microsoft european commission ruling

[joggerjayne]

Any views on Monday's EC Ruling requiring Microsoft to bundle 12 optional browsers in with the Windows OS?

Opera say it will "boost innovation" ... (well, they would, wouldn't they ... they only have a 2.5% market share, and Microsoft are now obliged to promote Opera's browser!)

Has Microsoft's market dominance really stifled consumer choice, as the Corporate Antitrust actions have tried to claim?

Or do we only have our current low priced choices because of the freedom and dominance thus far enjoyed by Microsoft?

Let's face it ... it's not exactly difficult to choose a different browser. I use Firefox, as do 24% of the market.

x

[bibblebub]

Have you looked in the technology/computer/internet board on this site let alone others? There are a lot of people who just use what's in front of them and changing their default internet browser would be something that they are very unlikely to contemplate.

[bibblebub]

^^^ in that first sentence I meant to suggest the level of technical knowledge of some of the posters on those boards

[ChuckFickens]

M$ need these rulings to reign them in otherwise they will try and use their normal bully boy tactics to push everyone else out the market take everyone over and patent everything as their idea.

Given half the chance they would try and apply for a patent for web browsers to stop any one else from making one (and if you think thats a stupid thing to say keep in mind they successfully applied for a patent for ""A method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments" in 2008, This basically means they now have the patent on the page up and page down keys on your keyboard, which were on keyboards way before M$ even existed!)

[joggerjayne]

But over a third of all users switch to a different browser.

And anyway ... what is wrong with everyone using IE ?

[ChuckFickens]

"what is wrong with everyone using IE"

Because if there was no choice M$ would slowly and quietly try and make everyone use their web based services by making them the default in IE and with no other browser available nobody would know there was other options available.

It's a bit like asking why do we not have one state controlled news service, because everyone would be forced to see what that one service wanted you to see,

[jake-the-peg]

Microsoft have a history of putting smaller companys out of business by reproducing what they do and just including it with windows.

If that sort of behaviour is left unchecked then microsoft will be the only game in town which is good for their shareholders but not so good for consumers.

A bit like if the only cars were Fords

Fortunately the EU has the size and the weight to be able to do this sort of thing - I cant imagine any single European country having the ability to stand up to a multinational the size of M$ on it's own - can you?

[Gromit]

Microsoft have a habit of being slow to adopt other technologies into their IE browser which they do not control, then adopting their own proprietry versions as well. They also do not follow properly web standards which are designed so that websites work universally the same no matter what machine and browser you are running.
The result is that code for IE often does not work in any other browser. There would be no problem with that if IE didn't come as default resulting in 70 % of people used it.

Other browsers on the market are just as good, and in some cases very much better. The theory is, if people find out that other browsers are better and switch to them, Microsoft might actually put some effort into making IE better, instead of the complacency they show now.

[jno]

It sure stifled your chances of using Netscape Navigator, didn't it?

[ABerrant]

Not really relevant to the discussion but an inaccuracy nonetheless... the EU Ruling dates from 16th December 2009.

http://europa.eu/rapi...age=EN&guiLanguage=en