Monday, July 27th 2009
European Commission Welcomes New Microsoft Proposals on MSIE and Interoperability
The European Commission can confirm that Microsoft has proposed a consumer ballot screen as a solution to the pending antitrust case about the tying of Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser with Windows. This followed extensive discussions with the Commission which centred on a remedy outlined in the January 2009 Statement of Objections (see MEMO/09/15) whereby consumers would be shown a "ballot screen" from which they could - if they wished - easily install competing web browsers, set one of those browsers as a default, and disable Internet Explorer. Under the proposal, Windows 7 would include Internet Explorer, but the proposal recognises the principle that consumers should be given a free and effective choice of web browser, and sets out a means - the ballot screen - by which Microsoft believes that can be achieved. In addition OEMs would be able to install competing web browsers, set those as default and disable Internet Explorer should they so wish. The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness in terms of ensuring genuine consumer choice.
As the Commission indicated in June (see MEMO/09/272 ), the Commission was concerned that, should Microsoft's conduct prove to have been abusive, Microsoft's intention to separate Internet Explorer from Windows, without measures such as a ballot screen, would not necessarily have achieved greater consumer choice in practice and would not have been an effective remedy.
Microsoft has also made proposals in relation to disclosures of interoperability information that would improve the interoperability between third party products and Windows and Windows Server. Again, these proposals require further investigation before the Commission reaches any conclusion as to the next steps.
Microsoft's proposals will be published in full on its website. The Commission has no further comment at this stage.
Source:
Europa
As the Commission indicated in June (see MEMO/09/272 ), the Commission was concerned that, should Microsoft's conduct prove to have been abusive, Microsoft's intention to separate Internet Explorer from Windows, without measures such as a ballot screen, would not necessarily have achieved greater consumer choice in practice and would not have been an effective remedy.
Microsoft has also made proposals in relation to disclosures of interoperability information that would improve the interoperability between third party products and Windows and Windows Server. Again, these proposals require further investigation before the Commission reaches any conclusion as to the next steps.
Microsoft's proposals will be published in full on its website. The Commission has no further comment at this stage.
129 Comments on European Commission Welcomes New Microsoft Proposals on MSIE and Interoperability
www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+Browser&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2g-s1g7
Apples software update could be removed without crippling my TCP/IP stack. As has been proven by the Darwin core that is available online.
No Software update included.
Can't say the same for Windows XP.
Whether it offends him or not, that kind of behavior is not for a moderator IMO.
That's the same thing my updater does.
How is it different? :confused:
You do realize this is why IE is being called out right? It is tightly knit into so much that it is no longer just a browser. It was required for many applications to function. Removing this breaks a lot of other things.
Something like Outlook would use it to render it's e-mails. No IE? No email. If anything someone made relying on stuff from IE, they could always assume it was there, because it was unremovable.
Removing it broke too much.
I even remember using "udp://" in IE6/Explorer and getting a response from a GameSpy server. That level of power was great and very simple (using URLs). Why should Microsoft have to remove an incredible feature when you can still use a different internet browser if you want to? To say Internet Explorer is bad is to say Explorer is bad is to say Windows is bad.
I love Opera and Firefox as alternatives and Windows allows the download of them just fine.
Monopolys are under special laws. These are the penalties of unfair practices.
Microsoft used API's that forced things to be IE only. Active X?
I can't count the number of things we used at work that were restricted to IE only.
Microsoft used these IE only features to force IE upon the market slowly but surely, and effectively gained the ability to control influence at will. This is why it's an anti-trust case to begin with. Since they did such, they have to pay the price.It can also be 100% removed, by dragging Safari.app to the trash. And is also not influencing the market to use only Safari. Infact, Webkit is Open Source.
Instead, Microsoft restricted these things so that others could not compete, even if they wanted to.
If Microsoft had 5% of the market share, this would be legal.
When you have 90% of the market, it becomes illegal, as it is anti-competitive.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-trust
Having 90%+ of the market doesn't make it illegal (whenever a new market starts, the original founder has 100% market share). Anti-competitive behavior does (e.g. buying up competitors like Standard Oil).
Also "open source" is the most lame excuse people give for saying "we're not greedy capitalists". Mozilla makes $300 million /yr with Firefox. They're not greedy :rolleyes:
Once again, look up the definition of a monopoly. MONOPOLIES ARE NOT ILLEGAL.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
IE held a more than dominant market share, and was exorcising the ability to control the ability of competitors to even compete. Thus, meets the definition.
Got any more bad examples?Open source means it is not restricted from being interoperable with a competitors product.
It has nothing to do with money. It is about the ability for a competitor to actually compete.
When you have a Monopoly, restricting interoperability, is illegal.
It's the F'ing definition of anti-competitive.
Webpages and Applications that are "IE Only".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._MicrosoftAnd right here in black and white:
Can these other browsers not access the web freely? Is evil, spooky MS somehow preventing these other browsers from going online? If the answer to these 2 questions was yes, I'd be inclined to agree, but as it stands, the answers are no. Therefore, MS hasn't done anything to restrict other browsers from competing, their own lack of marketing has.
Hey, I used Netscape on Windows 95 while IE3 was already installed. Internet Explorer in no way prevents another browser from being used.Nor does IE. Microsoft's Calculator has a monopoly by comparison. It is, after all, the standard for computer-based calculators.That's what I said. "Anti-competitive behavior" is. IE is not guilty of any anti-competitive behavior. Just because you couldn't completely remove it (because it was part of the kernel after all) doesn't mean it stopped you from using something else. As proof of this, during Internet Explorer 7 (which sucked) FireFox's market share almost matched that of IE. Despite IE already being there on most computers, people still opted to use another browser.