, April 06, 2004 11:59 PM by me
It amazes me the immaturity that people can have.

Jesse, do you talk to everyone the way you talk to these people? They seem very smart and have intelligent arguments. This is a prime example of there is no Black and White "RIGHT" answer... so everyone's opinions should be RESPECTED. RJ even had to make a comment to you about "ground rules".

Jesse, you are smart and have good opinions. There are millions of smart people who disagree with you. Will you be rude and condescending to all of them too? Grow up!!


Now for my thoughts on the issue......
I definitely believe that MS leveraging the OS to put more software should not be done; hence, I agree with the laws that make it illegal. Jesse has some good points about "value" to consumers in the overall OS package. IMHO, I think the model that Linux distros have used could possibly be an applicable solution to this debate. MS is an OS company at its roots. Why not have MS supply only the OS part and have other companies supply the enduser packaging that would include utilities, essential software, etc. There could be many companies or OEMs all doing that..... In fact, you are probably thinking that companies like Dell already do something like that. Well, it could be more widespread and better implemented if MS went along with it and changed their pricing model to adapt to this model.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I have not thought through all the details (pros and cons) of how this would be implemented. I literally just thought of it while reading the posts and had the thought of "why not?", so dont rip the idea to pieces to make yourself feel better about your own intelligence.

# re: Microsoft Slams the EU Commission

Thursday, April 22, 2004 1:06 PM by TrackBack

# re: DOJ and US Lawmakers on EU's Decision and My 2 Cents As Well

Thursday, May 03, 2007 5:09 PM by Gustas

Nice!

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