Tuesday, January 15th 2008
Microsoft Investigated Again in Europe
The European Commission, fresh from a major court victory over Microsoft, launched new antitrust investigations into the software giant on Monday, on suspicion it abused its market dominance. Investigators will see whether Microsoft broke competition rules to help its Web browser and its Office and Outlook products, after complaints from Norwegian Web browser company Opera and a coalition of technology firms including IBM, Nokia Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Oracle Corp. The European Commission opened two formal probes. The first one - triggered by a complaint from Norway's Opera Software ASA - will look at whether Microsoft illegally gives away its Internet Explorer browser for free with Windows. Opera had called on the EU to strip Internet Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers. The second investigation will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software - including Office word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools, some server products and Microsoft's push into the Internet under the name of the .NET framework. Microsoft said it would cooperate fully: "We are committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and court obligations," it said in a statement.
Sources:
eitb24, Yahoo! News
89 Comments on Microsoft Investigated Again in Europe
They are not targeting Mac osx because its less used.
So tell me do you use the yahoo insider at all. For me thats just junk.
What is it a crime to include software with your OS? Mac comes with iPhoto, Safari, Garage Band. Please someone tell me that Mac is breaking the law.
Microsoft has the right to bundle what it wants.
Microsoft does NOT have the right to intentionally stop other software from working.
Those two statements sum up what this case should be about. But its NOT about this. Opera is a whiney little company and not very high on the product popularity list.
If this case is really about operating systems not being allowed to bundle then I'd like to see every operating system on the floor here. However they aren't. Common sense: people want easy, bundling is easy. Smart people want the best product, as I recall FireFox is doing well. I've also mentioned before there is a little company called Intuit that makes some financial software that blew every attempt by Microsoft out of the water. I don't even see Microsoft Money anymore. If Opera wants market share then they need to make a good product.
If anyone remembers, MS was taken to court stating that their integration of IE into WIN goes aganist anti trust laws and that it was an illegal practice. IIRC, the judge overseeing the case ordered that IE would have to be seperated from WIN, and that MS would have to offer a version of WIN without IE, and a version with - so that way the customer can decide if they want IE or not . . .
. . . MS appealed the case, it went to a higher judge, and the original ruling was overturned . . .
. . . and here we are, repeating history, just with a different plantiff, and on a different continent. :shadedshu Knowing MS, if they for some ungodly reason lose this case and have to remove IE from their european OS, I'm sure a few more hundred lines of code will work their way in that will cause a certain specific upstart browser <cough>*opera*<cough> to run extremelly poor, or near about not at all.
How about the fact that it was and still IS the safest browser around, cannot be hijacked, and does not have any memory leaks? However Opera is not tolerant with badly coded internet content, (and many web developers ignore Opera) It is somewhat the ugly stepsister of Firefox as it isn’t all that flexible plugin wise. However it WAS the first browser to suport tabbed browsing (nobody seems to mention that) , was the first to integrate popup blocking (that works better than 90% 3rd party software doing same thing) and that it IS undeniably the fastest browser around. Also from the developer's pov Opera was the first browsers to support efficient Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), now a major building block of web design *.
Don’t take my word for it; I think Secunia has more than enough authority on the matter. Compare the security statistics for IE, FF and Opera in the last few years. You’ll see that Opera had in 4 years less security vulnerabilities than either IE or FF currently have this very second.
Secunia reports for 2007:
Opera 9.x: secunia.com/product/10615/?task=statistics_2007
Firefox 2.x: secunia.com/product/12434/?task=statistics_2007
IExplorer 7.x: secunia.com/product/12366/?task=statistics_2007
I do however agree that this is a bad move for Opera Software to complain, as Microsoft is allowed to bundle whatever it damn pleases. But not cooperating with the software industry in general should not be tolerated. It's kind of a gray area situation here I'm afraid.
*CSS dev info taken from here : meyerweb.com/eric/articles/webrev/199906.html
@btarunr and all those who say opera sucks- Don't use a software for an hour or so and say it sucks. You've given windows a lifetime and there are still some components to understand. Give some time to understand the features of the browser.
To Wil E-Most of those 80% features will be found on their website too.
and to whom so ever it may concern- I am not justifying opera's law suit here but I am saying I.E shouldn't be integrated to such a level where it cannot be uninstalled.
You used opera for a year and all the time you were using it you were thinking it sucks.
When did you use opera for a year? When it was under development. Have you used speed dial? Do you know opera can open only I.E pages by telling it to mask itself as I.E. Do you know that if you drag a tab and put it in the toolbar it will save a link with that thumbnail on that. Have you tried any of the skins opera has.Opera has open in new tab/open in background tab- The first mean a new tab will open and it will take you to that tab the second one means it will open the tab but the current tab in which your browsing will remain selected.
Do this.
Install opera
then go to tools->preferences
Click manage site preferences
Click on add to add a site.
then under network tab there is an option called browser identification. Use this.
Oh and do you know about mouse gestures.
Hold the right mouse button and
Move down-opens new window
Move up and down-reload(like a shotgun)
Move up,then right-restore or maximise window
make L shape-close window
down and left-minimise window
down+up-duplicate window.
Speed dial is a superb feature which lets you select 9 web pages. Now when you open opera those 9 pages are presented in front of you in the form of a thumbnail.
Also ctrl+1-9 are assigned shortcuts for the selected pages. Even if your browsing another page these shortcuts can be used directly.
and I can blindly close a web page or opera, Why? When I close a tab its sent to thrash. 2 click an the page is back. Close opera and open it again the webpages wich were open the previous time are still open.
If you still don't get it, I.E is more user friendly to developers than to the users. Hence the majority.
Edit- so which page doesn't work for you(give the URL)