“The US government has given its thumbs-up to Microsoft’s search box plans for Vista, shrugging off concerns raised recently by Google. While criticizing Microsoft for its implementation of its existing antitrust accord, regulators appear satisfied with the software maker’s plans for Windows Vista, including a new search box that is part of Internet Explorer 7.” On a related note, “the Justice Department is seeking to extend the term of its landmark antitrust settlement with Microsoft by two years, blaming Microsoft’s slowness in providing technical documentation to rivals.”
Except for good.
why ?
do you think it is good that Microsoft is free to implement its own search as the default ?
or that it is good because Microsoft basically ignores the judgment of all courts it has been up against ?
do you think it is good that Microsoft is free to implement its own search as the default ?
I do yes. I think MS should be able to integrate anything they want into their OS regardless.
At some point it will get so convulted that people will moved to another platform anyway, who cares. The market will correct itself over time.
or that it is good because Microsoft basically ignores the judgment of all courts it has been up against ?
MS’s attitude to the courts and competitors is what I actually love about the company. The software is *ok*, the business practices are brutal ruthless, just the way it should be.
All these little panty waist companies crying about getting their asses ran through the clipper with MS at the controls. Cry me f*cking river you losers – you shoulda played the game harder. 2nd place is the first loser. If you can’t figure out how to put a knife in MS’s back then you deserve everything you get.
Then the courts – honestly (I live in the US) f*ck em’ too. The US government spends more time trying to dismantle the corporations that pay our citizens, who in turn pay the taxes that its ridiculous.
I don’t blame MS for not listening to the courts. The US courts need to be bitched slapped far harder than any monopoly thats ever lived.
The market will correct itself over time.
I remember people saying this over ten years ago when Windows 3.1 was dominating the market over OS/2.
The correction still hasn’t happened.
How long are you willing to wait?
Former.
It might just be good if Microsoft were to fix their totally crap update system that
1) insists you use IE
2) Says I can’t use your IE settings to run my crap Direct X widget. Please change them to this…
3) And your IE settings are already set as suggested.
Result Catch 22.
Just give me a setting for Windows that says
“I’m a Total Guru. Automatically Switch off all nag points, wizards, auto updating (just send me an email) and automount of new volumes”.
I know most of this can be done with registry tweaks but please, in this day and age just let me run the OS as I want not how Uncle Bill thinks I might just possible want to work.
Vista (AFAIK) is looking like the point where I stop running Microsoft OS once and for all. Many of my customers are thinking the same way as well.
When Vista gets released, the Windows Update thing is supposed to be revamped. It will be using a seperate program to do updates. No IE involved iirc. So pretty soon that’ll be a non-issue.
Why? Why is this a good outcome, in your opinion?
In any case, to me the most important part of these news is that MS is found not to be quite cooperative as to the terms of its settlement conditions.
MS wonders why it’s disliked as a company, and then they go around dragging their feet complying to what was really a slap on the wrist.
Why anyone would believe that a monopoly like MS could have the moral high ground (on anything) puzzles me.
Edited 2006-05-13 23:04
I think Google went overboard. Nobody has a problem with Firefox, Konqueror, etc. defaulting to Google or including built-in Google support. But the second Microsoft does something as trivial as have a default, they get taken to task (or to court, as it were). I hate Microsoft’s abuse of its monopoly as much as the next guy, but in the grand scheme of things, this really doesn’t matter and Microsoft is *hardly* overstepping its bounds here.
Just my $.02
I think Google went overboard. Nobody has a problem with Firefox, Konqueror, etc. defaulting to Google or including built-in Google support. But the second Microsoft does something as trivial as have a default, they get taken to task (or to court, as it were). I hate Microsoft’s abuse of its monopoly as much as the next guy, but in the grand scheme of things, this really doesn’t matter and Microsoft is *hardly* overstepping its bounds here.
Not to mention that MSN Search has been the default in IE before Google even existed.
I think Google went overboard. Nobody has a problem with Firefox, Konqueror, etc. defaulting to Google or including built-in Google support. But the second Microsoft does something as trivial as have a default, they get taken to task (or to court, as it were).
The rules are different when you’re a convicted monopolist. You can’t legally get away with the same things as the smaller, non-monopoly players. The biggest difference is that Microsoft makes Windows, Microsoft makes IE, and Microsoft makes MSN search, so it’s natural to be worried about them illegally leveraging their monopoly position (yet again!) to give one of their own products an unfair advantage in the marketplace. In the Firefox example you mention, the OS maker is different from the browser maker which are both different from the search engine provider, so Firefox defaulting to Google isn’t the same thing at all. It isn’t even close. Also, the Firefox box gives you a choice of search providers, with Google being the original default. In the IE7 beta I just downloaded, MSN isn’t just the default, it’s the only choice offered. Not much of a “choice”, is it?
Anyway, I think Google’s solution to the problem is simple, and they’ve already implemented it. When you visit Google in the most recent IE7 beta, you see a big yellow box in the upper right-hand corner of the page with an arrow pointing up at the search box and it reads, “Click here to make Google your default search.” One or two clicks and that nasty MSN bug is fixed. Choice restored. Thanks for that, Google.
But I fully expect MS to make the process for switching your default search provider much more difficult in the final release.
Edited 2006-05-14 12:48
The rules are different when you’re a convicted monopolist.
Convicted monopolist? You speak as though being a monopoly is illegal (hint: it’s not). You might want to read the relevant court documents. Microsoft was arbitrarily and retroactively branded as being abusive — there were no real laws or convictions involved, just big government flexing its muscle. Just as arbitrarily, OSnews could be penalized and “convicted” — after all, the Sheman act been used to bully companies with marketshares as low as 5%. All it takes is failures with a grudge and more lawyers than talent (like Netscape).
MSN isn’t just the default, it’s the only choice offered. Not much of a “choice”, is it?
Microsoft can’t be expected to offer a list of the thousands of search engines out there. They’ve made it trivial to add whatever engine you’d like to the browser (and set it as the default). Just go to any search engine’s website, right-click, and choose to make it your default. Done. It’s easier than with any other web browser.
But I fully expect MS to make the process for switching your default search provider much more difficult in the final release.
Got enough tinfoil in your hat there?
As a point of reference, here are the twelve acts the DoJ retroactively deemed illegal for Microsoft to have used (note that these are not illegal on their own):
1. Prohibiting removal of desktop icons, folders or Start menu entries
2. Prohibiting alteration of initial boot sequence
3. Prohibiting addition of icons or folders of different shape or size
4. Prohibiting use of “Active Desktop” to promote others’ products
5. Excluding Internet Explorer from the “Add/Remove” utility
6. Commingling code to prevent removal of Internet Explorer
7. Placement of IAP’s product on desktop in return for its agreement to exclusively promote Internet Explorer (or to limit shipments of Navigator)
8. Agreement with ISVs to make Internet Explorer their default hypertext-based user interface
9. Threat to end support of Apple Computer’s Office product unless Apple bundled Internet Explorer with the Macintosh operating system
and made Internet Explorer the default browser
10. Contracts requiring ISVs to exclusively promote Microsoft’s Java product
11. Deception of Java developers about Windows-specific nature of tools distributed to them
12. Coercion of Intel to stop assisting Sun in improving its Java technology
Edited 2006-05-15 00:19
The modding pattern indicates a strong pro-MS bias. My comment was not off-topic, nor was it abusive.
Anyway, that doesn’t change my main point: MS is willingly dragging its feet in providing the documentation to competitors (as the settlement requires), and yet some people want us to believe that they’re acting in good faith.
Oh, and to those who say “Firefox does it”: Firefox and Google do not belong to the same company, and neither belong to a company that also has a monopoly on Desktop OSes. Any such comparisons are flawed at the core.
It’s MS’s browser/OS, they can do whatever the hell they want with it. If you install the Google toolbar, search will default to Google. So apparently Google read the docs.
Yeah, like the anti-MS comments (no matter how stupid) never get modded up and the pro-MS comments never get modded down. Please.
The voting system simply doesn’t work very well, either way, and that’s all their is to it.
Please mod this one down.
Edited 2006-05-14 01:45
There you go! Modded down, I hope you’re happy!
OTOH maybe we could talk about the article, instead of the comment moderation system?
–bornagainpenguin
The voting system simply doesn’t work very well, either way, and that’s all their is to it.
How would you improve the voting system on osnews? Could you give even one example?
On the plus side there is no Diebold in the equation, so I can think of one voting system that it is better than.
Actual accountability.
When you vote a comment up/down, you should have to give an actual reason. Also, you should be able to view who voted what comments up/down.
Please do tell how you arrived to this amazing conclusion of bias with a total sample size of 3 previous comments before yours in the thread? One of which I might add, was another of your comments.
Or is anything that doesn’t mod up MS-bashing “strong pro-MS bias”? Or not modding down comments that senseless bash MS? Or is this a case of MS-haters knowing that most people would in fact support this decision since the complaint was so baseless, so they preemtively come out with accusations of “strong pro-MS bias”?
The modding system does seem to encourage a groupie culture, though. Post something and all of the poster’s fans will be ready to mod them up regardless of what they says, and mod down anyone that disagrees.
The modding system just plain doesn’t work. Not on Slashdot, and not here either for the same reasons. Fanatics line up on both sides of the debate and use thier points to shore up their position.
of course it will be approved what other OS will the 90% windows users use on their desktops?
our corrupt us govt gave ms the thumbs up :O whod of thunk it lol abramoff=ms :p. MS will use their monopoly on the desktop and browser YES browser to give themselves a monopoly in the the search engine buisness in a few years. The only reasons things like this bother me is because it keeps free and open standards/web standards from being implimented because lazy cheap and ignorant companies just go with whatever louzy standard/format ms is pimping.
MSN Search has ALWAYS been the default in IE.
Hell, the only difference is separating the search box from the address bar, where as ever since IE4 you can search from within the IE address bar (by typing search blah blah blah, you can even set it up so you type google blah blah blah and it Googles it instead of MSN Search).
Getting sick of people like you, seriously.
…therefore no one should be able to tell them what they can and cannot do with it.
If you manufactured cars and happened to have the majority market share, you wouldn’t want some worthless, do-gooder bureaucrat telling you to build your competition’s transmissions into your vehicles, would you?
Monopolies exist when the state intervenes in the free-market to *create* them by unfair favoritism and cronyism.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=monopoly
I don’t see what point you are going after. You give the link to some definitions of a monopoly.
It notes that a monopoly is “A situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service.” Microsoft has nearly all of the market, so check, they are a monopoly. Car companies are oligopolies and are therefore an invalid comparison.
Secondly, it notes that monopolies often have higher prices and inferior products. Monopoly abuse is also considered illegal in the US. Microsoft HAS abused its monopoly in the past. One example would be when MS threatened to not give OEM discounts if the OEM packaged Netscape in what it sold. Therefore are you asking for Microsoft to be above the law?
And you note that governments can cause monopolies. That is no reason not to allow the government to rectify the problem. Besides, in pure capitalism monopolies are benificial to a company and will likely form as companies combine and are absorbed.
I have yet to see a good argument that suggests that MS should walk free after dirtying their hands in immoral practises.
On the topic of Google, is what they did extreme? In some ways it is, but there is some point in their argument, and in doing so they are only trying to protect their business.
Many people are computer illiterate and will never change settings in any of their programs, nor know how to. If you think otherwise, then consider yourself lucky that you haven’t been fully exposed to the stupidity of the masses.
Very few people feel MS is doing anything wrong in this regard. Google advertised Firefox off the homepage, what, the week before last? Did Firefox pay? No. What does Google offer in Google Pack? Not IE. Obviously there is some cross-interest involved between these 2 entities.
What page does Safari default to? Konqueror? What page has IE Search defaulted to for years? What homepage has IE defaulted to for years? Did that stop Google from being the #1 search page? Did that stop Yahoo from being the #1 portal? Obviously the investigators took those rather HUGE fact in consideration.
For a while people felt MS needed controlling, but the more these frivolous lawsuits arise, the more the tech crowd gets jaded. In Google’s case, this backfired. Only a very few rabid MS haters took up the ball while the rest of us rolled our eyes and Google lost points.
There is a very big difference between the a non-monopolistic browser defaulting to another companies product for search, than a monopolistic browser defaulting to a separate product controlled by the SAME cooporation. You can’t use a monopoly in one sector to create a monopoly in another sector and search and browsing are separate sectors. Whether or not IE has a monopoly is another question, but if it does, then it seems that this default is defiantly anti-competitive and I don’t see why you assume that this shouldn’t bother people.
Seth
Very few people feel MS is doing anything wrong in this regard.
Yeah, because we all know that the most popular an idea is, the more truth there is to it, right?
Now, do you have actual poll results or is this an estimate you’re drawing from reading internet forum threads?
Two things you should consider: a) monopolies undermine the people’s trust in the capitalist system and b) markets do not correct themselves over time if unregulated (that much we know after 1929).
As far as “US courts” needing to be bitch slapped, I think you just outed yourself as the worst type of reactionary: the one who attacks the judicial system as a whole on the rare occasions where abusive corporations get reprimanded.
If a corporation does wrong by the law, it should be punished. Otherwise, what you want is not democracy, but a form of plutocratic feudalism. Democracy means power to the people, not to private corporations…
Well, one out of two isn’t bad. A is right, but B is wrong, considering that the market after 1929 was regulated from top to bottom and had been so for years, even in USA. 1929 would not have happened with an unregulated market. Major economic catastrophes are always the result of regulations. Fewer regulations equals more stable system. Leave your socialistic line of thinking behind. It failed in Europe and Asia, and it’ll fail everywhere.
There haven’t been an unregulated market since the beginning of the First World War.
Democracy means power to the individual, and not to groups of persons.
Well, one out of two isn’t bad. A is right, but B is wrong, considering that the market after 1929 was regulated from top to bottom and had been so for years, even in USA.
Exactly. The market has been regulated since 1929, and that’s why there has been less catastrophic regulations.
1929 would not have happened with an unregulated market.
Wrong. 1929 happened with an unregulated market. Sorry to burst your bubble, but unregulated markets are instable. Markets are not self-regulating – there is no “invisible hand” of the market. That’s more a question of faith than reason.
Major economic catastrophes are always the result of regulations. Fewer regulations equals more stable system.
History shows that to be untrue, and the reverse to be true. Economic catastrophes are nearly always the result of lack of regulations (we had examples in the last 10 years with currency speculation almost ruining national economies).
Leave your socialistic line of thinking behind. It failed in Europe and Asia, and it’ll fail everywhere.
There are socialist element in the economies of all western democracies, including the U.S. It is pure capitalism that doesn’t work – it accumulates capital into the hand of a few corporations, creating monopolies, or gets caught in runaway speculation, crashing markets. That’s what happened with tulips all the way back then in Europe, that’s what happened in the US in 1929.
There haven’t been an unregulated market since the beginning of the First World War.
Actually, 1929 happened in an unregulated market (or at least, not regulated enough).
Democracy means power to the individual, and not to groups of persons.
That doesn’t make any sense: groups of persons are groups of individuals. “Demo” means crowd in greek, IIRC. Democracy means power to the people. Corporations, despite the law that makes them into moral persons, are not people. They are institutions – and unfortunately, they often have more power and less responsibilities than real people…