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Microsoft hit by record EU fine

five04 said:
why do you all think microsoft is this big evil company? let's be honest people, they've made a lot of good innovations in technology. if we didn't have one main os in the market, not as many people would be using a computer. your average person doesn't want to have to learn another os. i use my ibook for portable things and my pc for my home so i'm not partial to either format. both have their advantages. i do think that if microsoft didn't try to include things such as a media player people would have no idea how to play files. my mom could sit down and if a sound file didn't open up she'd have no idea how to fix that. people want an os that will work. i think the same thing can be said for apple too. why does it come with ilife and quicktime? honestly, if you took ms out of the picture what os would take over? the average person buying a $499 computer system from dell can't afford a $2000 system from apple. is linux a viable option? not at all. it seems the governments are going after microsoft while the normal computer user doesn't care.
Click to expand...

Believe me, I hate MS as much as the next guy, but business is business - the point is to make a superior product and CRUSH the competition.

It's a tough issue - I mean, how would we react if the courts told Apple they couldn't package Quicktime or iTunes with each new computer....?

What if Apple owned 95% of the market? Seeing as they make the hardware AND software, what kind of monopoly would people call that?...
 
1macker1 said:
No way will they reveal their code. That ruling will be overturned on the appeal. That's like asking KFC what's their 11 herbs and spices.
Click to expand...

KFC doesn't use their secret blend of 11 herbs and spices in a monopolistic way. And KFC's use of 11 herbs and spices doesn't prevent other chicken from being edible.

They are saying that MS has to license some of the code so that other products can interact with MS products properly. I think that this will be upheld.
 
I'm not really a fan of the decision. Consumers certainly have a choice, as we all can attest to. MS is where it is today because of superior execution as a business. Honestly, I (like many here), have a distaste for MS products; so I don't buy them.
 
howard said:
hey guys, i'm a little confused on why they have to reveal there code and what the point of that is?

is it so other operating systems can copy what windows is doing?

is os x code available? not to knowledgeable on this so i was curious
Click to expand...

From Apple's site in the section about "OS Foundation":

"Beneath the easy-to-use interface and rich graphics of Mac OS X is Darwin, an open source UNIX-based foundation built on technologies such as FreeBSD, Mach, Apache, and GCC. Darwin provides a complete UNIX environment, with X11 and POSIX services comparable to Linux or FreeBSD, including familiar kernel, libraries, networking and command-line utilities."
 
I don't care for Microsoft or its products anymore then the next guy, but I think this "holy war" mentality needs to end.

These rulings are coming down from world-class moronic beauracrats, they don't understand how operating systems or computers work. IE, WMP, they are all integrated into XP; just like QuickTime, iTunes, and Safari are integrated into OS X. Take out those components, and that removes a lot of the capabilities of the OS. For example, doesn't OS X use QuickTime to display some of the effects? Like Expose? It's biased, and really comes across as jealousy more then anything else, to think you can rule on Microsoft in one way and let everyone else do the same thing.

If you really don't like Microsoft as a monoply, do something about it. Provide tax incentives to Microsoft for being competitive and to their competitors for coming up with new ideas, have government organizations re-evaluate using MS software (OpenOffice for instance), etc. You can grow the economy, deal with the problem, and encourage the tech industry to come back; sounds a lot better then just sitting around and levying retarded rulings that have about as much effect in dealing with the issue as smoking pot does.
 
Call me crazy, but I'll think they'll weasel their way out of this. Even so, this amount is chump change for them. I hope the EU really stands up to them. They should demand that they break up or impose $100 taxes for every OS copy they sell or something ballsy. I don't understand while illegal, anti-competetive monopolies are just allowed to continue to do whatever they want.
 
Far more than the US DOJ did.

But there is more - EU will fish out to MS - did you see MS will required to give open up windows somewhat, and that they will need to strip out media player.

So, its not just about the fine.

For people saying "but 500 million is a small amount for ms to pay", please read the entire article - especially aabout the sansactions the EU will place on MS.


flyfish29 said:
Unfortunately this is just a slap on the wrist. They have over 50 billion in cash reserves! Not to mention all the assetts, etc, so really means nothing except a few people losing their jobs!
Click to expand...
 
Well if you think Microsoft are bad, I shudder to think what Apple would be like in the same position. Imagine just simply trying to buy new computers. It takes them 4 weeks to get anything to us as it is, and THEN we find out it was sent to the wrong address.
 
if they strip out media player can people just go and download it? could this windows verison have a prompt when you clicked on an audio file saying.. go here and download wmp?
 
ShadowHunter said:
These rulings are coming down from world-class moronic beauracrats, they don't understand how operating systems or computers work. IE, WMP, they are all integrated into XP; just like QuickTime, iTunes, and Safari are integrated into OS X. Take out those components, and that removes a lot of the capabilities of the OS. For example, doesn't OS X use QuickTime to display some of the effects? Like Expose? It's biased, and really comes across as jealousy more then anything else, to think you can rule on Microsoft in one way and let everyone else do the same thing.
Click to expand...

First, you don't know that the people working on this decision don't have the necessary knowledge of computers or an OS. Also, there is a difference between being bundled with and OS and being integrated with the OS. The Apple products you mentioned are bundled with the OS; they are not integrated into it. You can remove any of those items without affecting the rest of the system.

MS plans to integrate Explorer into the next version of Windows. And they claim that removing it or removing Windows Media Player will adversely affect the way that the system operates.

And there is a difference between the QuickTime technology and the QuickTime player. You can take QuickTime Player off a Mac without doing anything other than removing the ability to use it for playing media. You would just have to use another player.

So it's not really about bias or jealousy; there is a difference in the situations.
 
The US courts found Microsoft to have illegally commingled code. The case is quite literally closed on that one.

No one is say saying that you should not distibute Operating Systems bundled with handy applications like media players & Web browsers. Of course you should.

It's just a question of whether there should be choice, or whether everyone should be forced to accept the Microsoft solution.

There is no reason why Internet Explorer code has to be so mixed up with Windows code. If Microsoft had done a good job in the first place, there would be well designed and documented APIs for other developers like Mozilla to swap-out IE for their own HTML rendering engine.

Mac OS X is distributed with iTunes, but the code is not commingled - it is possible to remove iTunes and still have a working copy of Mac OS X.

Quartz is used to render Exposé, not QuickTime.

Edited for grammar
 
It's true though that Apple would not get away with half so much if they were in Microsoft's near-monopolistic position! Whilst you may feel sorry for Microsoft because of this, I think you should bear in mind that if they had played a little fairer in the first place, they probably would not be in so much hot water today.
 
five04 said:
why do you all think microsoft is this big evil company? let's be honest people, they've made a lot of good innovations in technology. if we didn't have one main os in the market, not as many people would be using a computer. your average person doesn't want to have to learn another os. i use my ibook for portable things and my pc for my home so i'm not partial to either format. both have their advantages. i do think that if microsoft didn't try to include things such as a media player people would have no idea how to play files. my mom could sit down and if a sound file didn't open up she'd have no idea how to fix that. people want an os that will work. i think the same thing can be said for apple too. why does it come with ilife and quicktime? honestly, if you took ms out of the picture what os would take over? the average person buying a $499 computer system from dell can't afford a $2000 system from apple. is linux a viable option? not at all. it seems the governments are going after microsoft while the normal computer user doesn't care.
Click to expand...

I agree that whether or not M$ bundles a media player with the OS is by itself, not a big deal. One of the more problematic aspects of what M$ has done is that it claims the OS itself is basically rendered "inoperable" if they DO NOT include things like IE or the Media Player. This is just plain wrong, and if it isn't, it is further evidence that M$ is selling crap since a first year computer science student understands why there are layers in software and why you separate 'system' software from 'application' software. They make those claims because they know the average user will take to whatever is already there and will not bother to explore alternatives from competitors.

I don't personally know anyone who has actually bought a $499 computer from Dell (or anyone else). By the time they they throw in all the other add-ons required to make it even a marginally desirable system, they spend considerably more. The '$499' figure just helps promote the myth that PCs cost far less than Macs.

I'm also interested in your assertion that M$ has made a lot of good innovations in technology. Everything I have ever seen M$ do with regard to technology turned out to be a bad "knock-off" of some existing technology. In most cases, their attempts yielded that was not as good/reliable as the original, or was "proprietary" and closed (would not operate with the existing item).

I make software for a living and I just find it very hard to have any kind of respect for M$, what they do, and how they do it. I hate that they have made so much money by pushing "crap" to the masses, and to a large degree, convinced the public that it's OK and that is just what should be expected when they use a computer.

-- Mr_Ed steps off the soap box -- :)
 
ShadowHunter said:
IE, WMP, they are all integrated into XP; just like QuickTime, iTunes, and Safari are integrated into OS X. Take out those components, and that removes a lot of the capabilities of the OS. For example, doesn't OS X use QuickTime to display some of the effects? Like Expose?
Click to expand...

I think you're thinking of quartz here...you can delete your quicktime player, safari, iTunes, or any other app from your OS X system and it will work fine. You can install any other piece of software, and it will have access to the same underlying OS services (including quartz). If it is well written, it will work as well as any Apple software.

This is not true on windows. Microsoft's application software (Office (esp. Access), media player, IE, etc.) is so deeply integrated into the OS that it can do things other applications can't (including completely bollix your system). This is part of Microsoft's argument...they can't easily remove their media player application because they've made it a core part of the OS. But what the courts are saying is that that's unfair. How can a non-microsoft software developer hope to compete with Microsoft when they can integrate their applications with their OS? (Microsoft broke my irony-meter when they quit developing IE for the Mac because they said they couldn't compete with Safari due to lack of knowledge about the internals of the OS).

This integration of applications with the OS is great for killing competition, but it's horrendously awful software design, and is one of the reasons Windows is such a bloated, bug-infested, bletcherous mess.

I just wish some Judge would turn out to have a degree in comp-sci, and when the Microsoft lawyers argued "we can't remove our browser, because it's part of our OS" the Judge would say "that was a stupid-ass thing to do...I'm going to fine you for your monopolistic behaviour, and add another fine for being incompetent programmers!"

Cheers
 
Why is this being voted as positive? If MS is forced to remove browser/mediaplayers/IMclients from Windows, MacOS, Linux, and others may be subject to the same restrictions. Integrated or not, if you force one company to do without, they will all need to follow suit.

Blind MS haters are going to find themselves in a lurch soon.
 
1macker1 said:
No way will they reveal their code. That ruling will be overturned on the appeal. That's like asking KFC what's their 11 herbs and spices.
Click to expand...

If they want the code, they should just ask me....

take 3.11,
add a nasty blue GUI,
get a preschooler to head up the networking department,
remove any traces of stability and true plug-and-play,
combine a hint of kernel panics and error reporting,
and top it off with several different security holes and worm viruses...

VOILA! Windows XP! (pro)

:)
 
slowtreme said:
Why is this being voted as positive? If MS is forced to remove browser/mediaplayers/IMclients from Windows, MacOS, Linux, and others may be subject to the same restrictions. Integrated or not, if you force one company to do without, they will all need to follow suit.

Blind MS haters are going to find themselves in a lurch soon.
Click to expand...

They are being forced to remove this because they are using it unfairly, and making it hard for competitors to make their own IM/Browsers/Media Players. As proven in this thread, you can remove QT/Safari/iTunes/iChat etc with no adverse effects, which is not true of Microsoft.
 
slowtreme said:
Why is this being voted as positive? If MS is forced to remove browser/mediaplayers/IMclients from Windows, MacOS, Linux, and others may be subject to the same restrictions. Integrated or not, if you force one company to do without, they will all need to follow suit.

Blind MS haters are going to find themselves in a lurch soon.
Click to expand...

It's not an issue for Apple because they're not in a monopolistic position. It is because Microsoft has a near monopoly that they must take care not to exploit that monopoly.

Linux is a different matter altogether - since it's entirely open source, free software, and there are many different distributions of it, Linux users will never be held to ransom by one greedy & selfish software vendor.
 
OK, if the EU wants the source code...

/*Windows source code.*/
/*
TOP SECRET Microsoft(c) Code
Project: Chicago(tm)
Projected release-date: Summer 1998
*/

#include "win31.h"
#include "win95.h"
#include "evenmore.h"
#include "oldstuff.h"
#include "billrulz.h"
#define INSTALL_HARD

char make_prog_look_big 1600000 ;

void main()
{
while(!CRASHED)
{
display_copyright_message();
display_bill_rules_message();
do_nothing_loop();

if (first_time_installation)
{
make_50_megabyte_swapfile();
do_nothing_loop();
totally_screw_up_HPFS_file_system();
search_and_destroy_the_rest_of_OS/2();
hang_system();
}

write_something(anything);
display_copyright_message();
do_nothing_loop();
do_some_stuff();
if (still_not_crashed)
{
display_copyright_message();
do_nothing_loop();
basically_run_windows_3.1();
do_nothing_loop();
do_nothing_loop();
}
}

if (detect_cache())
disable_cache();

if (fast_cpu())
{
set_wait_states(lots);
set_mouse(speed, very_slow);
set_mouse(action, jumpy);
set_mouse(reaction, sometimes);
}

/* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.11"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows 95"); */
printf("Welcome to Windows 98");

if (system_ok())
crash(to_dos_prompt);
else
system_memory = open("a:\swp0001.swp", O_CREATE);

while(something)
{
sleep(5);
get_user_input();
sleep(5);
act_on_user_input();
sleep(5);
}
create_general_protection_fault();

}

:cool: ;) :D
 
The WSJ had a really good article about this; its stupid
A) These are basically the same complaints leveraged in US courts against MS. The EU does not need to become 'Round 2' for legal battles that lose in the US (or vice versa, or anywhere else for that matter) -- the US has double jeopardy for a reason and this is it.
I love the rulings; "share code so people can better interoperate with Windows" -- because we've had such trouble writing Windows apps the past 15 years+? The fines are silly; the ruling is silly; etc.
Microsoft does innovate, and they innovated early and on a cheap 'free for all' platform of the x86. They became the big name; but I see competition. The average semi-tech user knows about OS X and Linux; they decide not to use on average. I don't buy the MS monopoly at all. Are they the 'big name'? Well yes. But its only slightly worse than soda (Take the MacOS switcher challenge; which one is easier? and then there's your little Royal-Cro, er, Linux in the corner; and quite a few other little names. Then you have your subbrands. Windows XP, 98, the failure of Crystal Pepsi (ME) ;) -- media edition, diet server console, etc.

But all I'm seeing in this thread is "OMG! M$ SUCKS! YAY!" -- reminds me of this:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-07-22&res=l
 
Stolid said:
But all I'm seeing in this thread is "OMG! M$ SUCKS! YAY!" -- reminds me of this:
Click to expand...

I'm actually suprise by how much support Microsoft are getting on this thread, considering this forum is for Mac users.

Also, Microsoft did not win their case against the US DOJ, they lost it... and now they've lost it in the EU as well. I don't see how double jepardy applies.
 
Has anyone else noticed the irony that Microsoft actually depends on the existence of Apple?

Whenever they are acused of a Monoply they can just point at Mac OS and Linux and say "There is your choice!"

This is why the bother with Office for Mac.

Much as I love my Mac I can use it as much as I do because of Office- as I need it for stuff at work- you can bet they don't make a lot of cash on it.

As long as Apple and Linux are floating around at the low percentage end of the market Microsoft are quite happy.

What I opject to is that with the market share that they have they still want to control every other aspect of the PC market.

That is where the 'dangerous' side of Microsoft lies.
 
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