OSNews

I don't know many teams who "win" by forcing the Football Association to prevent the other team from playing

I didn't know Microsoft was literally killing competing developers, stopping them from playing.

Of course they are. Only rarely has Microsoft's domination of a new market been about a superior product, and without a market, companies die.

@twenex

Of course they are. Only rarely has Microsoft's domination of a new market been about a superior product, and without a market, companies die.

Microsoft got the market because they didn't have any competition. All the other competitions either weren't interested in making low-cost products (Apple) in reach of everyone's wallet size, simply gave up because they had no idea what they were doing (IBM) or had zero marketing (CBM).

Those examples are true; however, there are other examples (such as BeOS, Linux) which haven't been able to get a foot in the door because of Microsoft's strategies. Anyone who installs those alternative OSes has to go looking, and deal with problems not of their own making (such as hardware that's incompatible because the company will not release information on its specs).

Microsoft got the market because they didn't have any competition.

Microsoft got the DOS market because IBM was blocked from competing directly due to anti-trust action, and there weren't enough serious competitors around at that stage to stop Gates and Co. from buying an existing solution and then reselling it to IBM.

In other words, you're largely correct for MS-DOS. :-)

Most of the other market gains they have made over the years, however, have been at least tainted by illegal activities, and some of them (the web browser market, for example) would not be dominated by Microsoft at all were it not for the fact that they completely control the distribution channel (it comes bundled with the OS on each new PC to the exclusion of all other browsers).

It's hard to compete when one player is allowed to play outside the rules.

I didn't know Microsoft was literally killing competing developers, stopping them from playing.

If this is true, Thom, then either:

(1) You're playing devil's advocate here, taking up an amazingly ignorant position in order to stir up emotions and generate a more heated discussion, or

(2) You haven't been paying much attention to the software market over the past 15 years.

If the real answer is #2, then I expected a lot better from you, and quite frankly I'm extremely disappointed.

Microsoft has killed literally dozens of competitors -- if not the companies directly, they killed the products that those companies were trying to market.

I don't think you understand the word "literally".

Normal users don't install another browser so MS forces their monopoly on them. Why do you think IE is still the dominant browser? Because it is better? Of course not.

Microsoft's illegal bundling tactics work to make sure that it is the only company that can ship a browser that people pay for. You pay for IE because Microsoft raises the prices of Windows each generation. Vista is going up $20-60 at the OEM level. Part of this is paying for IE whether MS acknowledges it or not. It is also paying for Media Player.

This playing field is not level. You just bought a browser and media player when you received your PC with OEM Windows. If you are going to switch you have to lose this implied purchase as well as pay for the competitor.

Now let's look at this if the field was reversed. Instead assume that Mozilla is bundled and they get $3 from every PC shipped. That works out to about $1B/year in revenue. Now Microsoft is forced to sell IE for say $10/copy. How many people are going to send $10 to Microsoft for a copy of IE? Microsoft and Mozilla both have approximately equal development costs. Mozilla can even spend $500M a year in advertising and still be in great shape.

You (Microsoft) can make this game even more unfair. Mozilla changes the rules and charges $10 for every PC that ships but they rebate $7 to you for 'marketing' money. If you chose to ship IE you lose that $7. But you still have to ship Mozilla (it's bundled to the Windows monopoly). So as an OEM your cost just went up $7 for choosing to ship IE and you haven't even paid anything yet for the IE license.

These tactics are illegal and Microsoft has been found guilty of using them. The problem is that the guilty conviction carried no penalties (how much did it cost them in campaign contributions to get the judge changed?). So Microsoft keeps right on doing business in their illegal ways.

Microsoft's behavior caused the free software movement to happen. It is the only possible solution for competing with them. Ultimately free software will destroy the ability for anyone to charge for software. In the end game this will kill Microsoft, but it will also kill all of the other software companies too.

Welcome to a world of support and software services (things like Google and MySpace).

Historically, the price of Windows has not gone up.

OEM it is going up, and it is going up a lot more with Vista. Windows has moved from $15 in Win3.1 days to $30 now and it will go to $60 with Vista. The retail price on a box of Windows in the store is meaningless, less than 0.1% of Windows is bought at retail. Another way to measure is the fact that Microsoft OEM revenues have been going up 15% a year.

Have you ever heard of inflation?

If they weer charing $15 for Win 3.1 and $30 now, that's offset easily by the differences in costs (e.g. employees wages that have gone up).

And the thing about XP N being sold at the same price as normal XP doesn't make it attractive to anyone. MS tactic as well, because who wants to get less for the same price?

Since WMP can be downloaded and installed for free on XP N, it makes perfect sense to have the same price as normal XP.
If MicroSoft charged for WMP for XP N it would make sense to lower the price for XP N.

Thom, really, reading you constant bickering about anyone who dares to complain about MS' bussiness practices is really getting boring.

Then don't read it. "Constant"?

Using a monopoly in one area to gain market share or dominance in an other area is illegal, no matter how much you try to ignore this.

So, basically, MS should not provide Explorer.exe, as that is illegal competition to Talisman; neither can MS provide the blue Internet Explorer icon as that is illegal competition to icon artists.

You see, where do you draw the line? What falls under the illegal bundling tag and what doesn't?

That users are able to change the default search provider is pretty irrelevant here. The issue is that MS will be the default search for the millions of people who will use Vista, which will come preinstalled on about any computer people buy.

So should MS provide a dialog for each setting while installing Vista?

Do you seriously want to tell us that it is unreasonable for a company like Google to be concerned about this issue?

Yes. And pointless.

"Then don't read it."
Rest assured, I don't most of the times. However, I find it a rather childish reaction for an editor writing an opinion piece to tell those who disagree with him not to read his opinion piece.

"So, basically, MS should not provide Explorer.exe, as that is illegal competition to Talisman; neither can MS provide the blue Internet Explorer icon as that is illegal competition to icon artists."
Thom, pulling out wrong and stupid analogies out of somewhere is just a very bad excuse for having a real argument. And again, abusing a monopoly is against the law, whether you like it or not.

"So should MS provide a dialog for each setting while installing Vista?"
No.

"Yes. And pointless."
Aha. The only problem is that you still have not provided one argument why this should be the case and instead have again tried to avoid addressing the issue at hand. Pathetic.

Thom, pulling out wrong and stupid analogies out of somewhere is just a very bad excuse for having a real argument. And again, abusing a monopoly is against the law, whether you like it or not.

No, this is not a wrong analogy. How does the Firefox Vs. IE issue differ from the Explorer.exe Vs. Talisman.exe issue other than that Firefox happens to be popular?

The question you refuse to answer, Ralph, is where do you draw the line?

"So should MS provide a dialog for each setting while installing Vista?"
No.

Then what?

"The question you refuse to answer, Ralph, is where do you draw the line?"

No, I don't refuse to answer. I think it's pretty obvious that it gets problematic where the economic impact is considerable.
However, that's neither for me nor for you to decide, but for those whose job it is to enforce anti-trust laws and ultimately for the courts.

"Then what?"
I think you can find the answer yourself, if you consider that having one config dialog for one option does not equal having for each setting while installing Vista".

"However, I find it a rather childish reaction for an editor writing an opinion piece to tell those who disagree with him not to read his opinion piece. "

This is simple freedom of speech. Everybody's free to speak his mind, and everyone else is free to listen or not. What is childish is your reaction to an editorial. Please get a life.

"Thom, pulling out wrong and stupid analogies out of somewhere is just a very bad excuse for having a real argument."

Thom's analogies are perfectly valid. They only show how stupid and nonsense your argumentation is.

"The only problem is that you still have not provided one argument why this should be the case and instead have again tried to avoid addressing the issue at hand. Pathetic."

You're talking about yourself, right? Religious moron.

It does matter what the default for IE is to Microsoft and Google, because there are people that don't know or care at all about who provides a search engine. They want cookie recipes or naked pictures of $FAMOUSPERSON. They won't change the setting, even though they can. Google realizes this, and well they think that traffic belongs to them by default, because they're Goooooogle. People google things, they don't msn them! Google needs every last impression it can get or investors are going to dump their stock. Microsoft thinks the traffic belongs to them, because they're Microsoft and everything belongs to Microsoft. And they're totally going to kill Google!!!RAWR!!! In this case, Microsoft actually develops Internet Explorer, and actually permits users to select an alternative, and there are even other browsers people can use even if they didn't. So they think they have a much stronger case for that ignorance and apathy crowd that won't change the default. I'm inclined to say, it doesn't matter who gets it in any meaningful sense because the consumer being argued over itself doesn't care, and neither party has some divine right to anyone's search traffic.

Google is on a limp-leg arguing over who gets the traffic of the indifferent. They should worry more about dealing with click fraud. That makes everyone's products more expensive by creating artificial advertising expenses that get passed onto the consumer. If Microsoft's selection of its own search engine for an IE default actually matters so extraordinarily much, that's a good sign that Microsoft should be broken up and this discussion is moot.

Except IE does not have a monopoly.

Yawn.

"Except IE does not have a monopoly."

Its the only browser that come included with every copy of default Microsoft windows.

Feel free to show the other browser that come with the default and on the windows cd ?

I'm going by the courts, sorry.

"I'm going by the courts, sorry."

No , your not , your pointing some parts of the rulings and not complete case and not the complete picture.

> "Except IE does not have a monopoly."

> Feel free to show the other browser that come with the
> default and on the windows cd ?

There is none. Feel free to point out how this is connected to MS being a monopoly or not.

"Feel free to point out how this is connected to MS being a monopoly or not."

I already did , now the real problem is you think those are open to debate and that some thing are not as clear cut or not definitve ( monopoly status of Microsoft for example ). There are rules for everyone , Microsoft broke them and got convicted , now they are under convicted people rule and convicted monopoly rule , wich they dont follow and are trying to be considered like evryone else and doing a older move that they where convicted for and/or settled out of courts in order to drop the charges and impending penalty ( wich would have been 100X time higher if found guilty wich was the logical outcome , because of there prior monopoly and other convictions ).

Microsoft as usual is playing stupid instead of taking the lead , they could openly offer Google to put them as default if Google paid them 1 billion or made a counter offer ( offer of less money ) , or open the default space to the highest open bid. Because they dont whant the court to start discussing the subject because last I looked there where a lot of more search engine then there where browser , they need to be only convicted on one for all the other to receive paiement or have to settle with them. I know you dont get it , and disagree because you believe lies , but thats ok.

Now it seems to me there is a perfect analogy with Microsoft: Microsoft exploits its current advantage to prevent competitors to regain positions and really challenge its dominant position. And who loses from all this is the customer ( = the public), who gets higher prices and less innovation.

So basically, you are admitting there is little to no innovation in the Linux or Apple worlds? What is stopping from people from buying a Mac?

"Free market" does not mean removing any limitation to what actors can do; it means enforcing competition. Sometimes limitations are the only way to enforce competition.

I agree, but to what extent should this enforcing go? Should it go as far as Microsoft being forced into putting Firefox and RealPlayer on Windows install disks? If so, what about Opera and VLC? Should they be included too? And if so, what about Lynx and Xine? Or should Microsoft just provide you with the NT kernel and let you build up the install by providing options for each section of the OS? Or, should they also ask you if you want to use the Linux kernel instead of NT?

Again, where do you draw the line?

"So basically, you are admitting there is little to no innovation in the Linux or Apple worlds?"

My last comment, I promise, but Thom, is this really the level of discussions you want to see on your site? Someone pointing out that lack of competition leads to less innovation surely could have been answered without trolling, couldn't it?

My last comment, I promise, but Thom, is this really the level of discussions you want to see on your site? Someone pointing out that lack of competition leads to less innovation surely could have been answered without trolling, couldn't it?

No, that is not trolling Ralph. He says the current situation stiffles innovation-- and yes, less choice indeed should lead to less innovation.

However, I see more than enough innovation in the Apple and Linux worlds. How does that rhyme with the assessment of the current situation the parent poster sketched? Might it just be that this monopoly is far less strangling than many people seem to (or want to) admit? That it is... A perceived monopoly?

However, I see more than enough innovation in the Apple and Linux worlds. How does that rhyme with the assessment of the current situation the parent poster sketched? Might it just be that this monopoly is far less strangling than many people seem to (or want to) admit? That it is... A perceived monopoly?

You may have a point there, but the fact is that the dismantling of Microsoft's monopoly has only been going on since around about the time IBM put its weight behind Linux. And only now are we starting to see the effects. Before then, however, many, many companies and products were killed in Microsoft's blitzkrieg on the competition.

As I've said before on this forum, lack of innovation has never been a problem for people going up against Microsoft. The two problems have been (a) lack of marketing skill (which can be blamed on the rivals themselves) and (b) Microsoft's monopolistic practices (for which only Microsoft is to blame). If you could turn back time 20 years and prevent both Microsoft's practices from start to finish, and marketing failures by competitors, then UNIX proper (plus a lot of other hardware and software products) would still be around. However, if you could only prevent Microsoft's practices, then UNIX and OS/2 would probably be dead, but other products might well not be (e.g. Linux might have as much as 40-60 of the desktop market).

Ironic, isn't it, that both Linux and Apple are located at least somewhat outside of the mainstream x86 commercial software development sphere...?

(Linux development is largely noncommercial, while Apple was completely outside of the x86 world until recently and still protects itself via vendor-specific hardware).

Doesn't that reinforce the fact that a problem exists *inside* the mainstream x86 space?

>What is stopping people from buying a Mac?

I'd say inertia and compatibility issues with existing data which are in proprietary format.

> Where do you draw the line?

I believe the line should be drawn so as to maximize innovation and minimize prices. I believe all we need to achieve that purpose is: first, make closed formats illegal for a product which has a market share higher than X% (where X is decided empirically).
Second, in google's case, prevent defaults, i.e. ensure that the user chooses explicitely which search engine to use, or what antivirus to use, or what firewall to use, or what filemanager to use, and so on. Forcing the customer to choose explicitely is IMHO a reasonable solution to enforce competition and make sure that the best one wins.

I believe such laws would lower prices and speed up innovation, and the only reason why this laws are not made is that Microsoft as a lobby is very powerful. The pressure of lobbies on the parlament is the greatest problem of modern democracies.

>What is stopping people from buying a Mac?

I'd say inertia and compatibility issues with existing data which are in proprietary format.

There's Office for Mac, as well as Messenger, IE, WMP,...
Not to mention Virtual PC.


You'll have to find a better excuse. Here's a hint: 'price'.

IE for Mac is a bad example given that it's no longer being developed, and is obviously inferior to the Windows version.

Price difference with PCs isn't as bad as it used to be, when we're talking about comparable hardware from name-brand manufacturers. Of course there are cheaper options on the PC side. I lean towards shop-built systems or DIY.

Again, where do you draw the line?

The 'marketing' rebates to the OEMs are across the line. If Dell tries to ship Linux on the desktop MS cuts off millions of dollars of 'rebates' to Dell.

At one point Toshiba (I think it was Toshiba) owned a Linux distribution and Microsoft manipulated their rebates so that they couldn't even put their own software onto their own PCs and make it dual boot.

Build all OEM PCs bare and provide a line item to choose your OS or none at all. To stop manipulations allow the OS to be bought without buying a PC. That way if Dell does something cute like making Windows cost $0.01 IBM can buy 10M copies and stop paying royalties to Microsoft.

Otherwise in 20 years we'll still have Microsoft with a 90+% desktop marketshare and ISVs getting fat off its failings threatening to unleash the government on Microsoft, as a means of securing profit from the torment of users.

You, my friend, get it.

You may both "get" that argument (I certainly hope Thom, as its author, does), but neither of you seem to get "it", unless you are arguing (as you seem to be) that:

1. Microsoft has in the past been incompetent.

2. Companies that seek to make money from Microsoft's incompetence should be allowed to do so, unless of course....

3. By bundling software itself, Microsoft can patch over its past incompetence, and in doing so, is perfectly within its rights to act illegally; and both (a) other companies who seek to make money by making up for Windows' shortcomings; and (b) those who wish to make money by offering alternative products to Microsoft's should just shut up.

That, my friends, is bunk.

I don't give two flying golf balls about Microsoft or its competitors. If a company profits off of Microsoft's ineptitude at the expense of the people stuck using Windows, I don't care if Microsoft corrects its own defects and in the process destroys the ISVs profiting from it. These companies do not wish to see Microsoft improve its product nor do they wish to see Microsoft's stranglehold on the market toppled. In either case they cannot profit off of the torment of Windows users. They wish for Microsoft to provide them with an unnecessary level of service to perform, stuck between its own ineptitude and threats of anti-trust litigation.

They can be ruined by Microsoft fixing its own mistakes, or Microsoft can be broken up so that it is no longer one organization constrained by threats of anti-trust litigation into providing unnecessary levels of service for ISVs. I don't care which, personally, though for once in my life I'd like to be able to read a pseudo-technology news site without having to read about Microsoft.

If you don't care about this, then you probably don't care about anyone acting legally. Is this supposed to be a point in your favour?

They wish for Microsoft to provide them with an unnecessary level of service to perform, stuck between its own ineptitude and threats of anti-trust litigation.

No, they want Microsoft's illegally-gained monopoly to end. The special pleading you imply has in fact always been asked for in court by Microsoft['s backside].

Let see what happened recently.
Microsoft won the desktop battle, ok. Then they used windows to win the browser war. Now they use IE the same way they used windows against netscape in their battle against google. And remember ordinary users dont bother to change settings and use defaults.

Lets imagine for a while what could MS do if they get let say 70% of the search market. Would they be tempted to boost the ratings of IIS/WinServer sites? Could they use a search monopoly to "promote" their server products? I'll leave these questions open.

Just as a side note about windows media player. Have you noticed a sharp decline of the number of sites streaming in RealMedia format and switching to WMV? And if yes could you answer it to yourself why?

I am not saying if this is right or wrong. It's up to you.

And remember ordinary users dont bother to change settings and use defaults.

That would explain why MSN is the most popular search engine.

Just as a side note about windows media player. Have you noticed a sharp decline of the number of sites streaming in RealMedia format and switching to WMV? And if yes could you answer it to yourself why?

Could it be that Real Player sucked balls? Come on. Real Player was/is one of the worst media players available. Real died because they sucked and stuffed their player with ads and spyware. Not to mention WMV is light years ahead of RM in terms of compression/quality.

I feel sorry for those two that modded you up.

Of course real player is horrible. I don't use it and I don't want to see it on my desktop. but perhaps real player are willing to provide wmplayer plugin which installs nicely and automatically in the player and for some reason they could not do it. (this is my speculation about the complaints about the multimedia api)
Don't get me wrong I am just observing. As for the defaults ask yourself why switch search engines if the one defaulted to you gives you what you want - some kind of results. From my experience ordinary users don't "use firefox or search google" they just browse with what it is thrown at them (either IE or Opera or something else) and search with the first thing they get.

"Lets imagine for a while what could MS do if they get let say 70% of the search market. Would they be tempted to boost the ratings of IIS/WinServer sites? Could they use a search monopoly to "promote" their server products? I'll leave these questions open."

Google could as easily be tempted to boost ratings of sites which do *not* run IIS if they so choose. They could use a search monopoly to promote their own products - but they do that without having a monopoly anyway. It's easy enough to conjure up hypothetical situations, and despite MS's history, your points were very much hypothetical - they could be applied to anyone.

Assuming most versions of IE7 will be ones that have included in Vista as part of an OEM sale from the likes of Dell, HP etc, then Google's point is moot. The major computer manufacturers will sell the default search option to the highest bidder - which puts MSN, Google, Yahoo etc on more of an equal footing.

It's definitely not completely equal as MS has more marketing dollars than Google which in turn has more marketing dollars than Yahoo. So if MS chose to, they could easily buy their way into being the default search for every new Dell computer for example. MS however has a lot of shareholders who are already annoyed about their spending habits when trying to corner non-key markets (such as video game consoles). Search as a service is more key to Google though, so they'd probably be prepared to outbid MS or Yahoo for the main contracts.

> and if I'm buying a retail os, I EXPECT it to have a
> media player, an internet browser, etc.

With all due respect, I think what you believe is good for you is actually harmful While a software bundle makes you spare a few minutes to install applications, you are paying much more than you would if bundles were illegal, and for a worse product. It is a big problem you don't realize that.

If there were true competition, and it were illegal for Microsoft to expolit its OS to push other products by bundling them together, then prices would be lower and innovation would be quicker. The reason why the government does not promote informative campaings to make you realize that is that Microsoft's lobby is very powerful, and it prevents the government from informing the citizen of what would actually be best for him.

If there were true competition, and it were illegal for Microsoft to expolit its OS to push other products by bundling them together, then prices would be lower and innovation would be quicker.

The problem with your argument, which I stated in a previous post as well, is this: right now, innovation in the computing world is NOT slow. See Linux and OSX. Enough innovation in there. And in case you forgot: the NT kernel in itself is one big innovation as well.

Let me quote my previous post:

"He says the current situation stiffles innovation-- and yes, less choice indeed should lead to less innovation.

However, I see more than enough innovation in the Apple and Linux worlds. How does that rhyme with the assessment of the current situation the parent poster [you, Seguso] sketched? Might it just be that this monopoly is far less strangling than many people seem to (or want to) admit? That it is... A perceived monopoly?"

Edited 2006-05-07 21:40

Thom, first of all you are ignoring the "lower price" argument, which by itself makes a sufficient reason for enforcing competition (i.e. for preventing bundles, defaults and closed formats).

As for innovation, excuse me but you cannot say it's quick as it could be. You can't know what it'd be like if the companies were really competing for features. Would we have vocal input? Would we have intelligent parsing of natural language? Who knows. We can only believe what's has been proven in other context, i.e. that competition increases the pace of innovation. One has to believe what is more likely given the informations we've got.

No, we would not have those things. Those are not just limited by software progression, but by hardware as well. And in fact, Microsoft has helped to bring hardware prices DOWN and they have advanced at a very fast pace.

"if google.com will one day [hypothetically] become a monopoly in the search market: will they have to include a yahoo, msn search box on their page? no. for the same reason, I don't see why IE should default to an other companies search engine."

No, you got it wrong here. The equivalent to your example would be Microsoft having to include Linux in their Windows install disks.

Google would be breaking the law if they used their (hypothetical) monopoly in search to push *another* product/service of theirs. Keyword being *another*.