The US courts and the EU courts disagree with you. IE losing market share is a recent turn of events.
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Safari for Windows Receives Prominent Placement on Microsoft's European 'Browser Ballot'
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The US courts and the EU courts disagree with you. IE losing market share is a recent turn of events.
Please do not assume that your one comment is this much more important than everyone else's.
Imagine a world where everyone took that approach.
Give it up, man. Some people just can't be taught, and will argue anything in the face of myriad, obvious facts.
Thats logical thinking, some of our commie counterparts on this site are incapable of that, hopefully they never become judges
They lost that right when they interfered with the deals between their competition and OEMs.
Maybe the capitalists on this site will learn that everything isn't black and white and that regulating monopolies is actually helping capitalism and isn't just some form of communism or socialism.
Notice the abhorrent use of third party terms. In every single case, the market reacted in a positive way towards Microsoft. If people were so sick and tired of IE, then why did AOL die down? Why did people buy computers with Microsoft? There were other OS's available at the time.
I'll tell you why. Because others tried and simply failed as happens in the world. Some, like Apple gained some customers. But the majority apparently were satisfied with what they had.
Your statement is a fallacy - you just proved yourself wrong.
LOL! How does a monopoly become one in the first place? It's successful. If the quality begins to suffer, then so does the product. (think Vista and OSX/Firefox surge to be relevant. I suggest you put down the communist manifesto and pick up some reading by Ludwig von Mises or Milton Friedman.
The stupidity of your statements are shocking. Your rants demonstrate a fundamental lack of economic knowledge.
gooooooooooooooooooo jenny! One problem it's fair, alphabetical order but I can fix this...hurry up and change your name to "Aardvark firefox" THEN b!tch at microSUX lolololawl ROFL I AM A GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't see how I proved myself wrong. It's only after years of stagnation and dominance and not playing nice with standard bodies and security flaws worse than the last that people finally started moving away from Internet Explorer.
Most people endured and still do IE 6 for way longer than any sane person would because in a sense, they had no choice. The web itself and nowadays, internal web applications were just written the Microsoft way or using Microsoft tools instead of the standard way and caused this lock in.
And if you think Microsoft never played dirty, you seriously need to revise your history. Heck, Windows 3.1 had that check where if it wasn't running under MS-DOS, it failed to load. Caldera, who bought DR-DOS, sued them and won over this. This was one of the points of the anti-trust suit by the US DOJ during the Clinton administration.
People in 90s and even today don't choose Windows. They are forced into it. Microsoft killed DOS' competition in the late 80s and early 90s. They then used MS-DOS to promote Windows as the only graphical shell worth using. Finally, they made Windows something that no one but Windows could have access to, by not publishing interoperability specs for a very long time (it took court orders). Once everyone was locked in, they basically told OEMs that if they tried to ship anything else or offer alternatives like OS/2 warp, they would lose the privilege of even shipping Windows.
You're a tool of the system if you truly believe Microsoft earned their place. They were given their monopoly by IBM and they kept it through anti-competitive behavior that landed them in hot water. They deserve everything they are getting.
Monopolies are born through various means. Being successful in the market rarely leads to a monopoly. Usually, outside factors are involved. Think Telephony, Electrical or Cable TV monopolies, they are born through government intervention granting limited monopolies over airwaves/frequencies/land.
In Microsoft's case, they were given their monopoly by IBM, which defined an open hardware platform that once reversed engineered became ubiquitous as players all moved to it. The only problem is that Microsoft got to be the only OS at the beginning and then they played unfair to stay that way, killing things like DR-DOS, PC-DOS and others using unfair and anti-competitive tactics.
The PC should have always been an open platform, be it hardware or software. You have Microsoft to thank for the closed and proprietary crap we have to deal with today. If it had not been for their behavior, the PC landscape would be much different today and probably a whole lot more competitive.
And again with black or white. I am not a communist. I am very opposed to many socialist programs and the providence state. However, I can see where regulations are required in order to promote competition and innovation. Monopolies stagnate over time and are hard to displace. This is a fact. Most capitalists are very anti-monopoly because the market forces in a monopoly position don't apply and capitalism is very much about market forces.
But of course if all you're reading is the capitalism.org propaganda, you can't have a good understanding of any of this. They label anything as marxist in order to discredit it. They obviously have no idea what monopoly abuse is.
The European Commission does not agree. Maybe you could have a word with them?
Couldn't hurt.
Not if that is practically destroying a very significant other market. Read the law, both in the US and the EU.
The problem is, that ecosystem is an absolute killer as far as contemplating Safari goes. There's simply no way I'd ever consider browsing the web without NoScript or similar to block ads that insist on getting in your face. That's without even considering the extra security they provide.
dumb
This whole ordeal is dumb. I am an Apple guy and Safari is bundled...where is our "Browser Ballot"? Come on. I am tired of European countries dictating crap like this. I think Microsoft eats enough crap due to releasing sub-par products that they really don't need this type of unfair baloney. Most users do not care what browser they use and more than likely they will be confused by this. I hate Internet Explorer myself and on Windows I always choose to use Firefox. But I am sick of all of the behavior that is born of envy.
This whole ordeal is dumb. I am an Apple guy and Safari is bundled...where is our "Browser Ballot"? Come on. I am tired of European countries dictating crap like this. I think Microsoft eats enough crap due to releasing sub-par products that they really don't need this type of unfair baloney. Most users do not care what browser they use and more than likely they will be confused by this. I hate Internet Explorer myself and on Windows I always choose to use Firefox. But I am sick of all of the behavior that is born of envy.
All of the hate....
Okay. I see all of the talk about IE killing AOL and Netscape due to the monopolistic behavior...and to a point I agree. I do feel that IE6 flat out poisoned the Internet and that it did cause all other more standards compliant systems (and OSes that did not run IE) to appear to be "broken" when in fact IE is what was broken. But. But, but, but. IE 5 was the best browser on earth when it was released. Netscape was already old and tired and irrelevant after version 4.x. Netscape 6 was garbage. AOL was worthless. At the time when IE 5 was released it was the only browser worth having.
Okay. I see all of the talk about IE killing AOL and Netscape due to the monopolistic behavior...and to a point I agree. I do feel that IE6 flat out poisoned the Internet and that it did cause all other more standards compliant systems (and OSes that did not run IE) to appear to be "broken" when in fact IE is what was broken. But. But, but, but. IE 5 was the best browser on earth when it was released. Netscape was already old and tired and irrelevant after version 4.x. Netscape 6 was garbage. AOL was worthless. At the time when IE 5 was released it was the only browser worth having.
Safari isnt attached directly to the OS. IE Is/Was. Plus Microsoft have been abusing their monopoly and ActiveX was born. So the EU went tut tut.
The internet is supposed to be OPEN, it just takes governments to remind companies that. This is just the EU reinforcing that belief. Now if only they'd do Adobe next and their Flash.
I have to say, this really isn't true at all. Most people, including the non tech savvy, know what a browser is, and have preferences. Consumers aren't as stupid as you put them out to be. My highschool uses laptops. Almost everyone in my grade has Firefox installed, and actually prefer it over Safari. And in conversations about the internet it's mentioned.
My mom, who knows almost nothing about computers, knows what firefox and safari are. She installed FF on her MBP because she liked it better than Safari.
And for those of you saying that it doesn't matter about the people I know I have a question for you, do you actually know who thinks Google is the internet, and does not know what a web browser is? I doubt it, and if you do, it wouldn't be a lot. I have a feeling most of you are getting this information from assumptions.
I'm tired of Americans who are unable to read the law and not willing to understand the underlying reason for the court ruling.
1. The way MS won the browser war was not only by developing a (at that time) good product, but also by giving it away and forcing it on every Windows PC sold. Netscape Navigator was initially a software you had to pay for. Microsoft's vast financial powers allowed them to give IE away for free and destroy their opponent's business model. Netscape, being a small company, did not have the resources to counter a free, preinstalled software. By the time AOL took over Netscape, the war was lost already. To the contrary, the takeover made everything worse for the Navigator.
2. It's not all about Netscape. There had always been other decent browsers around like Opera. They never had a real chance to compete against IE.
3. The main problem came after IE5. IE6 had already been a minor update to IE5 and after that MS went into complete hibernation in terms of innovation since they had a 85%+ tight grip on the browser market thanks to their bundling policy. It took 10 years until others browsers gained SOME sort of market share and the browser market is STILL far from fair and really competitive.