The antitrust regulator in South Korea will begin a crucial hearing on Tuesday (Monday evening US time) to determine whether Microsoft violated the country's fair trade rules by bundling its instant messenger and Media Player programs into its Windows XP platform. Officials have been reticent about whether the regulator, the Fair Trade Commission, will rule on the case after a closed hearing of two days. The commission held a closed hearing in July to listen to arguments from Microsoft and its local competitors, but it has not clarified how many more hearings it will need before ruling.
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Member since:2005-07-06
>"Implicit in all these antitrust lawsuits is the implicit assumption that end users are too sheepish and stupid to choose a superior product when a mediocre one is pushed in their face."
Ints not an assumption though,. The numbes speak for themselves.
>"The fact of the matter is, there isn't a lot of evidence to support that theory."
I'm surprised to hear someone say that as the lack of evidence sways more against your argument.
>"Firefox has been downloaded 75+ million times."
And despite being a better product, never managed to gain any more than 10% of the market.
>"iTunes dominates the online music business"
Because its tied to the best MP3 player hardware.
>"WinAmp still has a strong following."
Actually its very small now that iTunes dominates the market.
>"AOL instant messenger is the standard amongst most college students."
Because its associated the market behind it was grown by a company as large if not larger than Microsoft.
>"Moreover, some of them come preinstalled from OEMs. iTunes, for instance, comes with HP systems."
No longer.
>"Should Microsoft take the extra effort to remove the icons and all the application files for bundled apps?"
Yes. They are extending their monopoly when doing so... and that is both illegal and anticompetative as well as unfair.
>"Microsoft won the browser market when IE became a better product"
They wont the market after limiting the potential for sales for their competitors by illegall bundling their product into their monopoly operating system. As a result, the competition had reduced funds to develop their software. The trend continued until Microsoft's key oppontent had to be sold off.
>"now that they've fallen behind, Firefox has given them a run for their money"
And still ocupies an extremely small portion of the market despite being free and being significantly better. THAT is the illegalmonopoly in action.
>"A lot of the people eager to see Microsoft get taken down through antitrust litigation are either (a) competitors who have a strong desire to have governments to the heavy lifting of competing for them or (b) various miscontents with a self-righteous sense of justice that would be better spent elsewhere."
Or people who feel that they are best served by a fair and competative marketplace. Funny that you felt inclined to omit that one.
Member since:2005-06-29
How does including Internet Explorer *stop* customers from downloading and installing Firefox? How does including Windows Media Player *stop* people from downloading and installing Real Media Player? How does including software Y *stop* people from downloading and installing software Z?
To go back to Apple. You say Apple does not have a monopoly and therefor should be allowed to include whatever the hell it wants with their computers/OS. This statement is false in almost every sense.
Firstly, Apple *does* have a monopoly. It has the monopoly in the PowerPC desktop/laptop market. Companies like Genesi, Terra Soft, Canonical and every other company providing PPC-based solutions suffer from Apple having the monopoly on PPC systems. So, someone should sue Apple for not selling OS-less PowerPC systems.
Secondly, I can buy OS X as a full version seperatly from a Mac (like I've done with Tiger during a release party in Berlin). However, Tiger came loaded with Safari, iChat, etc. Now, Apple should remove those applications, just like MS.
Member since:
2005-07-11
Sorry, but this just absurd. Implicit in all these antitrust lawsuits is the implicit assumption that end users are too sheepish and stupid to choose a superior product when a mediocre one is pushed in their face. The fact of the matter is, there isn't a lot of evidence to support that theory. Firefox has been downloaded 75+ million times. iTunes dominates the online music business; WinAmp still has a strong following. AOL instant messenger is the standard amongst most college students.
All of these products are competing with applications bundled in Windows, and they're kicking ass despite it. Moreover, some of them come preinstalled from OEMs. iTunes, for instance, comes with HP systems. Likewise, my Toshiba tablet had not one, but two (wtf?!), AOL trials bundled with it.
Should Microsoft take the extra effort to remove the icons and all the application files for bundled apps? Maybe. In practice though, it doesn't seem to have made a bit of difference. Microsoft won the browser market when IE became a better product; now that they've fallen behind, Firefox has given them a run for their money--just as one would expect in a competitive market. A lot of the people eager to see Microsoft get taken down through antitrust litigation are either (a) competitors who have a strong desire to have governments to the heavy lifting of competing for them or (b) various miscontents with a self-righteous sense of justice that would be better spent elsewhere.