Microsoft has agreed to make modest changes to Windows XP in response to criticism from an antitrust compliance committee.
Microsoft agrees to antitrust tweaks of XP
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It seems to me that the EU commission is just flexing its nuts on microsoft. This is probably just going to piss customers off when they accidently buy the crippled version of Windows with no media player, etc.
From the article: “Also, the filing said, disabling Internet Explorer in XP does not automatically delete user-created shortcuts pointing at the application.”
Microsoft must be happy they don’t do Linux. Imagine that: “Also, the filing said, deleting Internet Explorer in Linux does not automatically delete user-created hard and symbolic links pointing at the application.”
This one has nothing to do with the European Commission. From TFA: “This process is unrelated to another proceeding taking place before the European Commission”
Doesn’t this anti-trust company have anything better to do than to be picky?
In a way, I almost agree. It is quite sad that the only thing that the anti-trust committee can come up with is the look of an icon. PLUUUEEAAASE! You would have thought that they would have pointed out that MS DNS does not work great with bind 9.x (the TSKEY thingy), and required MS to fix it or some of the other slight and sutble incompatibilities that MS products are plagued by.
They were formed to be picky and make sure Microsoft does what it was told, they are paid to be picky.
And thus, are a waste of time and money.
it is microsofts operating system so let them do whatever they want, bundle whatever they want, and make it difficult to use other software if they want to…. the more users this pisses off just means the more users they lose…
anyone who is not a fan of M$ should be glad M$ bundles stuff and integrates stuff and so forth just means more users that they push away….
i personally think they should make every user re-activate the OS every few months, re enter product keys, and just bug the absolute shit out of their customers… more moving to other OSs because of it…. works for me…
Am I crazy in thinking that the best remedy for Microsoft is to spin off its OS from its other applications? The OS and other MS apps seem like they are tied together at the hip. I believe that this deep integration between the MS OS and MS apps is one of the reasons why competition is impossible when going up against Microsoft. I for one would like to see MS SQL and MS Office for UNIX and the Windows OS running on PowerPC and SPARC.
Didn’t Microsoft miss the deadline set by the EU commission already the second time? How many more deadlines are they given?
The antitrust people have a fine line to walk. On one hand, they have to protect competition, on the other hand they have to protect the rights of the company (in this case Microsoft) to do what they want to do with their product.
You can’t just take away Microsoft’s rights to their own software because they have been deemed a monopoly, but at the same time, the restrictions should take place (though, I don’t personally believe that bundling has hurt competition).
“The OS and other MS apps seem like they are tied together at the hip.”
They most certainly are not; think of the Office group at MS as just another ISP…they just happen to be a part of MS. The Office group has no more access to Windows source code than you or I. They do have virtually unlimited resources though, and of course if they run into a snag the Windows group is only an email away.
@Richard: No, they´ve send in a proposal in the last minute. The EU will now check very closely if this proposal is ok.
There is need to provide in future Windows versions of feature which allow to customize which components to install. There is need possibility to uncheck components (Media Player, Outlook Express, Windows Messenger, Internet Explorer, …)
Then there will be no antitrust cases!!!!
imagine beeing able to install a completly bare bones version of windows xp. with internet explore, media player, outlook, all the useless games, accesibility options movie maker. and all of the the other wasted space never even touching yur hard drive. and imagine this ability coming straight from M$ so that it actually worked correctly and wasnt some aftermarket hack.
that would “ALMOST” temp me to use windows again.
This is what’s being done. By the settlement with the feds MS has to split its OS and Application businesses from eachother. They cannot share resources, IP, employees, board members, etc.
RE:Fine line
Actually the bundling did hurt the competition. Specifically it hurt Netscape and Sun’s Java. Navigator at the time the bundling began was under a pay license, IE was free (actually OEMs and ISPs were paid (effectively) to support IE and not Navigator). Navigator also eventually came with Java included. By discouraging the use of Navigator, Java’s growth was significantly slowed as that was one of just a few ways it was being pushed out at the time.
//imagine beeing able to install a completly bare bones version of windows xp. with internet explore, media player, outlook, all the useless games, accesibility options movie maker.//
That’s how it’s installed right now. I’d like it *WITHOUT* those things installed.
“Think if OSX and Solaris have to do same?”
Fox, you should read this… it seems that it was directed at people like you:
http://www.osviews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=articl…
Am I crazy in thinking that the best remedy for Microsoft is to spin off its OS from its other applications?
No, you’re not crazy. Many people have suggested that as a partial solution.
Unfortunately, the Powers That Be don’t have enough knowledge (or enough intestinal fortitude) to actually apply such advice.
This is what’s being done. By the settlement with the feds MS has to split its OS and Application businesses from eachother. They cannot share resources, IP, employees, board members, etc.
Since when? That idea to split Microsoft into two separate entities was proposed many times, but the DOJ did not implement such a penalty.
splitting it would would benefit M$, in fact I think this may very well be the plan…it wasnt long ago that they hired a LOT of big guys to run…what? seperate companies maybe…
thas what i meant man, sorry.
OK, the EU commission tells M$ to unbundle WMP.
In the meantime the RAI, the Italian State television, decides that its broadband content, called RaiClick, can *only* be viewed if you have WMP installed. It used to be RealPlayer.
This means 2 things:
1)The streaming quality is a *lot* worse
2)If you use linux you don’t stand a chance in hell of watching it, unless you use Win4lin or VMware. And no, the usual trick of using Kaffeine or Mplayer with w32codecs doesn’t work, no chance.
So a RAI tv license payer like me has no right to watch free broadband content. My fault? I don’t use Winbloze or WMP.
All this happened, what a coincidence, under a right wing government.
This is not so easy, IMO. The ability to integrate different softwares IS a feature, not a problem, from users’ perspective. The fact that so many Microsoft products are integrated with each other is part of MS success, from a technology point of view.
When it’s sure that Windows Media Player is installed on each Windows installation, a developer CAN actually choose not to implement media playing functions because he/she can simply integrate such technology. Among advantages there are:
1) being sure that such technology will always be available
2) being pretty sure that MS will always update and enhance such technology so my application will always be on leading edge
3) if I’m not interested (or have money) to afford licensing of other technologies, system is granting me such possibility free of charge which means more developers can use it and more developers can develop software for it
So having DirectX, WMP, VBA, .NET and many other technologies for free is a major plus for developers and that’s partly a reason why Unix/Linux systems are not able to gain much interest for desktop market.
That’s what happened with OS X too since Apple added an handful of system-wide technologies for free like image and sound processing and video handling. Seems that Apple managed to learn from MS about this and we can expect a boost in OS X development because of that.
Now, to be able to provide such enhacements, you need to control that technology. Infacts, Windows and OS X could do that because they control their respective systems. Linux couldn’t just because there’s no control over such technology and everyone have conflicting interests.
Now, as OS X shows, that needs to be considered a major advantage from users’ perspective. However, while Apple has a fraction of the whole IT market, MS instead holds a very large part. So, from business point of view, all those “features” turn out to be an hell for competition. And that’s what makes such thing very messy.