[Stop Press] No Win7 upgrade for Europe
Attila
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8118749.stm
It just keeps getting funnier. Champagne anyone?
Attila
--
Registerd Linux user #445917 at http://counter.li.org/
Roy Schestowitz
Hash: SHA1
____/ Attila on Thursday 25 June 2009 15:42 : \____
> "Microsoft will not be offering an upgrade version of Windows 7 in Europe."
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8118749.stm
> It just keeps getting funnier. Champagne anyone?
> Attila
Ha!
So where would Microsoft actually make money? Only Europe and America pay
decent money (because they are forced to) for Windows while other products
like MSN and XBox burn $billions for Microsoft. In most parts of the world
Microsoft dumps its software at no charge.
No wonder Microsoft is borrowing money.
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useful fact: close elevator button = Express Mode
http://Schestowitz.com | Free as in Free Beer | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Cpu(s): 22.6%us, 5.0%sy, 0.1%ni, 70.6%id, 1.3%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.4%si, 0.0%st
http://iuron.com - semantic engine to gather information
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Chris Ahlstrom
this bit o' wisdom:
> "Microsoft will not be offering an upgrade version of Windows 7 in Europe."
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8118749.stm
> It just keeps getting funnier. Champagne anyone?
No, you missed this point:
In Europe, the full version will be priced as if it were an upgrade
version if bought by an existing Windows licence holder.
--
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed
down-stairs a step at a time.
-- Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Billy Brit
> After takin' a swig o' grog, Attila belched out
> this bit o' wisdom:
>> "Microsoft will not be offering an upgrade version of Windows 7 in Europe."
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8118749.stm
>> It just keeps getting funnier. Champagne anyone?
> No, you missed this point:
> In Europe, the full version will be priced as if it were an upgrade
> version if bought by an existing Windows licence holder.
The prices quoted in the article didn't seem to reflect that.
amicus_curious
"Attila" <jdka...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:h205tc$dc2$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> "Microsoft will not be offering an upgrade version of Windows 7 in
> Europe."
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8118749.stm
> It just keeps getting funnier. Champagne anyone?
Microsoft competitors often cry out for a "level playing field" and in a
sense Microsoft's move here is the ultimate test of that idea.
Those who want the level field still seem to want it to be in a stadium
provided by Microsoft and paid for from Microsoft's past and future profits.
They want Microsoft to fund a user selection method that will
auto-distribute their individual browser versions and the EU has suggested
that this would satisfy the EU as well. I am sure that the method would
limit Microsoft's ability to pitch the IE choice, too, leaving the selection
to much more chance and offering all contenders an equal chance of being
picked by the consumer. Microsoft seems to have another idea, though.
The EU's stated concern is that Microsoft manipulates the browser choice
merely by including it with Windows and billions of Euros in fines are
inadequate to correct that advantage. Microsoft's incisive strategy is to
simply offer no choice at all. Let someone else who might care more offer
any choice, they now say. Let the user decide, they say, and force that to
be an informed decision rather than a random decision by having the
customer, whether it be an OEM or an end user doing an upgrade or building
their own machine, have to seek out and choose what they feel will be best
for them.
Of course the competition is immediately aware that they lose a lot of
ability to compete since it becomes much more expensive to address the
consumers if there is no internet connection at the start. Then they have
to develop some sort of alternate distribution such as CD/DVDs available in
retail outlets or via mail-order or the like. Microsoft has the ability to
do this since they are already doing media advertising and distribute
products via channels that reach into retail locations. Microsoft's
incremental cost of doing this is much lower than, say, Opera, since
Microsoft already has staff engaged with distributors and OEMs on a regular
basis and the added burden for this is essentially a dollar or two for media
fulfillment and shipping costs. Opera would have to establish this
capability on a scale equal to the distribution channel scale of Windows
itself and that is a prohibitive cost. As prohibitive as it might be for
Opera, it would be worse for Firefox and some others who have no real income
at all. Even Apple would be thwarted since they have next to no retail
store presence and no real way to recoup any costs suddenly associated with
promoting their own browser.
The best course that the competition might have is to deal directly with the
OEMs who are far fewer in number and likely to be less expensive to contact.
I don't think that works either, since the OEMs are not really interested in
any sort of choice in terms of OS or browser. They will meet competition on
this issue in that, if Dell might be willing to come up with some kind of
choice screen and offer multiple browsers, HP, say, might do it too and
thereby force the rest of the OEMs in the world to do likewise, but there is
nothing that the OEM can actually hope to gain from the added expense and
would probably simply continue to supply IE along with a web page or two
about how an end user might contact Firefox or Opera or others for a place
to download an alternative browser. Of course that is what is happening now
anyway, so that is unlikely to thrill the EU or the browser makers.
I doubt that even the EU can get their courts to insist that a manufacturer
must include a choice of competitive features in their own product in the
absence of any tying or bundling complaints.
Attila
No, Billy. I understood the article the way Chris did.
"In Europe, the full version will be priced as if it were an upgrade version
if bought by an existing Windows licence holder."
And Chris, I did get the point. That's why I'm laughing.
Ad Hominem (HPT's coach)
news:h205tc$dc2$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> "Microsoft.................................
Your post is off-topic in COLA, your violating [comp.os.linux.advocacy] FAQ
and Primer for COLA, Edition III
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/
Frequent violators [ *TROLLS* ] are HPT, Roy Schestwitz, Tattoo Vampire,
"7", Mark Kent, Terry Porter,
Chris Ahlstrom, Peter K�hlmann, nes...@wigner.berkeley.edu, Homer, chrisv,
William Poaster. These *TROLLS* should be killfiled by honest advocates.
http://tantek.pbwiki.com/TrollTaxonomy
Anti-corporate trolls
Anti-microsoft trolls
Paranoid trolls
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/
[quote]
7 Anti-Linux Propagandists and Trolls
7.5 Where the Disrupters Should Go
* The trespasser has come to COLA in order to vent his dislike of
Microsoft and/or Windows. For that purpose several newsgroups have
been created.
* alt.crimehip.microsoft.sucks
* alt.emircpih.microsoft.sucks
* alt.flame.ms-windows
* alt.h.i.p.c.r.i.m.e.microsoft.sucks
* alt.h0pcr0me.microsoft.sucks
* alt.h1pcr1me.microsoft.sucks
* alt.h2pcr2me.microsoft.sucks
* alt.hh.ii.pp.cc.rr.ii.mm.ee.microsoft.sucks
* alt.hipclone.microsoft.sucks
* alt.hipcrime.microsoft.sucks
* alt.microsoft.crash.crash.crash
* alt.microsoft.sucks
* alt.os.windows95.crash.crash.crash
* comp.misc.microsoft.sucks
* microsoft.sucks.
* sk.sux.microsoft
[/quote]
Fsck you arsehole troll
*PLONK*
JEDIDIAH
>
> "Attila" <jdka...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:h205tc$dc2$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>> "Microsoft will not be offering an upgrade version of Windows 7 in
>> Europe."
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8118749.stm
>> It just keeps getting funnier. Champagne anyone?
>
> Microsoft competitors often cry out for a "level playing field" and in a
> sense Microsoft's move here is the ultimate test of that idea.
>
> Those who want the level field still seem to want it to be in a stadium
> provided by Microsoft and paid for from Microsoft's past and future profits.
...ill gotten gains.
[deletia]
I rather prefer the idea of eliminating their monopoly position
formally by forcing all of their vendor standards to become formal
3rd party standards that are no longer in their control and having
national governments all over the world just use their normal
competitive bidding rules.
--
Sophocles wants his cut. |||
/ | \
amicus_curious
"JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
news:slrnh47fj...@nomad.mishnet...
>
> I rather prefer the idea of eliminating their monopoly position
> formally by forcing all of their vendor standards to become formal
> 3rd party standards that are no longer in their control and having
> national governments all over the world just use their normal
> competitive bidding rules.
>
are interchange formats for data files and signalling protocols for
communications. If all of Microsoft's formats and methods are suddenly
given ISO standards status nothing changes other than Microsoft's sudden
ability to claim that they are 100% standard. They don't have any secret
methods for these things now, so how does publishing them as standards hurt
them? You are not thinking too clearly here.
Didn't all the anti-MS folk get up in arms when Microsoft pushed their OOXML
standard? It seems to me that you are not paying attention to your party
line.
JEDIDIAH
> news:slrnh47fj...@nomad.mishnet...
>>
>> I rather prefer the idea of eliminating their monopoly position
>> formally by forcing all of their vendor standards to become formal
>> 3rd party standards that are no longer in their control and having
>> national governments all over the world just use their normal
>> competitive bidding rules.
>>
> How would that make any difference? The only thing that standards affect
> are interchange formats for data files and signalling protocols for
...and ABI interfaces and API interfaces.
Don't you pay attention to the other threads? Like the ones that
are talking about .net and OpenGL. Those kinds of standards allows
software to flow pretty easily from Unix to Unix.
> communications. If all of Microsoft's formats and methods are suddenly
> given ISO standards status nothing changes other than Microsoft's sudden
> ability to claim that they are 100% standard. They don't have any secret
They are also no longer secret.
They are also no longer in Microsoft's control.
> methods for these things now, so how does publishing them as standards hurt
> them? You are not thinking too clearly here.
>
> Didn't all the anti-MS folk get up in arms when Microsoft pushed their OOXML
> standard? It seems to me that you are not paying attention to your party
> line.
The key idea there is "their" standard.
Of course there is a practical problem of ensuring that Microsoft no longer
has any control of the relevant standards. Then there's the whole issue
with fully specifying it. This was one of the problems with OOXML.
...as far as the part line goes:
We're Linux users. We're not some sort of Apple/Microsoft borg collective.
--
Linux: because everyone should get to drink the beer of their |||
choice and not merely be limited to pretensious imports or hard cider. / | \
amicus_curious
"JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
amicus_curious
"JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
> On 2009-06-25, amicus_curious <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
>>
>> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>> news:slrnh47fj...@nomad.mishnet...
>>>
>>> I rather prefer the idea of eliminating their monopoly position
>>> formally by forcing all of their vendor standards to become formal
>>> 3rd party standards that are no longer in their control and having
>>> national governments all over the world just use their normal
>>> competitive bidding rules.
>>>
>> How would that make any difference? The only thing that standards affect
>> are interchange formats for data files and signalling protocols for
>
> ...and ABI interfaces and API interfaces.
>
like a lot of work. Why not just log onto MSDN.Microsoft.Com? They are all
there already.
> Don't you pay attention to the other threads? Like the ones that
> are talking about .net and OpenGL. Those kinds of standards allows
> software to flow pretty easily from Unix to Unix.
>
If someone uses them, sure. The problem is when someone uses DirectX
instead. So if you make DirectX standard, too, then the developer has the
choice of two standards. But the developer already has the choice of using
one or the other.
>> communications. If all of Microsoft's formats and methods are suddenly
>> given ISO standards status nothing changes other than Microsoft's sudden
>> ability to claim that they are 100% standard. They don't have any secret
>
> They are also no longer secret.
>
> They are also no longer in Microsoft's control.
>
I don't see where it matters. If Microsoft wants to change something, they
simply become non-standard. If the standards committee changes the standard
to a new revision, no one has to follow it, they simply are compliant with
the old revision. Since nobody cares about the standard itself, just about
how data is compatible, the people who want their stuff to work just keep
using the old standard version. If Microsoft changes it some other way,
then Microsoft is non-standard, but they have been non-standard for 25 years
and it has not hurt their business.
>> methods for these things now, so how does publishing them as standards
>> hurt
>> them? You are not thinking too clearly here.
>>
>> Didn't all the anti-MS folk get up in arms when Microsoft pushed their
>> OOXML
>> standard? It seems to me that you are not paying attention to your party
>> line.
>
> The key idea there is "their" standard.
>
Exactly, and you want to take all of Microsoft's formats and protocols and
do the same thing? Then there will be thousands of "their" standards.
> Of course there is a practical problem of ensuring that Microsoft no
> longer
> has any control of the relevant standards. Then there's the whole issue
> with fully specifying it. This was one of the problems with OOXML.
>
> ...as far as the part line goes:
>
> We're Linux users. We're not some sort of Apple/Microsoft borg
> collective.
>
I don't think that you have a solid understanding of the issues here. You
are pushing on a rope.
JEDIDIAH
>
> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
> news:slrnh47q0...@nomad.mishnet...
>> On 2009-06-25, amicus_curious <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>>> news:slrnh47fj...@nomad.mishnet...
>>>>
>>>> I rather prefer the idea of eliminating their monopoly position
>>>> formally by forcing all of their vendor standards to become formal
>>>> 3rd party standards that are no longer in their control and having
>>>> national governments all over the world just use their normal
>>>> competitive bidding rules.
>>>>
>>> How would that make any difference? The only thing that standards affect
>>> are interchange formats for data files and signalling protocols for
>>
>> ...and ABI interfaces and API interfaces.
>>
> Do you want the ISO to publish the Windows APIs as standards? That seems
> like a lot of work. Why not just log onto MSDN.Microsoft.Com? They are all
> there already.
...that little thing about control you seem to be ignoring.
[deletia]
The reason you are able to bother us here in this forum is the fact
that there exist non-vendor standards for communications devices that
allow multiple vendors to make devices, those devices to all be able
to interact with each other, and also drives down the prices of these
devices by fostering price competition among vendors.
--
It is not true that Microsoft doesn't innovate.
They brought us the email virus.
In my Atari days, such a notion would have |||
been considered a complete absurdity. / | \
amicus_curious
"JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
> On 2009-06-25, amicus_curious <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
>>
>> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>> news:slrnh47q0...@nomad.mishnet...
>>> On 2009-06-25, amicus_curious <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>>>> news:slrnh47fj...@nomad.mishnet...
>>>>>
>>>>> I rather prefer the idea of eliminating their monopoly position
>>>>> formally by forcing all of their vendor standards to become formal
>>>>> 3rd party standards that are no longer in their control and having
>>>>> national governments all over the world just use their normal
>>>>> competitive bidding rules.
>>>>>
>>>> How would that make any difference? The only thing that standards
>>>> affect
>>>> are interchange formats for data files and signalling protocols for
>>>
>>> ...and ABI interfaces and API interfaces.
>>>
>> Do you want the ISO to publish the Windows APIs as standards? That seems
>> like a lot of work. Why not just log onto MSDN.Microsoft.Com? They are
>> all
>> there already.
>
> ...that little thing about control you seem to be ignoring.
>
Do you suggest that publishing a standard describing the Windows APIs can
defeat Microsoft's control of the desktop platform business? Isn't that
what WINE is trying to do with such a mixed result?
>
> The reason you are able to bother us here in this forum is the fact
> that there exist non-vendor standards for communications devices that
> allow multiple vendors to make devices, those devices to all be able
> to interact with each other, and also drives down the prices of these
> devices by fostering price competition among vendors.
>
You seem to miss the woods because there are trees in the way. Prices are
driven down by technology improvements in hardware. Remember how hard
drives were 20Mb or even smaller and cost a thousand bucks to boot? The
price didn't come down an order of magnitude and the capacity go up about
10,000 times or more because of a few vendors beating each other up over
price, it was some dramatic improvements in technology that resulted in a
much lower cost. Same thing applies to LCD displays and CPUs , memory, and
other major circuits.
Hans Lister
> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>> The reason you are able to bother us here in this forum is the fact
>> that there exist non-vendor standards for communications devices that
>> allow multiple vendors to make devices, those devices to all be able
>> to interact with each other, and also drives down the prices of these
>> devices by fostering price competition among vendors.
>>
> You seem to miss the woods because there are trees in the way. Prices are
> driven down by technology improvements in hardware. Remember how hard
> drives were 20Mb or even smaller and cost a thousand bucks to boot? The
> price didn't come down an order of magnitude and the capacity go up about
> 10,000 times or more because of a few vendors beating each other up over
> price, it was some dramatic improvements in technology that resulted in a
> much lower cost. Same thing applies to LCD displays and CPUs , memory, and
> other major circuits.
Jeddiah is a fossil from some previous universe.
He is a green screen trow back who has no clue what modern
computing is about.
Don't even waste your time replying to him because all you will
get is rhymes and riddles.
JEDIDIAH
> On Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:17:26 -0400, amicus_curious wrote:
>
>> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>
>>> The reason you are able to bother us here in this forum is the fact
>>> that there exist non-vendor standards for communications devices that
>>> allow multiple vendors to make devices, those devices to all be able
>>> to interact with each other, and also drives down the prices of these
>>> devices by fostering price competition among vendors.
>>>
>> You seem to miss the woods because there are trees in the way. Prices are
>> driven down by technology improvements in hardware. Remember how hard
>> drives were 20Mb or even smaller and cost a thousand bucks to boot? The
>> price didn't come down an order of magnitude and the capacity go up about
>> 10,000 times or more because of a few vendors beating each other up over
>> price, it was some dramatic improvements in technology that resulted in a
>> much lower cost. Same thing applies to LCD displays and CPUs , memory, and
>> other major circuits.
>
> Jeddiah is a fossil from some previous universe.
Repeating a lie won't make it any more true.
> He is a green screen trow back who has no clue what modern
> computing is about.
>
> Don't even waste your time replying to him because all you will
> get is rhymes and riddles.
--
Oracle... can't live with it... |||
/ | \
can't just replace it with postgres...
JEDIDIAH
Wine isn't a specification. It's an implementation.
>
>>
>> The reason you are able to bother us here in this forum is the fact
>> that there exist non-vendor standards for communications devices that
>> allow multiple vendors to make devices, those devices to all be able
>> to interact with each other, and also drives down the prices of these
>> devices by fostering price competition among vendors.
>>
> You seem to miss the woods because there are trees in the way. Prices are
> driven down by technology improvements in hardware. Remember how hard
They are also driven down by competitors willing to undercut some
vendor that thinks they can charge 60 kilobucks per CPU for some bit
of software. Improvement in any product occurs because multiple greedy
bastards are trying to undermine everyone else.
> drives were 20Mb or even smaller and cost a thousand bucks to boot? The
> price didn't come down an order of magnitude and the capacity go up about
> 10,000 times or more because of a few vendors beating each other up over
...and what do you think drives companies to make those improvements?
Seagate didn't invent perpendicular drive technology just to be nice.
They invented it to sell more hard drives and get an edge on their
competition. If not for their fuckups in firmware it would have worked out
quite well too.
> price, it was some dramatic improvements in technology that resulted in a
> much lower cost. Same thing applies to LCD displays and CPUs , memory, and
> other major circuits.
>
>
amicus_curious
"JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
defeat Microsoft's control of the desktop platform business. WINE, I would
expect, gets their information on Windows APIs from reading the details of
each API in the MSDN documentation, just as everyone who writes application
software gets that information. If you implement all the APIs, you have
something that works identically to Windows in terms of how an application
responds. WINE has come a long way, but it has implemented only a small
percentage of the Windows APIs, relying on implementing those that are most
popular with application developers and fine tuning for individual popular
applications.
It seems like a mindless sort of development, i.e. aping someone else's
design, although I guess it is mentally stimulating. Sort of like doing the
Sunday NYT crossword. I guess it appeals to those who are adept at
programming but who cannot conceive of the marketing adage "Find a need and
fill it!". Consider that a "me, too!" version of Windows is likely to have
about the same success as OO does as a "me, too!" version of MS Office.
People want the real thing, not ersatz.
>>
>>>
>>> The reason you are able to bother us here in this forum is the fact
>>> that there exist non-vendor standards for communications devices that
>>> allow multiple vendors to make devices, those devices to all be able
>>> to interact with each other, and also drives down the prices of these
>>> devices by fostering price competition among vendors.
>>>
>> You seem to miss the woods because there are trees in the way. Prices
>> are
>> driven down by technology improvements in hardware. Remember how hard
>
> They are also driven down by competitors willing to undercut some
> vendor that thinks they can charge 60 kilobucks per CPU for some bit
> of software. Improvement in any product occurs because multiple greedy
> bastards are trying to undermine everyone else.
>
Well, your theory of business is badly flawed, then. A successful technical
product will be the winner in the minds of the purchaser when it is the
winner in some form of feature, function, and benefit analysis made by that
purchaser. Price points are set by product managers based on their
perception of the value proposition they see for their intended customer.
If a product will provide a greater benefit, always measured in terms of
money, for a prospect than any competing product, it can be sold merely by
contacting the prospect and showing him the comparison between your product
and any other. Once it is understood that a particular product is more
beneficial and the priority for purchasing that product rises to the head of
the line, there is a sale.
If that entails a 60 kilobuck CPU, no matter as long as the customer gets
more than 60 kilobucks worth of benefit.
>> drives were 20Mb or even smaller and cost a thousand bucks to boot? The
>> price didn't come down an order of magnitude and the capacity go up about
>> 10,000 times or more because of a few vendors beating each other up over
>
> ...and what do you think drives companies to make those improvements?
>
> Seagate didn't invent perpendicular drive technology just to be nice.
> They invented it to sell more hard drives and get an edge on their
> competition. If not for their fuckups in firmware it would have worked out
> quite well too.
>
Seagate was looking for a better product that had a feature, function,
benefit analysis better than any competitor. That is not a price war.
Price is often the resulting factor that proves the equation, though, and I
can see how you can be misled by the superficial view of things.
JEDIDIAH
Wine is meant to run Windows applications.
Quit fabricating stuff.
[deletia]
Macs can be "Unix compliant" without having to worry about whether or
not Sun or IBM or HP will just alter that specification to maximize their
own competitive advantage. They can run bash and X and ssh and be compile
time compatable with Linux or HP/UX or AIX or Solaris and not have to
worry about that being sabotaged by a monopolist.
--
Linux: Because I don't want to push pretty buttons. |||
I want the pretty buttons to push themelves. / | \
amicus_curious
"JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>
> Macs can be "Unix compliant" without having to worry about whether or
> not Sun or IBM or HP will just alter that specification to maximize their
> own competitive advantage. They can run bash and X and ssh and be compile
> time compatable with Linux or HP/UX or AIX or Solaris and not have to
> worry about that being sabotaged by a monopolist.
>
subject is "Macs" here, but that is an inanimate object, so presumably you
either mean Apple itself, or Macintosh users.
JEDIDIAH
> news:slrnh49mn...@nomad.mishnet...
>>
>> Macs can be "Unix compliant" without having to worry about whether or
>> not Sun or IBM or HP will just alter that specification to maximize their
>> own competitive advantage. They can run bash and X and ssh and be compile
>> time compatable with Linux or HP/UX or AIX or Solaris and not have to
>> worry about that being sabotaged by a monopolist.
>>
> What would you see as an example of be "sabotaged by a monopolist"? Your
Every new version of any of the Windows APIs.
Every new version of any of the Microsoft office applications.
> subject is "Macs" here, but that is an inanimate object, so presumably you
> either mean Apple itself, or Macintosh users.
>
--
Unfortunately, the universe will not conform itself to
your fantasies. You have to manage based on what really happens |||
rather than what you would like to happen. This is true of personal / | \
affairs, government and business.
ZnU
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
This is extremely unlikely to be the outcome of Microsoft not tying IE
to Windows.
The far more likely outcome is that OEMs will choose a browser to
bundle. And Microsoft has considerable leverage over Windows OEMs. This
is exactly why the EU doesn't like this approach; it will require
significant ongoing monitoring to prevent any such mischief.
[snip]
--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
Ezekiel
> On 2009-06-26, amicus_curious <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
>>
>> "JEDIDIAH" <je...@nomad.mishnet> wrote in message
>> news:slrnh49mn...@nomad.mishnet...
>>>
>>> Macs can be "Unix compliant" without having to worry about whether or
>>> not Sun or IBM or HP will just alter that specification to maximize
>>> their own competitive advantage. They can run bash and X and ssh and be
>>> compile time compatable with Linux or HP/UX or AIX or Solaris and not
>>> have to worry about that being sabotaged by a monopolist.
>>>
>> What would you see as an example of be "sabotaged by a monopolist"? Your
>
> Every new version of any of the Windows APIs.
JEDIDIAH once again shows how clueless he is. Surprise-surprise.
Think about this for a while and see if you can spot the major flaw in
your "logic."
Here's a free hint - If Microsoft changed the existing published Windows
API's then all existing Windows apps would break. Including existing MS
apps. Given the *fact* that nearly all software that was written for Win9x,
Win2k and WinXP remains binary compatible and continues to run just fine
I'm going to call BS on your claim of that new versions of Windows APIs
sabotage anything.
Hadron
I still laugh when Mark Kent was almost Telnet Porter'esque when he
informed us that there was NO binary compatibility between different
Windows versions. When pressed on this he informed us, in his big headed
way, that the installer installed different binaries depending on the
OS. While that might be true (different features on later versions) he
soon scurried away when it was pointed out that the same installer ran
on all versions.
You could not make this up.
--
In view of all the deadly computer viruses that have been spreading
lately, Weekend Update would like to remind you: when you link up to
another computer, you’re linking up to every computer that that
computer has ever linked up to. — Dennis Miller
amicus_curious
"Ezekiel" <Ze...@not-such-email-addr.com> wrote in message
news:h26ncd$jqt$1...@news.motzarella.org...
>
> Think about this for a while and see if you can spot the major flaw in
> your "logic."
>
> Here's a free hint - If Microsoft changed the existing published Windows
> API's then all existing Windows apps would break. Including existing MS
> apps. Given the *fact* that nearly all software that was written for
> Win9x,
> Win2k and WinXP remains binary compatible and continues to run just fine
> I'm going to call BS on your claim of that new versions of Windows APIs
> sabotage anything.
>
But, but, but we have it documented that Microsoft's policy is that "DOS
isn't done until Lotus won't run!".
amicus_curious
"ZnU" <z...@fake.invalid> wrote in message
news:znu-969D99.2...@Port80.Individual.NET...
>
> This is extremely unlikely to be the outcome of Microsoft not tying IE
> to Windows.
>
> The far more likely outcome is that OEMs will choose a browser to
> bundle. And Microsoft has considerable leverage over Windows OEMs. This
> is exactly why the EU doesn't like this approach; it will require
> significant ongoing monitoring to prevent any such mischief.
>
Well, sure. I think that is what I said. From the OEM's standpoint they
have to pick things to bundle with their packages that are more or less
guaranteed to work with Win 7 and keep working and be supported for a long
time. Making that commitment to an OEM is a significant undertaking and the
credibility of the offeror is going to be scrutinized. What sort of proof
can Firefox give to Dell that they will be there to do what is necessary to
fix any and all problems? To get a user to switch from IE to Firefox is a
much more simple task and the user can switch back if not satisfied. The
OEM is never involved in that decision and I doubt that they would ever want
to be involved. The status quo is just fine from the OEM's point of view.
Certainly the EU doesn't like this approach since it takes away their
ability to charge Microsoft with any sort of monopoly leverage.
Ezekiel
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote in message
news:4a4753c6$0$24757$ec3e...@news.usenetmonster.com...
This urban legend is about as well documented as the "640k should be enough
for everyone" statement. What is it that causes these fools latch on to
every baseless claim they see or read.
Ezekiel
"Hadron" <hadro...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:h272e5$mb4$2...@news.motzarella.org...
Before making such a stupid statement he should have consulted with the
"Linux advoctates" here in COLA who make their living writing Windows
software. They would have gladly told him that Windows applications are
binary-compatible across operating systems and that installers do NOT
install a different version of the application depending on the version of
Windows. (It is possible to do this but it is very, very rarely done or
needed.)
> You could not make this up.
Consider the stupidity of the source.
Hans Lister
Has Mark Kent ever been correct about anything?
Then there was his "no such thing as intellectual property"
screw up. Turns out the company he works for brags about using
their IP as a leverage against competitors.
Man, Mark Kent is clue less.
Ezekiel
"Hans Lister" <stym...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:17dcru58ix5bt$.apvayx0k7tdg$.dlg@40tude.net...
The CEO of the company he works for does television commercials for
Microsoft telling the world how the use of Microsoft software at BT enables
the company to save millions of dollars. Who's right... the Kent fool or
the guy who runs the company?
> Man, Mark Kent is clue less.
I liked his famous claim of how a "tail wind" is why the Wright Brothers
airplane was able to fly. Somehow when they demonstrated their airplane
around the world, later refined it and created an aircraft factory that
manufactured aircraft built on this design - all of these planes also
managed to fly because of some tail-wind.
ZnU
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
You seem to be admitting that many OEMs would go on bundling IE even if
Microsoft unbundled it, because of Microsoft's clout and influence over
them.
If that's the case, then there's a perfectly legitimate reason why the
EU doesn't like this approach: they're trying to prevent Microsoft from
using its operating system to dominate the browser market, and this
approach doesn't do that.
amicus_curious
"ZnU" <z...@fake.invalid> wrote in message
are the entity ultimately responsible to their customer. If the product
malfunctions or is seen to be inferior, it is very often returned at a
substantial cost to the OEM. The OEM is certainly interested in protecting
against this happening. The OEM also does not want to be seen as not
providing some desirable product characteristic vis-a-vis its competition
either, so if a competitor makes a move that proves popular with the market,
the OEM will likely follow that move. It is like the European cycledrome
races where the competitors jockey for some advantage and then make a sprint
for the finish.
When the OEM goes to market in the EU with Win7, they are faced with not
having any browser at all. I do not know if it is true or not, but the
situation is presented as the absence of any internet presence for the newly
loaded machine. So the user is going to be very irritated if there is no
way to get email or connect to the internet and the OEM is forced to find a
browser to add to the package. Which one should he add? Should he add a
choice of several?
Adding several is a cost problem in that the product is more complex, if
only by a small amount, and the need is created for service call support of
multiple configurations which presumably differ somewhat in how they are
configured and used. Just having a choice is going to generate support
calls from customers who will want some advice on what to choose and
explanation of what sorts of differences exist between choices.
And the problem goes deeper since the defects discovered between one browser
with Windows and between another browser are bound to be different from one
another and more irritating with one over another. Will the browser
supplier effectively address these defects and provide the OEM's customers
with satisfactory and timely results? That is a question that the OEMs are
going to ask and demand some sort of warranty or at least confidence in the
browser vendor.
Microsoft is the only logical choice for an OEM that doesn't want to stick
their neck out and expose it for being chopped. If, say, Firefox is seen by
the OEM to be better, should he offer it even though a majority of current
customers only use IE? What about Opera? Are all the browser contenders
going to provide their wares at an identical price or free? There is no
good answer and the OEM is faced with no upside at all for coming up with a
good answer. When everyone supplied Windows and IE, there was no problem.
If there was something wrong, it was Microsoft's fault and that was that,
even if the fix had to be administered by the OEM. Now the spectre of
making a big mistake in terms of choosing the wrong browser exists and there
is no real chance of improving things if the correct answer is chosen.
Look at it from the browser manufacturer's point of view, too. Does Firefox
want to make some sort of guarantee to the OEM that they will quickly and
continually provide support and defect corrections and adjustments to their
code to track everything that Microsoft does in the future? The OEM is
going to demand some kind of assurance that the browser is a safe choice.
At the current time, the browser supplier only has to convince an individual
to take a chance and there is no such massive obligation on the part of the
browser maker to accomodate future change.
The PC market is a huge business and none of the current software players
other than Microsoft have the perceived dedication and wherewithall to stay
with it. That is not arm-twisting or monopoly leverage, it is just the
facts of business life. Poor people cannot have a seat at the no-limit
table.
> If that's the case, then there's a perfectly legitimate reason why the
> EU doesn't like this approach: they're trying to prevent Microsoft from
> using its operating system to dominate the browser market, and this
> approach doesn't do that.
>
>
I think there is a reason to question the EU's goal, though. It is
obviously bad for the OEMs and, ultimately, for the user. Now the user can,
if he chooses, replace IE with some other browser easily and at no expense.
That doesn't seem so bad to me. The browser competitors don't seem to be
able to convince enough users to make the choice to use something other than
IE, though. Perhaps they are just not aware or just not interested, but
that is the fault of the competitors who have not managed to inform the
potential users of the facts or else the facts are really not as many claim.
ZnU
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
[snip]
> > If that's the case, then there's a perfectly legitimate reason why
> > the EU doesn't like this approach: they're trying to prevent
> > Microsoft from using its operating system to dominate the browser
> > market, and this approach doesn't do that.
> >
>
> I think there is a reason to question the EU's goal, though. It is
> obviously bad for the OEMs and, ultimately, for the user.
This is utter nonsense. Yes, perhaps browser choice imposes some higher
costs on the OEM, if the OEM is expected to support bundled browsers.
But this might not actually be the case. I find it extremely likely
that other browser vendors would be more than willing to support
bundled copies of their browsers (to the extent that browsers actually
require such support) in exchange for the opportunity to be preloaded.
As far as users go, taking away Microsoft's "bundled browser" advantage
has substantial upside *even for users who continue to choose IE*. I'll
explain.
I don't know if you're actually in the web development market. I am.
What you have to understand is that a new web standard has to gain a
certain amount of support before web developers can practically use it,
because otherwise they'll be excluding an unacceptable number of
potential users.
But here's the perverse part. If one browser vendor has a substantial
quantity of users, they're not really under any pressure to implement
that new web standard. Because if they don't implement it, there won't
be much of any content out there that uses it (since developers don't
want to exclude that many users). And if there isn't content out there
that uses the new standard, then failing to implement it doesn't make a
vendor's browser any less appealing to consumers.
But of course consumers and developers have both been hurt here, even if
most consumers don't realize it.
This is precisely the situation we've been in since Microsoft decided to
tie IE to Windows, and it has only abated somewhat as Firefox and other
alternative browsers have managed to gain some limited ground against
Microsoft despite the illegal product bundling.
If merely removing IE from Windows and then allowing OEMs to bundle it
will not correct this situation (and you advanced earlier in your post a
long argument for why it wouldn't), then it accomplishes nothing useful,
and there's absolutely no reason it should satisfy EU regulators.
[snip]
amicus_curious
"ZnU" <z...@fake.invalid> wrote in message
> In article <4a48eac8$0$24746$ec3e...@news.usenetmonster.com>,
> "amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>> > If that's the case, then there's a perfectly legitimate reason why
>> > the EU doesn't like this approach: they're trying to prevent
>> > Microsoft from using its operating system to dominate the browser
>> > market, and this approach doesn't do that.
>> >
>>
>> I think there is a reason to question the EU's goal, though. It is
>> obviously bad for the OEMs and, ultimately, for the user.
>
> This is utter nonsense. Yes, perhaps browser choice imposes some higher
> costs on the OEM, if the OEM is expected to support bundled browsers.
> But this might not actually be the case. I find it extremely likely
> that other browser vendors would be more than willing to support
> bundled copies of their browsers (to the extent that browsers actually
> require such support) in exchange for the opportunity to be preloaded.
>
who would benefit are the ones who need to pay for it. By not supplying any
browser, the issue is squarely framed. Let those who would profit from the
situation take upon themselves the onus of funding it. If Firefox seeks to
profit, they must commit to the development costs now and in the future.
Ditto for Opera and even Apple.
> As far as users go, taking away Microsoft's "bundled browser" advantage
> has substantial upside *even for users who continue to choose IE*. I'll
> explain.
>
Then the users should be willing to fund it, for example paying a premium
for Opera or Firefox and thereby giving the browser maker the wherewithall
to pay for the necessary support commitments.
> I don't know if you're actually in the web development market. I am.
> What you have to understand is that a new web standard has to gain a
> certain amount of support before web developers can practically use it,
> because otherwise they'll be excluding an unacceptable number of
> potential users.
>
> But here's the perverse part. If one browser vendor has a substantial
> quantity of users, they're not really under any pressure to implement
> that new web standard. Because if they don't implement it, there won't
> be much of any content out there that uses it (since developers don't
> want to exclude that many users). And if there isn't content out there
> that uses the new standard, then failing to implement it doesn't make a
> vendor's browser any less appealing to consumers.
>
> But of course consumers and developers have both been hurt here, even if
> most consumers don't realize it.
>
Your example shows no harm being done, merely that no one is willing to
provide enough charity to advance someone's interest.
> This is precisely the situation we've been in since Microsoft decided to
> tie IE to Windows, and it has only abated somewhat as Firefox and other
> alternative browsers have managed to gain some limited ground against
> Microsoft despite the illegal product bundling.
>
Firefox has prospered somewhat because IE is available as a channel for
Firefox to distribute their wares economically. Rather than continue to
take advantage of this situation, the browser suppliers want Microsoft to be
forced into making their distribution even more economic to the expected
detriment of Microsoft's own offering. That is certainly not free markets
in action, it is an abuse of power by the EU to try to force such a thing.
> If merely removing IE from Windows and then allowing OEMs to bundle it
> will not correct this situation (and you advanced earlier in your post a
> long argument for why it wouldn't), then it accomplishes nothing useful,
> and there's absolutely no reason it should satisfy EU regulators.
>
Certainly it will not satisfy EU regulators, but I think it satisfies the EU
laws. If they want to change the laws to allow a successful company to be
singled out and mugged by the governments, they will have to do that, but it
will then be more obvious that is what they are doing.
ZnU
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
> "ZnU" <z...@fake.invalid> wrote in message
> news:znu-2B5FA6.1...@Port80.Individual.NET...
> > In article <4a48eac8$0$24746$ec3e...@news.usenetmonster.com>,
> > "amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >> > If that's the case, then there's a perfectly legitimate reason why
> >> > the EU doesn't like this approach: they're trying to prevent
> >> > Microsoft from using its operating system to dominate the browser
> >> > market, and this approach doesn't do that.
> >> >
> >>
> >> I think there is a reason to question the EU's goal, though. It is
> >> obviously bad for the OEMs and, ultimately, for the user.
> >
> > This is utter nonsense. Yes, perhaps browser choice imposes some higher
> > costs on the OEM, if the OEM is expected to support bundled browsers.
> > But this might not actually be the case. I find it extremely likely
> > that other browser vendors would be more than willing to support
> > bundled copies of their browsers (to the extent that browsers actually
> > require such support) in exchange for the opportunity to be preloaded.
> >
> It is a complicated issue, perhaps, but the fact of life here is that those
> who would benefit are the ones who need to pay for it. By not supplying any
> browser, the issue is squarely framed. Let those who would profit from the
> situation take upon themselves the onus of funding it. If Firefox seeks to
> profit, they must commit to the development costs now and in the future.
> Ditto for Opera and even Apple.
You are blowing this issue substantially out of proportion. The vast
majority of browser users have probably never sought out support through
official channels at all, and the notion that browser support would
impose an undue burden on OEMs is simply ludicrous.
> > As far as users go, taking away Microsoft's "bundled browser" advantage
> > has substantial upside *even for users who continue to choose IE*. I'll
> > explain.
> >
> Then the users should be willing to fund it, for example paying a premium
> for Opera or Firefox and thereby giving the browser maker the wherewithall
> to pay for the necessary support commitments.
This is a complete fantasy. People virtually never make product
purchasing decisions in order to deliberately create more
consumer-friendly long-term market outcomes. They merely buy or use
whatever happens to be most convenient for them at the moment. The free
market extremists believe as a matter of faith that this always creates
the best possible long-term outcome, but particularly in already
distorted markets this is often far from being the case.
> > I don't know if you're actually in the web development market. I am.
> > What you have to understand is that a new web standard has to gain a
> > certain amount of support before web developers can practically use it,
> > because otherwise they'll be excluding an unacceptable number of
> > potential users.
> >
> > But here's the perverse part. If one browser vendor has a substantial
> > quantity of users, they're not really under any pressure to implement
> > that new web standard. Because if they don't implement it, there won't
> > be much of any content out there that uses it (since developers don't
> > want to exclude that many users). And if there isn't content out there
> > that uses the new standard, then failing to implement it doesn't make a
> > vendor's browser any less appealing to consumers.
> >
> > But of course consumers and developers have both been hurt here, even if
> > most consumers don't realize it.
>
> Your example shows no harm being done, merely that no one is willing to
> provide enough charity to advance someone's interest.
In other words, to defend your free market extremism, you have to
actually claim that consumers and developers not having access to new
technologies does not constitute harm.
> > This is precisely the situation we've been in since Microsoft decided to
> > tie IE to Windows, and it has only abated somewhat as Firefox and other
> > alternative browsers have managed to gain some limited ground against
> > Microsoft despite the illegal product bundling.
>
> Firefox has prospered somewhat because IE is available as a channel for
> Firefox to distribute their wares economically. Rather than continue to
> take advantage of this situation, the browser suppliers want Microsoft to be
> forced into making their distribution even more economic to the expected
> detriment of Microsoft's own offering. That is certainly not free markets
> in action, it is an abuse of power by the EU to try to force such a thing.
If someone read the above paragraph without knowledge of the context,
they would actually believe that a) Microsoft is doing third-parties
browser vendors a favor and b) ungrateful third-party browser vendors
want to disadvantage Microsoft relative to themselves.
Back here in the real world, Microsoft is leveraging its operating
systems monopoly to unfair advantage in the browser market, and
third-party browser vendors simply want a level playing field to exist.
> > If merely removing IE from Windows and then allowing OEMs to bundle it
> > will not correct this situation (and you advanced earlier in your post a
> > long argument for why it wouldn't), then it accomplishes nothing useful,
> > and there's absolutely no reason it should satisfy EU regulators.
>
> Certainly it will not satisfy EU regulators, but I think it satisfies
> the EU laws. If they want to change the laws to allow a successful
> company to be singled out and mugged by the governments, they will
> have to do that, but it will then be more obvious that is what they
> are doing.
Given that you yourself have repeatedly argued that Microsoft's proposed
remedy won't actually work, why do you continue claiming the EU must
have some motivation to reject it beyond actually desiring a *working*
remedy?
Erik Funkenbusch
> You are blowing this issue substantially out of proportion. The vast
> majority of browser users have probably never sought out support through
> official channels at all, and the notion that browser support would
> impose an undue burden on OEMs is simply ludicrous.
That's funny, the DOJ argued in the anti-trust trial that there was
substantial burden on the OEM to support more than one browser.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/303784/US-Department-of-Justice-Antitrust-Case-Brief-01216204468
"In Microsoft III we upheld the district court's finding that Microsoft's
integration of IE and the Windows operating system generally "prevented
OEMs from pre-installing other browsers and deterred consumers from using
them." 253F.3d at 63-64. Becaquse they could not remove IE, installing
another browser meant the OEM would incur the costs of supporting two
browsers. Id. at 64. Accordingly, OEMs had little incentive to install a
rival browser, such as Netscape Navigator."
Whether or not it's true, it's certainly not a "ludicrous" notion,
otherwise the DOJ would not have argued it.
ZnU
Erik Funkenbusch <er...@despam-funkenbusch.com> wrote:
1) That was over 10 years ago. Browsers are substantially more familiar
to users now.
2) That was specifically in reference to OEMs supporting two browsers
installed simultaneously on the same system, not something the EU's
preferred remedy necessarily leads to.
3) That was within the context of a market where if some OEMs decided to
install other browsers other OEMs could continue to install only IE,
and thus gain a competitive advantage. With EU regulation mandating
browser choice, this would not be the case.
> Whether or not it's true, it's certainly not a "ludicrous" notion,
> otherwise the DOJ would not have argued it.
It the current context, it's quite ludicrous.
amicus_curious
"ZnU" <z...@fake.invalid> wrote in message
support available from a supplier of a critical item in the OEM's product
and so require substantial committment from that supplier? I think that you
do not understand that such a thing is a major issue and that any browser
maker who wants to be the OEM's browser supplier has a significant task in
proving credibility.
>> > As far as users go, taking away Microsoft's "bundled browser" advantage
>> > has substantial upside *even for users who continue to choose IE*. I'll
>> > explain.
>> >
>> Then the users should be willing to fund it, for example paying a premium
>> for Opera or Firefox and thereby giving the browser maker the
>> wherewithall
>> to pay for the necessary support commitments.
>
> This is a complete fantasy. People virtually never make product
> purchasing decisions in order to deliberately create more
> consumer-friendly long-term market outcomes. They merely buy or use
> whatever happens to be most convenient for them at the moment. The free
> market extremists believe as a matter of faith that this always creates
> the best possible long-term outcome, but particularly in already
> distorted markets this is often far from being the case.
>
You are too used to the take it or leave it kind of thinking that goes into
FOSS. If you want to sell something to the consumer, you need to somehow
convince the consumer that your product is worth the cost. If the consumer
"merely" buys what is most convenient to them at the moment, you have not
shown the consumer that your product is any better and, if it is less
convenient, you will never sell it. If your product is not better so as to
motivate the consumer to expend some effort, it is not worth bothering with.
I think that they want more than that. They want Microsoft to provide the
means by which their products are distributed at no cost to themselves. Now
that is a nice thing to have and perhaps the EU would like to see it also,
but if you are going to be in business, you have to shoulder the burden of
certain items, production and distribution costs being basic to that
requirement. If a manufacturer is going to the trouble to make something
convenient, it seems rather lame to expect them to do that for their
competitor.
>> > If merely removing IE from Windows and then allowing OEMs to bundle it
>> > will not correct this situation (and you advanced earlier in your post
>> > a
>> > long argument for why it wouldn't), then it accomplishes nothing
>> > useful,
>> > and there's absolutely no reason it should satisfy EU regulators.
>>
>> Certainly it will not satisfy EU regulators, but I think it satisfies
>> the EU laws. If they want to change the laws to allow a successful
>> company to be singled out and mugged by the governments, they will
>> have to do that, but it will then be more obvious that is what they
>> are doing.
>
> Given that you yourself have repeatedly argued that Microsoft's proposed
> remedy won't actually work, why do you continue claiming the EU must
> have some motivation to reject it beyond actually desiring a *working*
> remedy?
>
From Microsoft's POV, certainly, they are hardly interested in the EU being
pleased with themselves. The EU wants to placate someone and that someone
is not Microsoft. The issue here is whether or not the EU can please itself
inside the limits of its own laws.
ZnU
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
The notion that e.g. the Mozilla Foundation has not proven its
credibility in and commitment to the browser market, or that Google is
some fly-by-night organization which can't be trusted to properly
maintain Chrome, is absurd.
> >> > As far as users go, taking away Microsoft's "bundled browser" advantage
> >> > has substantial upside *even for users who continue to choose IE*. I'll
> >> > explain.
> >> >
> >> Then the users should be willing to fund it, for example paying a premium
> >> for Opera or Firefox and thereby giving the browser maker the
> >> wherewithall
> >> to pay for the necessary support commitments.
> >
> > This is a complete fantasy. People virtually never make product
> > purchasing decisions in order to deliberately create more
> > consumer-friendly long-term market outcomes. They merely buy or use
> > whatever happens to be most convenient for them at the moment. The free
> > market extremists believe as a matter of faith that this always creates
> > the best possible long-term outcome, but particularly in already
> > distorted markets this is often far from being the case.
>
> You are too used to the take it or leave it kind of thinking that goes into
> FOSS.
Check the headers of this post and my last 11 years of posting history.
I'm a Mac user.
> If you want to sell something to the consumer, you need to somehow
> convince the consumer that your product is worth the cost. If the consumer
> "merely" buys what is most convenient to them at the moment, you have not
> shown the consumer that your product is any better and, if it is less
> convenient, you will never sell it. If your product is not better so as to
> motivate the consumer to expend some effort, it is not worth bothering with.
The problem is that most of the things that make one browser better than
another are not directly visible to the consumer. Things like how well
it implements the latest web standards have substantial impact on the
consumer, because they influence the type, quantity, and quality of
content and applications accessible through the browser. But consumers
see none of this, because developers simply don't widely deploy content
using new standards until support i nearly universal.
Take, for instance, HTML5's support for custom contextual menus,
something that will prove extremely useful to web applications. These
are likely to go unused by developers until IE supports the feature. So
instead of users encountering an app that requires such menus and
realizing that other browsers are ahead of IE in implementing this
useful new feature, they probably won't even know that this feature
exists anywhere. This doesn't mean they aren't harmed by its lack.
[snip]
> >> Firefox has prospered somewhat because IE is available as a
> >> channel for Firefox to distribute their wares economically.
> >> Rather than continue to take advantage of this situation, the
> >> browser suppliers want Microsoft to be forced into making their
> >> distribution even more economic to the expected detriment of
> >> Microsoft's own offering. That is certainly not free markets in
> >> action, it is an abuse of power by the EU to try to force such a
> >> thing.
> >
> > If someone read the above paragraph without knowledge of the
> > context, they would actually believe that a) Microsoft is doing
> > third-parties browser vendors a favor and b) ungrateful third-party
> > browser vendors want to disadvantage Microsoft relative to
> > themselves.
> >
> > Back here in the real world, Microsoft is leveraging its operating
> > systems monopoly to unfair advantage in the browser market, and
> > third-party browser vendors simply want a level playing field to
> > exist.
>
> I think that they want more than that. They want Microsoft to
> provide the means by which their products are distributed at no cost
> to themselves.
Which is to say, they want their products accessible to consumers on
equal footing with IE..
> Now that is a nice thing to have and perhaps the EU would like to see
> it also, but if you are going to be in business, you have to shoulder
> the burden of certain items, production and distribution costs being
> basic to that requirement. If a manufacturer is going to the trouble
> to make something convenient, it seems rather lame to expect them to
> do that for their competitor.
Take the following two scenarios:
1) Microsoft's operating system monopoly can be leveraged into a
dominant share of the browser market regardless of the quality of its
browser.
2) Microsoft's operating system monopoly has no particular influence
over its success in the browser market; IE must rise or fall entirely
on its merits relative to other browsers.
Of these two scenarios, the second is *clearly* the preferable one, if
you want the best possible products in the browser market. You are
simply allowing the fact that the first scenario arises "naturally"
through the workings of an unregulated market to color your perceptions,
buying into the seductive notion that if an outcome is produced by the
market it is inherently optimal and deviation from it is inefficient or
"unfair".
> >> > If merely removing IE from Windows and then allowing OEMs to bundle it
> >> > will not correct this situation (and you advanced earlier in your post
> >> > a
> >> > long argument for why it wouldn't), then it accomplishes nothing
> >> > useful,
> >> > and there's absolutely no reason it should satisfy EU regulators.
> >>
> >> Certainly it will not satisfy EU regulators, but I think it satisfies
> >> the EU laws. If they want to change the laws to allow a successful
> >> company to be singled out and mugged by the governments, they will
> >> have to do that, but it will then be more obvious that is what they
> >> are doing.
> >
> > Given that you yourself have repeatedly argued that Microsoft's proposed
> > remedy won't actually work, why do you continue claiming the EU must
> > have some motivation to reject it beyond actually desiring a *working*
> > remedy?
>
> From Microsoft's POV, certainly, they are hardly interested in the EU being
> pleased with themselves. The EU wants to placate someone and that someone
> is not Microsoft. The issue here is whether or not the EU can please itself
> inside the limits of its own laws.
I'm not intimately familiar with EU antitrust law, but in the US, once a
company loses an antitrust case, there's pretty wide discretion in terms
of how to remedy the monopolistic situation, extending all the way
through breaking up the company. Obviously the EU can't break up
Microsoft, because it's a US-based company, but I find it unlikely that
regulators don't have the legal power to impose something like the
proposed browser bundling scheme.
amicus_curious
"ZnU" <z...@fake.invalid> wrote in message
warranty for their product and have no resources to attach if anything ever
happens that they might be liable for. Not so, Micrsoft, with deep, deep
pockets and a willingness to assure OEMs that they will be willing and able
to stand up for their products.
>> >> > As far as users go, taking away Microsoft's "bundled browser"
>> >> > advantage
>> >> > has substantial upside *even for users who continue to choose IE*.
>> >> > I'll
>> >> > explain.
>> >> >
>> >> Then the users should be willing to fund it, for example paying a
>> >> premium
>> >> for Opera or Firefox and thereby giving the browser maker the
>> >> wherewithall
>> >> to pay for the necessary support commitments.
>> >
>> > This is a complete fantasy. People virtually never make product
>> > purchasing decisions in order to deliberately create more
>> > consumer-friendly long-term market outcomes. They merely buy or use
>> > whatever happens to be most convenient for them at the moment. The free
>> > market extremists believe as a matter of faith that this always creates
>> > the best possible long-term outcome, but particularly in already
>> > distorted markets this is often far from being the case.
>>
>> You are too used to the take it or leave it kind of thinking that goes
>> into
>> FOSS.
>
> Check the headers of this post and my last 11 years of posting history.
> I'm a Mac user.
>
What has that to do with anything?
>> If you want to sell something to the consumer, you need to somehow
>> convince the consumer that your product is worth the cost. If the
>> consumer
>> "merely" buys what is most convenient to them at the moment, you have not
>> shown the consumer that your product is any better and, if it is less
>> convenient, you will never sell it. If your product is not better so as
>> to
>> motivate the consumer to expend some effort, it is not worth bothering
>> with.
>
> The problem is that most of the things that make one browser better than
> another are not directly visible to the consumer. Things like how well
> it implements the latest web standards have substantial impact on the
> consumer, because they influence the type, quantity, and quality of
> content and applications accessible through the browser. But consumers
> see none of this, because developers simply don't widely deploy content
> using new standards until support i nearly universal.
>
> Take, for instance, HTML5's support for custom contextual menus,
> something that will prove extremely useful to web applications. These
> are likely to go unused by developers until IE supports the feature. So
> instead of users encountering an app that requires such menus and
> realizing that other browsers are ahead of IE in implementing this
> useful new feature, they probably won't even know that this feature
> exists anywhere. This doesn't mean they aren't harmed by its lack.
>
Yada, yada, yada. If you cannot explain it to a customer, it is not a
benefit. If it is not a benefit, it has not effect on the customer's
decision.
> [snip]
>
>> >> Firefox has prospered somewhat because IE is available as a
>> >> channel for Firefox to distribute their wares economically.
>> >> Rather than continue to take advantage of this situation, the
>> >> browser suppliers want Microsoft to be forced into making their
>> >> distribution even more economic to the expected detriment of
>> >> Microsoft's own offering. That is certainly not free markets in
>> >> action, it is an abuse of power by the EU to try to force such a
>> >> thing.
>> >
>> > If someone read the above paragraph without knowledge of the
>> > context, they would actually believe that a) Microsoft is doing
>> > third-parties browser vendors a favor and b) ungrateful third-party
>> > browser vendors want to disadvantage Microsoft relative to
>> > themselves.
>> >
>> > Back here in the real world, Microsoft is leveraging its operating
>> > systems monopoly to unfair advantage in the browser market, and
>> > third-party browser vendors simply want a level playing field to
>> > exist.
>>
>> I think that they want more than that. They want Microsoft to
>> provide the means by which their products are distributed at no cost
>> to themselves.
>
> Which is to say, they want their products accessible to consumers on
> equal footing with IE..
>
Well, then they should be willing to contribute their share of the costs
involved. Microsoft could easily calculate what they are spending and, if
the browser company paid their fee to Microsoft, then Microsoft could be
made to share the channel as the EU suggests. That is how, say, the various
telcos get access to ATT long lines or various internet providers get access
to the fiber backbones owned by Verizon. That seems reasonable, but where
is Mozilla going to come up with a billion bucks or so?
>> Now that is a nice thing to have and perhaps the EU would like to see
>> it also, but if you are going to be in business, you have to shoulder
>> the burden of certain items, production and distribution costs being
>> basic to that requirement. If a manufacturer is going to the trouble
>> to make something convenient, it seems rather lame to expect them to
>> do that for their competitor.
>
> Take the following two scenarios:
>
> 1) Microsoft's operating system monopoly can be leveraged into a
> dominant share of the browser market regardless of the quality of its
> browser.
> 2) Microsoft's operating system monopoly has no particular influence
> over its success in the browser market; IE must rise or fall entirely
> on its merits relative to other browsers.
>
> Of these two scenarios, the second is *clearly* the preferable one, if
> you want the best possible products in the browser market. You are
> simply allowing the fact that the first scenario arises "naturally"
> through the workings of an unregulated market to color your perceptions,
> buying into the seductive notion that if an outcome is produced by the
> market it is inherently optimal and deviation from it is inefficient or
> "unfair".
>
You creat hypothetical premises and then draw incorrect conclusions. So
what?
If Opera has a better browser than IE, then Opera should be able to contact
consumers and tell them the happy news. Once the consumer believes the
claim, the consumer is sure to go to the expense and effort needed to
acquire a copy. Having IE on their computer would make the acquisition very
easy to do. So what is wrong with that?
The only thing that has been said so far is that most consumers never become
motivated to take the time and effort and perhaps cost to do what Opera
wants them to do. Or Mozilla. Or Google for that matter. You can
postulate the mysterious hand of the monopoly, or you can postulate that
Opera has not done a very good job in communicating the advantages of their
browser. Or Mozilla. Or Google.
So, having shown the they are no damn good at convincing, they call for the
"level playing field" wherein they hope that dumb luckof the draw will be an
effective substitute for product marketing. Or at least there will be so
little effort for the consumer that they won't have to do any real
convincing.
I don't agree with your rather pat assumptions here at all. One doesn't
just "lose and antitrust case" as can be seen with the various cases in the
USofA and EU in the past 10 years or so. The process requires is a
complaint that asks for compensation as awarded by a court. If the
complaint is found to be legitimate, the compensation is paid. In the USA
vs Microsoft case, the complaints found ultimately to be valid were cured by
setting the watchdog committees to ensure that the antitrust violations were
not continued or resumed as the case might have been. In the EU, the
situation was corrected by paying a large fee to the EU and providing a
version of Windows that did not contain an MP3 player applet. I think the
EU was more interested in the fee they collected, but that is just my
opinion.
Of course the courts could decide that a company break-up were the solution,
as originally suggested by Judge Jackson in the USA vs Microsoft case, but
he was reversed on appeal. It is not so likely that unbundling IE could
result in any such sort of adverse court decision, though. The effect of
unbundling depends on how unnatural it would be seen to be. Since the
bundling is now seen as the antitrust issue, it would be quite a feat to
argue the exact opposite in court.
ZnU
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
You've now reached the level of pure FUD, you realize.
> >> >> > As far as users go, taking away Microsoft's "bundled browser"
> >> >> > advantage
> >> >> > has substantial upside *even for users who continue to choose IE*.
> >> >> > I'll
> >> >> > explain.
> >> >> >
> >> >> Then the users should be willing to fund it, for example paying a
> >> >> premium
> >> >> for Opera or Firefox and thereby giving the browser maker the
> >> >> wherewithall
> >> >> to pay for the necessary support commitments.
> >> >
> >> > This is a complete fantasy. People virtually never make product
> >> > purchasing decisions in order to deliberately create more
> >> > consumer-friendly long-term market outcomes. They merely buy or use
> >> > whatever happens to be most convenient for them at the moment. The free
> >> > market extremists believe as a matter of faith that this always creates
> >> > the best possible long-term outcome, but particularly in already
> >> > distorted markets this is often far from being the case.
> >>
> >> You are too used to the take it or leave it kind of thinking that
> >> goes into FOSS.
> >
> > Check the headers of this post and my last 11 years of posting
> > history. I'm a Mac user.
>
> What has that to do with anything?
I'm not exactly sure what you meant by "the take it or leave it kind of
thinking that goes into FOSS", but whatever it was, my experience is
that Mac users have very different standards and expectations when it
comes to software, so if that sort of thinking is common among FOSS
advocates, I probably don't share in it.
> > Take, for instance, HTML5's support for custom contextual menus,
> > something that will prove extremely useful to web applications.
> > These are likely to go unused by developers until IE supports the
> > feature. So instead of users encountering an app that requires such
> > menus and realizing that other browsers are ahead of IE in
> > implementing this useful new feature, they probably won't even know
> > that this feature exists anywhere. This doesn't mean they aren't
> > harmed by its lack.
> >
> Yada, yada, yada. If you cannot explain it to a customer, it is not
> a benefit. If it is not a benefit, it has not effect on the
> customer's decision.
You *can* explain it to a customer. The explanation is something like
"If you use a browser that supports web standards, in a couple of years
when enough other people do so, you'll have access to more and better
web content".
Unfortunately most customers, as I said at the start of this debate,
won't actually modify their current behavior to bring about beneficial
long-term market-wide outcomes. People demonstrably do not think like
that. You can't even get people to stop buying certain kinds of
chocolate by pointing out that they're encouraging *child slavery* in
Africa; you think they're going to make *browser* decisions based on
abstract long-term outcomes?
Of course the free market extremists will claim that people are purely
rational economic actors, so this sort of thing is perfectly
representative of people's actual preferences and therefore no harm is
occurring. Even if people's state preferences conflict with the implied
preferences of their economic decisions. I frankly don't have time for
that sort of ideological nonsense, so if that's the approach you're
planning to take, we're done here.
> >> I think that they want more than that. They want Microsoft to
> >> provide the means by which their products are distributed at no cost
> >> to themselves.
> >
> > Which is to say, they want their products accessible to consumers on
> > equal footing with IE..
>
> Well, then they should be willing to contribute their share of the costs
> involved. Microsoft could easily calculate what they are spending and, if
> the browser company paid their fee to Microsoft, then Microsoft could be
> made to share the channel as the EU suggests. That is how, say, the various
> telcos get access to ATT long lines or various internet providers get access
> to the fiber backbones owned by Verizon. That seems reasonable, but where
> is Mozilla going to come up with a billion bucks or so?
Microsoft's cost to physically distribute a copy of Windows is
essentially nonexistent, and their incremental cost to distribute a copy
with added installers for some extra browsers is even smaller.
> >> Now that is a nice thing to have and perhaps the EU would like to see
> >> it also, but if you are going to be in business, you have to shoulder
> >> the burden of certain items, production and distribution costs being
> >> basic to that requirement. If a manufacturer is going to the trouble
> >> to make something convenient, it seems rather lame to expect them to
> >> do that for their competitor.
> >
> > Take the following two scenarios:
> >
> > 1) Microsoft's operating system monopoly can be leveraged into a
> > dominant share of the browser market regardless of the quality of its
> > browser.
>
> > 2) Microsoft's operating system monopoly has no particular influence
> > over its success in the browser market; IE must rise or fall entirely
> > on its merits relative to other browsers.
> >
> > Of these two scenarios, the second is *clearly* the preferable one, if
> > you want the best possible products in the browser market. You are
> > simply allowing the fact that the first scenario arises "naturally"
> > through the workings of an unregulated market to color your perceptions,
> > buying into the seductive notion that if an outcome is produced by the
> > market it is inherently optimal and deviation from it is inefficient or
> > "unfair".
>
> You creat hypothetical premises and then draw incorrect conclusions. So
> what?
They're not hypothetical. The second is what the EU has stated it's
trying to bring about, the first is what occurs without intervention.
[snip; already covered]
> >> From Microsoft's POV, certainly, they are hardly interested in the
> >> EU being pleased with themselves. The EU wants to placate someone
> >> and that someone is not Microsoft. The issue here is whether or
> >> not the EU can please itself inside the limits of its own laws.
> >
> > I'm not intimately familiar with EU antitrust law, but in the US,
> > once a company loses an antitrust case, there's pretty wide
> > discretion in terms of how to remedy the monopolistic situation,
> > extending all the way through breaking up the company. Obviously
> > the EU can't break up Microsoft, because it's a US-based company,
> > but I find it unlikely that regulators don't have the legal power
> > to impose something like the proposed browser bundling scheme.
>
> I don't agree with your rather pat assumptions here at all. One
> doesn't just "lose and antitrust case" as can be seen with the
> various cases in the USofA and EU in the past 10 years or so. The
> process requires is a complaint that asks for compensation as awarded
> by a court. If the complaint is found to be legitimate, the
> compensation is paid. In the USA vs Microsoft case, the complaints
> found ultimately to be valid were cured by setting the watchdog
> committees to ensure that the antitrust violations were not continued
> or resumed as the case might have been. In the EU, the situation was
> corrected by paying a large fee to the EU and providing a version of
> Windows that did not contain an MP3 player applet. I think the EU
> was more interested in the fee they collected, but that is just my
> opinion.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. Are you claiming Microsoft is
being subjected to double jeopardy?
> Of course the courts could decide that a company break-up were the
> solution, as originally suggested by Judge Jackson in the USA vs
> Microsoft case, but he was reversed on appeal. It is not so likely
> that unbundling IE could result in any such sort of adverse court
> decision, though. The effect of unbundling depends on how unnatural
> it would be seen to be. Since the bundling is now seen as the
> antitrust issue, it would be quite a feat to argue the exact opposite
> in court.
Huh? Nobody is saying Microsoft is going to be subject to antitrust
action for unbundling IE. They're already subject to antitrust action
for *bundling* IE. The question is whether they should no longer be
subject to such action if they agree to unbundle it, or whether merely
unbundling IE is not sufficient to restore a level playing field to the
browser market.
Hans Lister
IE lost the browser market after IE 6...
Firefox, Opera and the latest Safari are all superior IMHO.
amicus_curious
"ZnU" <z...@fake.invalid> wrote in message
>
> You *can* explain it to a customer. The explanation is something like
> "If you use a browser that supports web standards, in a couple of years
> when enough other people do so, you'll have access to more and better
> web content".
>
And maybe the customer will remember that and in a couple of years, if
enough people support a web standard that IE does not support, they will be
likely to switch. But not until then and if.
> Unfortunately most customers, as I said at the start of this debate,
> won't actually modify their current behavior to bring about beneficial
> long-term market-wide outcomes. People demonstrably do not think like
> that. You can't even get people to stop buying certain kinds of
> chocolate by pointing out that they're encouraging *child slavery* in
> Africa; you think they're going to make *browser* decisions based on
> abstract long-term outcomes?
>
Of course not. That is what I said, too.
> Of course the free market extremists will claim that people are purely
> rational economic actors, so this sort of thing is perfectly
> representative of people's actual preferences and therefore no harm is
> occurring. Even if people's state preferences conflict with the implied
> preferences of their economic decisions. I frankly don't have time for
> that sort of ideological nonsense, so if that's the approach you're
> planning to take, we're done here.
>
I don't know what you mean by "free market extremists", I only know that you
have to convince a customer that your product is better for that consumer
than your competitor's product. You could use some kind of "green"
argument, i.e. that the world will eventually be a better place to live due
to a more enlightened choice today even if the economics are adverse, and
that may work with the customer, depending on how well you present it. What
you seem to suggest, however, is that you and others who think that they can
better deliver the future to the customer's delight should be allowed to
mandate their views rather than sell them. I can only say that is the
refuge of the inept and not likely to triumph.
>> >> I think that they want more than that. They want Microsoft to
>> >> provide the means by which their products are distributed at no cost
>> >> to themselves.
>> >
>> > Which is to say, they want their products accessible to consumers on
>> > equal footing with IE..
>>
>> Well, then they should be willing to contribute their share of the costs
>> involved. Microsoft could easily calculate what they are spending and,
>> if
>> the browser company paid their fee to Microsoft, then Microsoft could be
>> made to share the channel as the EU suggests. That is how, say, the
>> various
>> telcos get access to ATT long lines or various internet providers get
>> access
>> to the fiber backbones owned by Verizon. That seems reasonable, but
>> where
>> is Mozilla going to come up with a billion bucks or so?
>
> Microsoft's cost to physically distribute a copy of Windows is
> essentially nonexistent, and their incremental cost to distribute a copy
> with added installers for some extra browsers is even smaller.
>
Their costs are billions of dollars a year, if you would believe the SEC
filings. Consider the salaries of the thousands of people who call on
distributors alone. Who is going to call the regional buyers at Costco, one
by one, and inform them of the processes that they need to use to order
whatever it may be? Who is going to pay for the space advertising to inform
the end user customers? Or the postage for direct contact mailings? There
are more than a hundred million PCs sold annually. How do you contact those
users and not have to spend large amounts of money to do so?
Microsoft's monopoly in Windows did nothing for the ability of IE 1.0 to
become anything but a joke. No one used it, compared to the great number
who installed Navigator instead. It was not until IE was improved to the
point where there was no good reason to bother with Navigator, i.e. there
was nothing to be gained over IE, that people quit using Navigator.
Certainly one of the merits of IE is that it is likely to be more compatible
with Windows than any other browser simply due to the degree of focus that
IE developers have. Opera wants to be compatible with Macintosh, multiple
versions of Linux, as well as Windows and even with multiple releases of
Windows. IE only cares about recent versions of Windows and has a much
sharper focus.
No, I saying that the cure for an antitrust violation must be restricted to
compensation and correction for the specific violation. It is not carte
blanc.
>> Of course the courts could decide that a company break-up were the
>> solution, as originally suggested by Judge Jackson in the USA vs
>> Microsoft case, but he was reversed on appeal. It is not so likely
>> that unbundling IE could result in any such sort of adverse court
>> decision, though. The effect of unbundling depends on how unnatural
>> it would be seen to be. Since the bundling is now seen as the
>> antitrust issue, it would be quite a feat to argue the exact opposite
>> in court.
>
> Huh? Nobody is saying Microsoft is going to be subject to antitrust
> action for unbundling IE. They're already subject to antitrust action
> for *bundling* IE. The question is whether they should no longer be
> subject to such action if they agree to unbundle it, or whether merely
> unbundling IE is not sufficient to restore a level playing field to the
> browser market.
>
Of course you have to start with proving that there actually is something
called the browser market. The DOJ could not do that and could not even
show that Netscape was unfairly restricted from selling its products at the
time. Then I would think that unbundling itself has to be seen as the most
extreme cure for the problem.
What happens if Microsoft, as a company, quit selling Windows in the EU
themselves and left the job up to independent distributors who might want to
take on the job? I think that would frame the problem more exactly in that
it would be seen that the public demand is the enabling factor in
Microsoft's market power, not the classic monopoly control of all means of
production and distribution.
amicus_curious
>
>
> IE lost the browser market after IE 6...
> Firefox, Opera and the latest Safari are all superior IMHO.
First, what is the "browser market"? The browser is a part of what ships
with Windows and comes in the box with the rest of what comes with Windows.
If you end up buying a Macintosh or else build a computer and use Linux in
lieu of Windows, perhaps that is a kind of loss for Microsoft. But if you
use Opera, Firefox, or even Safari on a Windows computer, that is proof of
the universal acceptance of Windows itself. If there ever comes a day when
no one uses IE, but everyone uses their browser of choice on Windows, that
is still a great day for Microsoft. As long as they are getting paid, of
course.
There is a popular myth, left over from the old Netscape days, that having
the most popular browser will enable the supplier to overthrow the dominance
of Windows in the PC market, but that was shown to be a silly notion long,
long ago.
Ben
Common sense says it's a silly myth. It doesn't do anything to attract
them to an alternative OS.
Hans. Lister
> "Hans Lister" <stym...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:hfg38hunjpyk$.qsys1e6fxjny$.dlg@40tude.net...
>>
>>
>> IE lost the browser market after IE 6...
>> Firefox, Opera and the latest Safari are all superior IMHO.
>
> First, what is the "browser market"? The browser is a part of what ships
> with Windows and comes in the box with the rest of what comes with Windows.
> If you end up buying a Macintosh or else build a computer and use Linux in
> lieu of Windows, perhaps that is a kind of loss for Microsoft. But if you
> use Opera, Firefox, or even Safari on a Windows computer, that is proof of
> the universal acceptance of Windows itself. If there ever comes a day when
> no one uses IE, but everyone uses their browser of choice on Windows, that
> is still a great day for Microsoft. As long as they are getting paid, of
> course.
Market = number of people using the browser.
Microsoft owned just about the entire market.
Then came IE7 and it's been downhill ever since.
They are still number one of course because IE ships with
Windows but they no longer own the market.
Firefox has been steadily gaining.
> There is a popular myth, left over from the old Netscape days, that having
> the most popular browser will enable the supplier to overthrow the dominance
> of Windows in the PC market, but that was shown to be a silly notion long,
> long ago.
I don't believe that to be true.
The browser is just one part of the equation.
ZnU
"amicus_curious" <AC...@sti.net> wrote:
This is precisely your entire problem with this discussion: you're
assuming at the outset that, because it happens to be the situation the
market has produced, it's perfectly fine for Microsoft to make IE the
"default option" and for everyone else to have to fight an uphill
battle, and it's illegitimate if anyone tries to step in and create a
more level playing field through extra-market (in this case regulatory)
means.
In other words, you're not really arguing that it's illegitimate for the
EU to restore a level playing field in the browser market, you're simply
taking it for granted.
[snip]
> >> Well, then they should be willing to contribute their share of the
> >> costs involved. Microsoft could easily calculate what they are
> >> spending and, if the browser company paid their fee to Microsoft,
> >> then Microsoft could be made to share the channel as the EU
> >> suggests. That is how, say, the various telcos get access to ATT
> >> long lines or various internet providers get access to the fiber
> >> backbones owned by Verizon. That seems reasonable, but where is
> >> Mozilla going to come up with a billion bucks or so?
> >
> > Microsoft's cost to physically distribute a copy of Windows is
> > essentially nonexistent, and their incremental cost to distribute a
> > copy with added installers for some extra browsers is even smaller.
> >
> Their costs are billions of dollars a year, if you would believe the
> SEC filings. Consider the salaries of the thousands of people who
> call on distributors alone. Who is going to call the regional buyers
> at Costco, one by one, and inform them of the processes that they
> need to use to order whatever it may be? Who is going to pay for the
> space advertising to inform the end user customers? Or the postage
> for direct contact mailings? There are more than a hundred million
> PCs sold annually. How do you contact those users and not have to
> spend large amounts of money to do so?
I seriously doubt total distribution costs amount to more than a couple
of dollars per copy of Windows, and the additional cost to distribute IE
through that pre-existing channel is effectively $0.
[snip]
amicus_curious
"Hans. Lister" <stym...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:tpx3r1xnjt8t$.10wbdetuc5lj3$.dlg@40tude.net...
share is traditionally measured in terms of the relative income of the
participants received from the market and the market size is measured in
terms of the money received from customers of all of the products thought to
be competing in that market. Market growth or decline is measured as the
change in that revenue from year to year.
As a market, the browser market size is very small. I believe Opera charges
for their product although I am not sure of that today. If so, they
probably have 100% of the market as measured conventionally. The DOJ vs USA
case was partially overturned by the appeals court when they noted that the
DOJ had failed to define any relevant market for browers and so the charge
of unlawful leveraging of Windows to create a monopoly in browsers was
dismissed by the court.
A peripheral issue here is whether or not Microsoft can somehow control the
internet itself by controlling the features that browsers will support. The
means by which they would hope to do that are murky although the notion is
that Microsoft could somehow introduce a feature that only IE would support
and would somehow freeze out alternatives and/or competitors. That doesn't
seem feasible to me. Consider the huge development effort that went into
.NET and yet it was cloned rather quickly by the Linux bunch in the form of
Mono. Now that was a very major item and it is hard to imagine anything
else that could not be copied if it became popular.
All the OSS work in that area has been copied for Windows, too, such as PHP
itself. All this does is give developers many different ways to implement
functions on the internet via servers and browsers. That is not going to
change ever.
Market share positioning, though, is used by product managers to decide what
sort of tactics are needed in successful product promotions. Without the
laborious elaboration of detail, I will simply say that it really makes
little difference if you are twice the size of your nearest competitor or
ten times the size of that competitor in terms of the amount of business you
are doing in a market, i.e. you will make the exact same tactical and
strategic decisions in either case.
Hans. Lister
I'm using the term market loosely, not as a direct definition.
Much like a person will say it's "a mile away" when they really
don't know if it's 2 miles or 500 yards.
> As a market, the browser market size is very small. I believe Opera charges
> for their product although I am not sure of that today. If so, they
> probably have 100% of the market as measured conventionally. The DOJ vs USA
> case was partially overturned by the appeals court when they noted that the
> DOJ had failed to define any relevant market for browers and so the charge
> of unlawful leveraging of Windows to create a monopoly in browsers was
> dismissed by the court.
Opera is free to download for personal use.
> A peripheral issue here is whether or not Microsoft can somehow control the
> internet itself by controlling the features that browsers will support. The
> means by which they would hope to do that are murky although the notion is
> that Microsoft could somehow introduce a feature that only IE would support
> and would somehow freeze out alternatives and/or competitors. That doesn't
> seem feasible to me. Consider the huge development effort that went into
> .NET and yet it was cloned rather quickly by the Linux bunch in the form of
> Mono. Now that was a very major item and it is hard to imagine anything
> else that could not be copied if it became popular.
The Linux freetards are convinced that MS does exactly that and
by not following web standards, "cause" people to write bad code
that may confuse other browsers.
> All the OSS work in that area has been copied for Windows, too, such as PHP
> itself. All this does is give developers many different ways to implement
> functions on the internet via servers and browsers. That is not going to
> change ever.
>
> Market share positioning, though, is used by product managers to decide what
> sort of tactics are needed in successful product promotions. Without the
> laborious elaboration of detail, I will simply say that it really makes
> little difference if you are twice the size of your nearest competitor or
> ten times the size of that competitor in terms of the amount of business you
> are doing in a market, i.e. you will make the exact same tactical and
> strategic decisions in either case.
I think the whole EU thing is a waste of time and money and will
ultimately hurt the users.
People can and always have been able to use whatever browser
they want.
My objection is with programs that are hard wired to IE and do
not respect the default browser switch.
Turbo Tax for one.
Sony Soundforge for another.
JEDIDIAH
> amicus_curious wrote:
>>
>> "Hans Lister" <stym...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:hfg38hunjpyk$.qsys1e6fxjny$.dlg@40tude.net...
[deletia]
>> There is a popular myth, left over from the old Netscape days, that
>> having the most popular browser will enable the supplier to overthrow
>> the dominance of Windows in the PC market, but that was shown to be a
>> silly notion long, long ago.
>
> Common sense says it's a silly myth. It doesn't do anything to attract
> them to an alternative OS.
Sure it does.
It breaks them of their Microsoft fixation. They come to see the installation
of something non-Microsoft as a way to fix the problems they encounter with
Microsoft's products. That can easily spread to other things.
It breaks the idea that there isn't another option.
Next they are contemplating replacing MS Office.
After that they are contemplating dumping Windows entirely.
The fact that the Microsoft browser is being undone by a 3d party
competitor is not even the same thing as some 3rd party coming up
with a new killer app. That new killer app will just be seen as
another good reason to use the monopoly product. OTOH, unseating
a piece of monopolyware undermines trust in Microsoft in general.
It's the taking over, screwing up and retreating that's the problem.
--
Sure, I could use iTunes even under Linux. However, I have |||
better things to do with my time than deal with how iTunes doesn't / | \
want to play nicely with everyone else's data (namely mine). I'd
rather create a DVD using those Linux apps we're told don't exist.