Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 14th Jan 2008 23:16 UTC, submitted by Tanked
The European Commission is launching two new anti-competition investigations against US computer giant Microsoft. The first will look at whether Microsoft unfairly ties its Explorer internet browser to its Windows operating system. In the parallel investigation, the Commission will look at the interoperability of Microsoft software with rival products. Note: Remember the OSNews comic? Here is a new comic, which, for now, is attached to the story it relates to. We are working on a separate section for the comic, but until that is done, I will sporadically publish comics this way. I have a whole stack of comics ready for when that section goes live - and you can see the name for the comic too, if you look "closely". Enjoy the new comic, titled "Hawaii".
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Member since:
2005-07-08
It seems that the issue at bar in the IE investigation should be: Is Microsoft in any way preventing or discouraging OEMs from replacing IE with an alternative browser in their default system images? If the OEMs are choosing independently of Microsoft and/or each other to include only IE, then I don't think that there is a case against Microsoft.
The only alternative is to argue that Microsoft should be prohibited from including a browser with their operating system. But the OEMs won't ship a system image with no browser. If they are free to add whichever one they want, and they select IE, then we're back where we started.
It's sort of like an aftermarket muffler company complaining that the automakers are being anticompetitive by shipping their cars with stock mufflers already installed. Mozilla, Opera, and other browser distributors need to understand that their products are aftermarket items. They need to effectively make the case for why users and OEMs should ditch the stock IE for their superior browsers. If they aren't making that case, then they aren't really competing, and Microsoft isn't really being anticompetitive.