“A federal judge has dismissed a year-old lawsuit against Microsoft over alleged antitrust violations for the ‘downgrade’ rules it set for Windows Vista and XP. The order issued Monday by US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman put an end to the lawsuit filed by Emma Alvarado in February 2009. In her original complaint, the Los Angeles resident accused Microsoft of coercing computer makers into forcing consumers who wanted to run Windows XP to first buy Windows Vista, or later, Windows 7, before they were allowed to downgrade to XP.”
I’m somewhat in Microsoft’s side… most software companies do this. When CS4 comes out, CS3 isn’t available anymore as an example. So really it was good of them to still sell XP.
Where I have a hard time feeling good about that, it’s really hard to side with Microsoft when the “new” software that was released wasn’t better than the older software. Makes it hard to justify the upgrade, which is why everyone still wanted XP.
Bah, it hurts sitting on a fence!
True.
Now Mac OS Snow Leopard (10.6) is out, it’s very hard to find the older Mac OS Leopard (10.5).
Some people can’t use Snow Leopard, particularly if they’ve got non-Intel Macs.
The only way to get it, it seems, is to pay over-the-odd to Amazon sellers who still have stock, and some are charging $230 to $270!
Source: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000FK88JK/ref=dp_olp_new?ie…
Of course, what she really should have been suing about is the fact that she has to purchase Windows at all (unless she wanted it).
Just try to buy a computer without Windows. Unless you’re building it yourself from components, you have to pay Microsoft for their trash even if you intend to erase it as soon as the machine is in your hands.
Back in the 1990s the Clinton administration was wasting its time suing Microsoft over including Internet Explorer. The Bush administration dropped the suit, but the Europeans have continued the case against IE right up to now. As if IE was costing you extra, and you couldn’t download Firefox.
Meanwhile, none of these anti-trust regulators see anything wrong with forcing consumers to buy Windows, even though (unlike IE) you DO pay for it, even if you don’t want it.
As if IE was costing you extra…
Well, this is debatable. MS might not charge you directly when you download IE, but you are not allowed to use it on anything else than Windows and as such you need to pay up for a Windows license before you can use IE “for free”.
Meanwhile, none of these anti-trust regulators see anything wrong with forcing consumers to buy Windows, even though (unlike IE) you DO pay for it, even if you don’t want it.
Bingo! In the Netherlands the superfluous browser ballot screen is hailed as a major win for competition and a win for consumer choice. Too bad they are just 15 years too late.
They even went so far as having our consumer protection watchdog “Consumentenbond” say that it is a good thing, as it it strange to assume that it is normal to have all kinds of software tied to the purchase of a computer.
My first reaction was incredulity at the blindness they portray. If having choice in browsers is good for consumers, why aren’t they looking into the near compulsory bundling of Windows with a PC? Or are we at the point were people believe that Windows is an integral part of the PC?