EU Might Force OEMs to Offer Choice of Browsers During Setup
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 26th Jan 2009 11:56 UTC
Internet & Networking Earlier this month, news got out that the European Commission is charging Microsoft with unlawful competition regarding its bundling of the Internet Explorer web bowser with Windows. At the time, information was scarce, but thanks to Microsoft's quarterly filing at the Securities and Exchange Commission. we now have a little more insight into what the EU might force Microsoft to do.
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RE[2]: Better measures
by Moulinneuf on Tue 27th Jan 2009 08:35 UTC in reply to "RE: Better measures"
Moulinneuf
Member since:
2005-07-06

Should the OEM contract pricing for intel processors, nvidia chipsets, Seagate hard drives, and every other manufacturer component possible, be made public as well?


Why not ?

Let's take it a step farther,


Your not , your making ridicule of your own argument.

but targeting them for unreasonable government intervention


They make themself the target , by breaking the law.

opens the door for further unreasonable government intervention right across the board.


You failed to proove , you know in court , that the demand where unreasonnable.

You can't demand a refund from Ford because they bundled an engine with your car when you'd prefer to install your own.


Actually you can.

1. The motor come with blueprints.
2. You can swap in any motor you want.
3. There is a big customization market and really big after market for it.

There is an argument to be made about Microsoft enforcing acceptance of an EULA


No , the argument as been made that they are all illegal , because most people don't have any clue what it say , that they did not enter into it with same bargainning power.

If a vendor won't sell a system without Windows pre-installed


Then they are doing something illegal ...

This isn't a Microsoft issue.


Actually all vendor have testified to being pressused and menaced by Microsoft under oath ...

Who decides which 2 competitors are included?


The end user.

And who at HP, or any other manufacturer, is going to deal with the potential for increased customer support, from bundling additional software?


The same people that already do for all their included software ...

Is Mozilla, Apple or Opera willing to ... with the system they purchased?


They already do the support.

Forcing hardware manufacturers to install software by mandate will simply result in incurred costs that will be happily passed on to consumers.


It's a punishment for Microsoft , that your falsely arguing is actually a hardware maker problem ...

If Microsoft can't follow the law and include what is demanded of them then the law will punish them and the hardware maker will drop them as not to be accomplice in Microsoft criminal activities.

They already have.


Forgive me if I don't respect or believe your words ...

but you're not even addressing the core problem, simply encouraging wider spread adoption of proprietary standards.


Proprietary standards are not illegal ... Yet ;-)

If the gov't is going to intervene in this area, then they should ditch proprietary standards and utilize open ones.


They already do require open source solution , the problem with Microsoft ( and Open Source in general ) is they support the standard but they modify and break the support of other of it by adding addition on top of it that they don't share with others. Everything that exist is based on Open Source standards.

Free Software is the only real viable solution.

And refuse to utilize software that doesn't comply. That will do far more to impact Microsoft's behavior than any nuisance-type remedies will.


They can do both , and that's what they are doing ...

The problem with your argmunet and why it's flaud is that Microsoft is not a respectfull corporation that follow all laws and respect the courts and market it's in or even the punishment it's suppose to follow.

They abuse there market privilege to kill competition in other markets.

Edited 2009-01-27 08:38 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2