Yesterday, Microsoft dropped a bomb by announcing that all versions of Windows 7 released in Europe would ship without Internet Explorer pre-installed. This was in answer to the EU antitrust investigation currently under way regarding possible illegal bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. The first reactions to this news are coming in, with Opera and the EU both lamenting the move.
Opera
I want to focus on Opera first. Opera has always stated that the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows is what is making it impossible for them to compete fairly on the desktop side of things. You’d think that the removal of Internet Explorer from OEM and retail versions of Windows would be welcomed with open arms by Opera – but no. As it turns out, they’re not happy at all.
Opera Chief Technology Officer Hakon Wium Lie said in an interview that this move was not was Opera was looking for. “I don’t believe this is going to restore competition in the marketplace,” he said. Instead, Opera prefers the solution where upon boot, users would be shown a dialog with a few browsers to choose from – among which Opera, of course.
I find it very difficult to take Opera seriously. Opera may claim that they are being held back by the bundling of IE, but that claim is simply not supported by the current state of the browser market. Firefox’ popularity is through the roof, with the Free/free browser from Mozilla touching the 40% market share figures in many European countries. In addition, Chrome has become quite popular in a short period of time, more popular than Opera, in fact (of course, usual warnings for statistics, etc. etc.).
What does this tell us? This tells us that Opera has simply been unable to deliver a product that people want to use, or that they’ve been unable to promote Opera in a proper way. This has nothing to do with the bundling of IE, as Firefox is showing us that if you build a better product, people will come. Bundling or no bundling.
It seems like Opera is hoping for cheap shortcut to gain more users. Firefox and Mozilla did it the hard way, by building a product people wanted, and by successfully promoting it. Opera has apparently failed to do so, and is now hoping to be included in a popup dialog, a popup dialog which in itself would be highly anti-competitive as it would favour only those browsers in the dialog already. What if someone new comes along, like Chrome and Safari for Windows recently? How would they get on the list?
That is not to say, of course, that the act of bundling in and of itself is or is not against the law – I’ll leave that to the lawyers among us. However, what I’m arguing is that the bundling proved to be no problem for Firefox, so why should it be one for Opera? The browser market is healthier than ever now, and thanks to web standards, we have to worry less and less about websites not working. This is a direct result from Firefox’ popularity, and instead of trying to get a free ride on Firefox’ success, maybe Opera should try to build and market a product people want.
European Commission
The European Commission has also responded to yesterday’s news, and they’re not particularly impressed either. “As for retail sales, which amount to less than 5% of total [Windows] sales, the Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of web browsers,” their statement notes, “Instead Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.”
When it comes to OEM sales, the EC is more positive. OEMs will be able to freely decide which browsers to supply with their machines. “Were the Commission to conclude that Microsoft’s behaviour has been abusive, it would have to consider whether this proposal would in itself be sufficient to create genuine consumer choice on the web browser market.”
The EC argues that while the move to remove IE isn’t bad in and of itself, it may simply not be enough to undo possible damage done by the bundling, and that more actions (like a popup dialog) might be needed to restore the browser market to a healthy state.
Time will tell, but they’ll have to be quick about it. Windows 7 is about to be released to manufacturing, after which there’s really not much of a turning back.
IE has no future, MS knows it and has no interest in a small share of the browser market.
I think IE will be dropped completely at some point.
And I distinctly remember wishing it to be dead more than once 🙂
Yes, I’ve been wanting it dead for years now
Micrsoft have been doing business the old way for a long time — we want you to do everything the ‘Microsoft way’ — rather than the new way — we will give you the (interoperable) standards to do want you want to do.
Internet Explorer has to change from trying to dictate the way developers should code, to supporting the way developers want to code.
Apple realised a long time ago that it’s better to be defining standards people want to use, then dictating them. That’s why they’re very active in contributing to standards. HTML5 and OpenCL to name two.
If Micrsoft want IE to have a future, they need to get in the standards game and realise that it’s no longer ‘my way or the highway’, because we developers have decided to take the highway and do things on our terms now.
Christ, don’t say that out too loud – the last time I said something similar I had Thom jump down my back claiming that “Microsoft is changing! it really is! it just takes time! trust me, things are changing!”
Its been 8 years since the release of Windows XP (bring the NT line to the customer) and they had the opportunity to fix things up; they could could have worked with the Kronos group to unify DirectX and OpenGL under an ‘open API to rule them all’ but they failed to do so. They’ve failed to go to the open innovation network to sign a memorandum of understanding to point out that their patents were defensive only and those who wish to implement their technology will not be be subject to extortion (being sued into the grave demanding royalties).
Things aren’t going to improve until 20+ years of employees are purged out of Microsoft and all future employment requirements include long term experience using non-Microsoft platforms and technologies.
Supporting and making open standards is great if you have small market share but standardizing OS if you are on the top is strategically very dangerous because it levels the play field and makes other alternatives easier to use. I don’t see why Microsoft would want that, having their own interest in mind.
Walking the thin line between the necessary interoperability and exclusive features that tie users to their platform, that’s the way MS and Apple too do it. Not a moral issue, just business.
And DirectX and OpenGl may do some same stuff but are fundamentally different approaches.
I am not a Microsoft fan by any stretch of the imagination, but in this day and age, people expect some basic things out of a PC they buy or OS they install, and one of those things is to be able to browse the internet immediately. I understand the non-competitive argument, but this takes away essential functionality.
If there is no browser bundled, how are you going to go download a browser? Are we going to see retail IE and Firefox packages now, like Netscape back in the day? Yes, the user deserves choice, but it makes no sense not to include a browser anymore.
I support making it easier to remove IE entirely in fresh Windows builds, and making it much easier for OEM’s to install whatever browser they want, but out of the box, either way, there needs to be a browser, and the EU and Opera are just being naive to think their plans are good for the consumer.
Uhm, that’s exactly the point the EU and opera are making.
They want a browser out of the box, they just don’t want it to be IE by default. That’s why they want give users a choice upon install, something MS obviously doesn’t want to happen.
So you are basically agreeing with the EU and opera and slamming them at the same time for something MS chose to do.
Thanks, I didn’t flesh that out enough.
I don’t agree with the EU and Opera going after Microsoft to begin with. Their monopoly argument over IE is what annoys me. As far as the current arguments presented in this article, I agree with what the EU is saying now, but it’s obvious that Opera’s current argument is just because they feel like nobody wants to play with them.
I also disagree with MS taking IE out of Windows 7 as a solution, because it takes away from the user experience.
Thanks for pointing out my inconsistency there, typed it while otherwise occupied and missed part of it
So that raises the question of what browsers and why get to ship with windows rather than browser XYZ. Further more, why doesn’t software ZXY ship with windows too because it’s a complete replacement for microsoft’s own ABC? This road doesn’t lead to any reasonable ending.
At best, just leaving IE in windows forcing microsoft to allow complete removal of the browser would be a just cause but adding in software from other manufacturers is no more reasonable than what we already have.
So what one could do is allow the browser providers to have access to the Windows Windows update service so that they can offer their product through the Microsoft updating mechanism. Microsoft doesn’t want that because it would end up with end users realising there is a massive selection out there; they could try out each browser till they find something they like.
The problem with Microsoft is they see Internet Explorer as the gateway where they can link Microsoft services that they provide, Microsoft’s server products and their operating system. It is one of the many glue’s that hold the Microsoft monopoly together. Get rid of Internet Explorer’s proprietary technologies, demand the royalty free access to Microsoft’s technologies (network protocol, file format etc) and numerous other bits and bobs and you’ll find the Microsoft monopoly would die pretty quickly.
**read this with a cup of coffee around – and with a sense of humour**
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Well, use a ftp-client to download a browser, as I did with NT4, since no newer sites worked with IE2. Of course, without a ftp-client you can’t do that. In which case you use a cd. There are tons of cd’s with IE, FF and ftp – they tend to come with any software magazine.
Besides that a browser isn’t system essential. The underlying libraries are essential. A browser is just an end user application and does not make the system more or less functional. It’s just impractical without a browser
You can get browsers from everywhere, so your scenario is essentially a non-issue. That said, a software store in Windows wouldn’t be a bad thing. From that store (where one could add his/her own channels) one could download (for free or for money) a browser according to personal taste.
While MS business culture is detremental to say the least, they do hire some of the brightest programmers before hamstringing them with marketing and strategy demands. They could allow some of the bright developers enough freedom to solve the problem rather than push the agenda.
Even still, there are other options.
http://ftp.exe, it’s still there and http://ftp.firefox.com isn’t a very cryptic address to guess nor is ie.microsoft.com.
Windows Update seems to be a local utility rather than browser app. You don’t need a browser to connect, get your updates and add a browser of your choosing along with other programs. As I mention elsewhere though, there are “business” reasons this would be hard to do rather than any technical challenge.
Browser installs don’t take much space, a selection of installs on the original disk wouldn’t be noticable.
Preinstalls are how most get there Windows license and I’m pretty sure Dell and the other’s can figure out how to download a chosen browser and include it into the standard system image.
On Maemo Linux devices, there is an icon; “Skype”. Skype isn’t installed but when you hit that icon the first time it asks “say, should I go download and install Skype for you?”. This works after the install’s first boot very easily.
Along that same line; if your installing Windows on a non-networked machine browsing is probably not your primary concern. This means that your likely going to have a network connection available when you do install it if browsing is going to be a desired function of the system. By extent, they could simply have a network ping to grab the latest browser list and pull the install from the applicable location rather than off the original disk.
I just don’t see a system installed without an initial browser being a real challenge. The question is elsewhere in this particular “whatif” scenario.
Actually, my thinking is that the crippled Win7 EU edition is along the lines of the Mediaplayer less XP EU edition; sold at the same price while advertising less included software. Ultimately, they’ll be able to engineer a market failure of that SKU number and go “but the market wants our bundled software”.
If you don’t have an Internet connection you may go to a library, Internet Cafe (do these still exist?) or WiFi hotspot and download one onto media that can be used on your computer and install one, or more, from there.
If you do have ‘net access you may simply use an FTP script, hopefully provided, since not many end users will want to develop and test their own.
If facilities such as wget or curl are available then robust rc file, command scripting and security and recovery options could be provided to successfully retrieve installer files. And, here also, “provided” means by someone willing to do so as well as capable of doing it, not enforcing some learning regimen on the end user.
This would avoid the “gotcha” of having links or elinks installed since those are browsers even though their very presence and feature sets might encourage users to try other products. (o;)<
They’re playing at “scorched earth” here. Microsoft will remove IE from the retail product to make a scene. Then OEMS will turn around and install it right back again…. a few will install Opera or Firefox, but ALL will install IE because that’s what customer will be told to expect in all the ads.
For retail copies, the first time you need Windows Update, or Silverlight you’ll get IE on the “highly recommended” listing every single time until you give in…. or you pick automatic updates and get it anyway.
Microsoft will then point to how 95% of PCs sold are shipping IE because “customers want it” and how 95% of the retail customers download it the first time they update.
But perhaps that is at least partially exactly what customers actually want?
That is to say, at least I do not believe the mantra of certain FOSS people; that poor Windows users would hypothetically immediately switch to another products if they are just “educated” about the choices.
Sometimes I just find the “sheep herd consumers” -thinking condescending, especially when coming from a bureaucracy such as EU.
A pop up to choose a browser is no good, how can people truly choose, if they don’t try first?
IE/Firefox/Safari & Opera are already free downloads for anybody to try, and people are already choosing browsers.
Firefox’s marketshare going from 0 to >50% in places like Indonesia prooves that Opera is talking a load of claptrap and just want an easy bundled ride, even if IE & Firefox have to travel in the front with them.
* * *
I think IE should be bundled, but the default home page should be a google search for “Get a web browser”.
You mean http://www.bing.com search?
(No, I don’t use Bing…)
That opens a whole new can of worms, regardless of which search engine is used: then Microsoft will be showing favoritism there, too, whether it be their own, Google, Yahoo!, Cuil, or any of the others: do they then need to provide a search page to show them all the options? It never ends! As soon as Microsoft chose any single engine, or chose a selection of engines to offer, they’d be slammed for the same thing, but for search engines: the EU cannot ever be satisfied, and Microsoft is doing what makes the most sense: make them unsatisfied while fulfilling legal requirements, instead of making them unsatisfied and having any chance for any particular party to gripe of favoritism.
I think it will soon be time for customers in the EU to start seeing browsers sold on media in stores, for those that otherwise don’t already have a downloaded installable copy from another source, since you can’t be sure what OEMs will do, and there will still be those that assemble new computers from component parts.
I remember in the 90’s, where AOL CDs were all over the place. Inserted in magazines, boxes of cereal, in “For Free” bins at the Post Office, etc. Maybe we’ll return to those days. Free coasters!!
This looks to be only the opening shots in a little spat that will probably result in a compromise. Instead of criticizing the EU, folks might prefer to read a part of its announcement (see below). I think the EU is correct to say that instead of offering choice Microsoft is offering none (and playing dog in the manger). I’d guess that Microsoft are simply trying to set up a chess game with the aim of getting their way, in the end. Their way being Internet Exploder on their own terms.
With the browser become more – much more – and not less central to using a computer, there is no way that Microsoft are going to throw up interest in web browsers.
” … the Commission has suggested that consumers should be offered a choice of browser, not that Windows should be supplied without a browser at all.
At the level of both computer manufacturers and retail sales, the Commission’s Statement of Objections (SO) suggested that consumers should be provided with a genuine choice of browsers. Given that over 95% of consumers acquire Windows pre-installed on a PC, it is particularly important to ensure consumer choice through the computer manufacturer channel.
“As for retail sales, which amount to less than 5% of total sales, the Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of web browsers. Instead Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.
“As for sales to computer manufacturers, Microsoft’s proposal may potentially be more positive. It is noted that computer manufacturers would appear to be able to choose to install Internet Explorer – which Microsoft will supply free of charge – another browser or multiple browsers. Were the Commission to conclude that Microsoft’s behaviour has been abusive, it would have to consider whether this proposal would in itself be sufficient to create genuine consumer choice on the web browser market. The Commission would inter alia take into account the long standing nature of Microsoft’s conduct. It would also have to consider whether this initial step of technical separation of IE from Windows could be negated by other actions by Microsoft.”
And don’t forget the point about OEM installs taking 95 per cent of the market.
I am little lost here with mixed feelings about the whole deal.
If choice is offered to consumers, does this mean that Microsoft has to provide also support for all browsers it offers as a choice?
Don’t just think consumer or OEM support etc., but support as a general software engineering practice; endless patching, updating and keeping track of security issues in products of other commercial companies.
This is just one weird thing that popped to my mind.
(As a footnote I may also add: while the media and public is all crazy about anything related to Microsoft, at the very same time Intel — that big “friend” of OSS
— has been found guilty to much more serious economic crimes and abuse of monopoly position.)
By no means is MS alone in market abuse or partnered with other abusers for that matter. This topic is simply about MS particular abuse. If the article was about Intel’s abuses then including MS would be equally out of place unless the specific topic was a connection between the two cases.
As for support. No one expect MS to support Firefox or Safari as it stands now. Why would it need to change? They still go Help -> Support and get forwarded to the respective software developer. At worst, the vendors would have to add a little blurb to clarify confusion; unless confusion was the intended outcome.
What you mean to say is that Firefox has managed to scrape together 25% market share *despite* MS’s illegal and abusive practices. Opera isn’t the only one standing to gain from this – in fact FF stands to gain a great deal more, which is why Mozilla are standing beside them.
What really benefits Opera is more people using things like FF, Safari and Chrome – standards-built browsers becoming standard would suit them down to the ground.
This is another example of MS deliberately threatening to release a crippled product that they know will tank in order to justify their actions.
This product cannot “tank” (I assume that means “fail”) because it’s the only way you’re gonna get Windows 7 in Europe. There will be NO versions with IE.
The repetition of this begins to annoy me. Putting in icon on the desktop that when clicked downloads and installs IE automatically through ftp or windows update wouldn’t cost a full day’s technician salary at MS. This is a non-issue. Even putting “download&install x browser” icons with all major browsers on the desktop wouldn’t hurt anyone, and it would be even better than the EU-wanted popup dialog idiotism.
This whole thing is just ridiculous. Giant nitwits throwing sand at each other.
On the other hand, it provides a potential 7th win7 license; Windows7 WWW Edition.
You complain at the dinner table because you always get the chair with the broken arm. Momma decides we all eat on the floor and you are still unhappy. Why? Because you want a choice of what chair to choose before dinner.
Opera is a wuss, stand up, compete and make a great product that ppl would like to use. Even if you cant compete with IE or FF directly, there is still a browser market and you are still ahead of other browsers that have been created.
Bottomline is Opera doesnt deliver and ppl will choose what they want regardless of how you bundle it. It’s a game of Chess and MS has Opera and the EU in check right now.
On new windows installs, I use IE to first download either Opera or Firefox depending on my mood then I switch. I know there are other choices and take advantage of that. Back in the early days of the consumer ridden internet, vendors such as Prodigy and AOL paid MS to include their software as a menu of sorts. I didn’t like that in the end but it made things simpler.
We thankfully don’t have that anymore and MS does not have to include any browser, nor should they preinstall links to any mom-and-pop browser that thinks MS is unfair by providing IE. I’m an opera fan, but this crying I’m not in favor of.
This is not (only ?) directly about sales for Opera, what they really want is that people use a standardscompliant and up to date browser, so Opera doesn’t have to support all the crap websites out there because they only take into account IE6 or something along those lines. IE8 is a bit better, but still only properly supports things which other browsers have had for years.
If it is about standards support then why not force Microsoft to remove all backwards compatibility, proprietary technology, extensions and only support the specifications. Part of the specifications is the speeding up of HTML 5.0 becoming an official standard – why is it taking so long to release what should be an evolutionary step up? As much as I hate Microsoft, the W3C are as much to blame with them taking so long when it comes to getting these pie in the sky ideas out into a real and finalised standard.
FYI: A government and law enforcement institutions WILL NEVER be in check.
Extremely bad analogy. Since in that case Momma will be telling you each time that you have to sit in the wost chair initially. And you don’t know that there is a good one right around the corner.
Later Momma says, unilaterally, that since you wanted a choice of chairs, you will be getting none.(Does that seem fair in any way?)
That is why Daddy, the EC, wants Momma to lineup the best chairs at the entrance to the dining room, so anyone entering can pick the one he/she likes.
From my point of view, Opera is simply stupid.
What Opera actually want? They just can’t get as much market share as IE does and cry for help. Why Opera can’t get market share? They simply don’t listen to their customers. Many people suggested Opera to “modulize” addition functions such as BitTorrent client and mail client (why do I need BitTorrent and mail function in browser when I have rTorrent/ uTorrent/ ThunderBird/ Live Mail/ Gmail?), but Opera simply ignore those suggestions and making the browser bloated. The second thing I hate Opera is that they ARE helping Google to monopolize the Internet; Opera Mini has Google as default search engine and doesn’t allow users to remove it, not to mention that Opera doesn’t include Live Search/ Bing in the browser. Who is evil, huh?
I don’t mind IE to be replaced as it is the freedom for Microsoft to make any decision, but “having alternatives is better for competition”, I am looking forward Gazelle, a more secured browser from Microsoft, to be released. You might think I am a Microsoft fanboy, but don’t you guys always ask for alternatives? Love it or hate it, if you don’t like it, simply don’t use it, don’t stop others from using it, period.
I think as much of the issue is that most users haven’t heard of Opera.
Firefox, wasn’t a total unknown when it was released as users of Netscape would have heard of Mozilla. Plus Firefox reached that critical mass where enough people knew about it to tell enough other people about it (thus the user base snow balls).
Chrome, had quite a public launch. It was talked about on news sites that wouldn’t normally delve that deeply into geek technology. (I imagine this was largely to it being a Google product).
Safari, is the OS X default as well as being Apple (aka “the coolest company on earth”) product – so it’s no surprise that it has a measurable install base.
Opera, however, isn’t backed by a huge super cool mega-company. It’s not so popular that novices and non-geeks would have seen their fellow non-geek mates using it. It’s not had a hugely publicized launch. It’s just there, lurking in the back ground somewhere and largely unheard of by the majority of computer users.
Now I’m not going to say that Opera is better than the above and/or IE (though it is my browser of choice). But it’s rendering speed and accuracy is competitive (as proved in benchmarks), it’s use of resources is competitive and it’s feature list is ahead of of the market.
So clearly Opera’s not a bad browser.
This leads me to believe that the significantly smaller market share isn’t primarily down to the browser itself but a combination of emotional preferences based on Opera’s default appearance (skins / toolbar layout) and a lack of publicity / visibility.
The UI is hideous, it includes built-in features I don’t want (the widgit system, I forget what it’s called), and it’s missing features I do want (noscript and adblock, same as everyone else).
There was a time, back when we were competing against IE 6, when a rapid and standards-compliant render was enough to be competitive. Now, most browser can pull off a good enough render in a small enough amount of time. Now, you need extra features to compete, and Opera is fairly lacking there.
I personally like it. But for those that don’t, it can be changed easily enough.
So don’t use them then. Nobody is forcing you.
Opera has both those features. Granted they’re not as intuitive as FF extensions, but they’re still there.
Lacking? Opera has pioneered many features (eg tabs) – some of which a lot of browsers still don’t have (eg speed dial)
This is not going to magically level the playing field but is a very welcome step in the right direction!
Now if MS were to drop altogether the hideous thing that IE is, we might finally get a web, the way it should have been in the first place.
PS. Firefox’s market share is still being trashed by IE, the article above is based on false assumptions. IE *is* getting pushed forcibly down the users’ throats. “40% in some EU countries” – couldn’t have picked something less meaningful.
Thom, your whining about Opera is getting sillier by the minute.
Nobody to my knowledge has argued that Opera’s small market share is only the result of IE being bundled with Windows.
However, in post after post on this side that you seem to use as your personal blog now, you act as if someone actually did. Which, conveniently, leaves you free to ignore the big elephant in the room: Namely, that having a near monopoly in the operating system market and bundling a browser with it undoubtedly gives you an unfair advantage over competitors.
Firstly, call me an idiot, but in Windows, don’t you generally need a default browser to download an alternative browser? I mean sure, *I* can FTP and get one, but my mum? Hah.
Not having a default browser is suicide. There are people that only email/web surf, and could care less about “browsers” or “email clients”, actually, when I worked at AT&T, it was “the internet” or “email” for 99% of the calls. I’m sure if Joe Blow grabbed a copy, installed it, and found no browser, he’d be right pissed.
Seriously, it’s Microsoft’s product. I don’t remember Opera throwing in a couple million to contribute? I don’t get what all the whining is about. It’s not like MS is crying because IE isn’t an option in Solaris, Linux, IRIX, VMS, Etc., Etc..
I sound like a fanboy here, but I’m actually a Debian user, and my browser of choice is Firefox. Just sayin’.
I and a few others have answered that very question in other posts here so I won’t repeat it a second time. Simply put, it’s really not a challenge to provide a way for your Grannie to install her choice of browser through at least five different approaches. Business culture is a far greater challenge than any technological hiccups.
This is exactly what should be done. It should be up to the hardware manufacturers to decide what they want to ship by default with their own computers. That’s how it used to work in the Netscape days, and that’s how it should work again. Let Opera, Mozilla and Google compete for the attention of OEMs. Dell, HP and others now have another avenue to compete on – the quality of the web browsing experience on their hardware, and since they have to manually put IE8 in anyway, I don’t see why there isn’t a chance to get them to look to an alternative, and I just gave them the argument for why they should choose one – like Firefox.
In my own neighborhood, I used to do side PC setup and cleanup work, and I switched every one of my clients to Firefox for one reason. They will no longer get hundreds of address bars, random active x garbage, and scamware to clog up their computers. It has worked beautifully, to the point where I don’t need to clean their PCs any more (I do other work, like setting up printers – but they remain scamware free).
There’s a compelling argument for OEMs to supply another browser by default, and frankly I think Opera 10 Firefox and Chrome are all in a position to make that argument (Opera wasn’t until version 10 – auto update is an absolute must – the fact they didn’t do it until now, shows how they don’t understand their market).
The thing, btw, that makes this “almost” perfect, is we still need that uninstall option. That would make this move complete.
Also, I never ever ever, want there to be a choice of browsers shoved down the throats of users of new hardware – that’s just a terrible idea.
You mean like Firefox is shoved down to the throats of Ubuntu users or Lynx to the throats of OpenBSD users?
Generally I think the assumed or real monopoly position in the past, present or future is an endless coffin for similar accusations. What next?
As a consumer I want Emacs to be an option for notepad, HFS an option for NTFS, and a lot of other things…
I actually meant that whoever is offering the platform (a sub-platform of some other one, that you ship on your OEM hardware – whether it’s based on Ubuntu, Xandros or Windows) should absolutely be making this decision for their customers. Users are unprepared to decide which browser to run (if they even know what that means), when they first turn on their machines – they have enough headaches with new hardware, they don’t need another one.
This is and should always have been an OEM decision – they’ve been skating for a long time now by just always pointing at MS and saying it’s their fault the computer runs like crap. That has harmed our web based ecosystem, but more than that, I think it was a mistake from a customer support perspective (ask Dell about their customer support reputation). The more of these kinds of decisions that OEMs are able to take on, and stand behind and support, the better off they will be.
That is exactly what MS did to compete unfairly – they offered discounts on Windows licensing to OEMs if they shipped with IE instead of Netscape (that is the point of their abuse). That’s what makes this such a great idea. The thing to watch out for is what kinds of deals they make to keep Dell and others installing IE – that’s where Mozilla, Opera and Google need to understand that they have to compete – MS knows what’s up, and they will absolutely compete here.
To be clear, the choice of which browser to use will never be an end user choice – most of them are entirely unprepared to actually make that decision, and techies like us should stop pretending they are. The battle with browsers is at the OEM level. The same is true for operating systems. End users don’t buy operating systems, and unless they are very savvy, they don’t install alternative browsers (even if they might get the increasingly rare techie neighbor kid to “clean up” their computer). It just doesn’t work that way.
Now I think you nailed it.
Comparable to things like automobile industry, the problem in many cases is the OEM sector that distorts the market, be it Intel chips or Internet Explorer. What I think EU should have done is to examine more closely these ties between producers and OEMs instead of coming with an idiotic solution to “unbundle” parts of the product offered by the producer. I do not know what a better solution could have looked like, but the current one is less than optimal, not even touching the surface of the root of the issue.
I actually believe that the situation could become worse now that for instance Intel as a hardware producer has entered the software market (Moblin, etc.). Generally all these deals to ship an operating system X with netbook Y, for an instance, have left a bad taste in my mouth as a consumer. Nothing could be more closed from business perspective; no where do we see open competitive bidding so prevalent in (certain) other industries.
I have to disagree with you in that OEMs should be in a dominant position to make decisions in the IT industry to begin with. That kind of gatekeeper position is most certainly related to anti-competitive measures generally.
What do you think?
Could a comparison to the phone markets and telecom industry provide any kind of parallel for discussion?
Edited 2009-06-12 16:17 UTC
Hmm, it’s interesting. I suppose I would separate the IT industry from the consumer market. I think in IT they can and do what they want. Generally, MS has been good at working with higher education to graduate IT personal who know and are trained to deal with the MS stack. That’s a whole different problem from the consumer market, one which will take a platform provider must target higher education – Google, Apple, etc. OEMs to address hardware – Palm with Pre targeting IT, Dell offering hardware with the stacks that IT depts. ask for,etc..
On the consumer market – the reason Apple has done so well, despite very expensive entry level products (their higher end stuff tends to bring more value per dollar, but their lower end stuff is expensive), is the way they tailer their software for the needs of their users- making important decisions for them to get them up and running, but not locking them in to those (this is unlike the smart phone, but that is opening up over time). This _is_ the job of the OEM, IMO. They are the point of contact that customers tend to call when they have a problem with their computers, and I think that relationship is appropriate – the lack of an ability to address those calls (Dell) causes problems with reputation.
It’s interesting to divide the market that way – IT on one side, and general consumers on another. There are probably more of those kinds of distinctions to draw. The smart phone business has learned some lessons here, and they are most definitely not reproducing the mistakes of the PC era when producing these new phones. The biggest successes have all been custom rolled stacks (partially or entirely based on open source) – RIM’s Blackberry, Apple’s iPhone, Palm’s Pre (if it isn’t considered a locked success yet, it will be I think). This could also be due to MS’s lack of competitiveness in the arena (Windows Mobile and Zune as two different things – shipping a version of IE6 in the Zune, sheesh!), but I think it’s more based on lessons learned.
What I think is interesting about the cell and smart phone providers is they don’t advertise what runs on the phone (is it Linux, Windows, Android – atom, ARM – who cares!). The adverts all center around what the phones can do – computers should be using similar strategy – that’s how to market a good computer (just check the Apple ads). Dell, you reading? 😉
That’s a good point.
I agree with you on this general reason why Apple has been so successful. But imagine what would have happened if it would have been Apple to reach a monopoly position? Strictly from EU’s broad perspective their platform is even more locked down; you would probably have to “unbundle” things all the way down to the microchips.
So ironically could we reach a conclusion that even more total Microsoft monopoly would have been better for the consumers. I am imagining here a Microsoft as a company with their own supply-chains, repair workshops and consumer contact centers? I know, this is an overstatement.
Actually the biggest success has been Nokia and probably Symbian. Both very much closed shops at least when they were at their strongest. Here I see highly similar (anti-competitive?) patterns that we experienced in the PC markets in the 1990s or so.
True enough, but the big problem with OEMs remains. If iPhone and AT&T is not anti-competitive from a consumer perspective, what is!? :O
I think the distinction here (because I love distinctions 🙂 ) is in what kind of monopoly a company has. Apple has a vertically integrated monopoly, as apposed to Microsoft’s horizontal monopoly.
Apple does control everything from the hardware right down to the sale – Walmart has been criticized for similar behavior in some markets. In general, in the US at least, these are not seen as a problem in the same way as a horizontal monopoly such as Microsoft has with Windows, because you can always find another supplier or device in the same market (such as going from Blackberry to Palm Pre to iPhone, to something else). So they are generally not regulated to as great an extent.
In the Microsoft Windows style monopoly, they do have near ubiquity when it comes to supplying any OEMs with an OS product, due to pressure on both ends – Microsoft dominating supply, and customers demanding compatibility, or even demanding Windows by name. Vertical integration, taking more control over the hardware and supply chain does have advantages. They could be the supplier of hardware and the company you go to for support, rather than the OEMs. They’ve done exactly that with the X-Box 360 and the Zune for example. I do think MS would get less grief if they had a vertical monopoly instead of a horizontal one (having both would be worse).
I think they are in a tough spot when it comes to converting their horizontal monopoly into a vertical one, when it comes to Windows, because they have business relationships to maintain – all those OEM clients they sell their OS to. It would be difficult to start to compete with OEMs with which you are making a value proposition to. That probably explains the great lengths which Microsoft went through to explain that the original X-Box could not be run as a desktop computer (even though there was not technical reason why not). Going the opposite direction is also tricky, and Apple is not doing that either.
When it comes to smart phones – most of the manufacturers have clearly chosen to vertically integrate rather than to attempt to create a software product that could be used horizontally across one level of the market (Google with Android and MS with Windows Mobile are competing here though – and seemingly getting stomped). I think that makes as much sense for smart phone makers as it would for smart PC makers. 😉
To bring this back on topic – this move by MS makes them look much more like middleware, that can be customized by OEMs to get partway to the point where the OEMs are able to use Windows as a base system, and build in their own competitive advantages, rather than relying on MS for a complete package. I think that would be great for MS (though they will not see it that way) – it’s too small a step to really make them competitive with what a motivated OEM could do with an open source operating system stack like Ubuntu or Android – or what Asus has already done with Xandros (poor choice IMO).
How’s that MS injected .net vulnerability treating your FF users? It’s sure chewed our security decisions in one simply Windows update.
You know that’s not a competition, right? That who’s got more convincing power (which translates directly to money, meaning discounts, cash, or else) will have a chair, the others will stand.
Doh! I wish I would have seen this earlier. 🙂
I think it’s the only kind of competition that you can reasonably expect from the PC industry. My ideal would be to see many home PC vendors that compete for sales based on the strength of their software stack – Apple does exactly that, Asus has tried it out too. The industry that built up on top of the MS stack, can really only compete on price – and that has had it’s affect on the entire industry – good and bad.
Ideally, Dell, HP, Asus, etc. should compete by providing custom tuned versions of middleware – Windows or Linux, which would be binary compatible with one another (or source compat at the very least – which could help open the door for alternative hardware, like ARM).
Many people see the current landscape as competition between Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. That’s incorrect – it should look more like Windows, Mac OS X, Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc. The advantage of open source is that it creates a kind of competition that enables more robust commerce. Without proprietary lock-in, when a dominant company misses an opportunity, anyone with technical skill and business savvy, should be able to take the source base, and extend it to do what they need, and hopefully sell it at a profit.
End users are not going to make good decisions about which browser or OS to use. They will simply make a decision about which hardware to purchase from the store. The onus on creating a better market for alternatives really does lye with OEMs – and I think Asus has shown there is a wide open market for those alternatives. Software sells hardware, just ask Apple.
Users will never be the goal keepers many OSS advocates would like to see them become. In fact, as time goes on, I’m seeing them become less prepared to make that kind of technical decision than they were just a few years ago. They’re just not interested in being technical enthusiasts.
In the absence of a more competitive OS landscape, I’ll take this inch toward competition as a sign of progress. If we can understand what opportunity this brings, and get some OEMs to ship an alternative browser, this could show the way forward to a real competitive landscape. Just one step closer to real diversity.
MS bashing is getting bit hypocratic nowdays…
What did EU achieved??
Why cant we unbundle konqueror from KDE?? try apt-get remove konqueror and see what happens….
Why there is google as “default” search engine on Opera…
Why does “chrome” installs unremovable googleupdater service….??
MS bashing is no good for you people, who are already living in ivory towars…Please come to realistic world of “business”….
Hmm..
KDE is no OS. It’s a desktop environment. If you don’t like konqueror you can use Gnome. That’s also a desktop environment on the same OS. You keep the same OS and get another browser.
Try that with the standard desktop environment on Windows.
Well, aptitude -s remove konqueror (here on Debian/Unstable) says it would remove konqueror, konq-plugins (since it depends on konqueror) and leave the recommendation of kipi-plugins unresolved.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Your not being forced to use KDE window manager and your Linux install media outside of liveCD builds include a choice of browsers for you to select from. Even with liveCDs Konqueror is rarely the only one there.
In the end though, your being forced to use IE window manager but you can always change your KDE to another window manager or even have multiple on the same system. KDE apps run fine under Gnome and Enlightenment, Gnome apps run fine under KDE and Enlightenment. Heck, Eterm is my prefered cli interface and I run that under KDE without more than the Eterm dependencies from Enlightenment isntalled.
But my Windows installs always lock me into an IE window manager which means the best IE removal can do is hide the icon.
(yup, I’ve tried other window managers but only IE window manager gets full use of Windows.)
Now that comes pretty close to funny
Let me put it this way. The day when I can get a base install of Windows with the kernel and <100 megs of working a base system and tools, choosing to install a desktop environment (all with similar levels of functionality), apps, and some browser(s) at some point, well, on that day I’ll stop smiling about “remove konq from kde” ideas
No offense, but I think you don’t get the point here. The major problem is not that Microsoft is really doing evil.
It’s about Microsoft being to big for an open market. Every company with over 50% (or less, depending on the alternatives) of market share holds a monopole, which is bad in the economical system we have these days. Even, if I’m not an MS fan (more a hater) I have to say it’s not Microsofts this time. They do, what every company does: They grow.
(Usually a too big company splits sooner or later, but MS being the biggest is too strong)
But as our market system isn’t suited for such big companies the EU needs to do everything to prevent unfair advantages. That’s their job.
There are no fixed rules for how to deal with every kind of monopole/type of company, because that’s simply not possible when there are always new ways to get money and build a company.
That’s the reason for these strange things happening. The EU has to do something, because it is one of their jobs, but nobody has ever done such a thing with a market leader in operating systems/browsers.
So, the EU commission and Opera have Microsoft in the corner. There’s no way out – someone will whine in any case. And it is only going to conjure up more problems.
So let’s assume a scenario where Microsoft includes a browser menu. Perhaps on install, perhaps on first login. Assume this menu contains a selection of popular browsers, say, IE, Firefox, Opera. Then Apple is going to whine: No Safari!. Or perhaps Google is going to whine: No Chrome! I don’t think this will lead anywhere.
Or imagine a different scenario: Microsoft includes nothing, it’s the OEM’s choice what to install. What the people should do that buy their Windows from the shelf, without a computer, is obviously an unsolved issue. Anyway, assume Dell installs Firefox. Now Opera is going to whine again, because Dell is “anti-competitive”. What’s next? Dell including a browser menu on their homepage, having the same problem as Microsoft in the first scenario? Oh, please.
That being said, I agree that something had to be done about IE. The EU commission and Opera complained about IE’s bundling – MS unbundled their browser. Problem solved. Now, stop being such a spoilt brat.
This tells us that Thom Holwerda does not do professional support on business desktops. I do. And I can tell you that the problems of IEs inertia, and business critical services requiring IE to function, is still very, very real. Quoting “up to 40% firefox usage for some countries in the EU” to tech support for these providers does me exactly no good. And this is business, so please don’t tell me to tell my clients to just refuse to file their warranty claims with the manufacturer so that they can be paid for the warranty service work they do. I still am forced to run IE on Linux to allow my customers to conduct their business.
When one sits around in his armchair looking over w3schools statistics and writing ivory tower OSNews editorials, it’s easy to miss actual reality.
It’s too late to simply level the playing field because the entire planet’s center of gravity is now skewed.
I will say that while I agree with going beyond just not having IE installed by default… it is not enough to be concerned only with home users. Something needs to be done about IE’s monopoly position in business services.
Microsoft cares what browser your grandma uses only for the network effect it affords. It cares a hell of a lot *more* about businesses being forced to use it.
Edited 2009-06-12 16:44 UTC
Your post conveniently ignores two key points.
1) Web statistics are obviously quite unreliable (and I’m not using w3c, but NetApps) – but you imply that they only cover home usage – which is nonsense, since they cover company usage just as much. Obviously, this only goes for external usage, and not internal usage – but it’s not that odd to assume that employees use the same browsers externally as well as internally.
2) Your post makes a very grand assumption: namely, that companies want to change. This is of course very debatable, as companies are notoriously slow when it comes to change or adoption of new technologies, mostly because change == money. I’m pretty sure that even without IE’s stranglehold, they still wouldn’t change browsers, because change == money.
You claim I’m sitting in an ivory tower, but if there’s one person here coming across as overly arrogant and condescending, it’s you.
I made no such claim. My claim is that you put too much credence into them. This point goes well beyond questions regarding the accuracy of the numbers. It extends to just what this sort of data is able to tell us at all. While business usage of public sites is no doubt covered… what do these statistics say about what happens after the employee logs into their warranty service provider account over at http://www.warrantycentral.net and starts trying to file warranty claims? Absolutely nothing. Have you even thought about that?
My claim makes no such assumptions. The inertia of the companies providing the service started out as a symptom of the IE-domination problem, but has now become a very real and integral part of the total problem. But first things first. We need to address the root cause, i.e. IE-by-default, before any permanent fix at the level of the service provider is going to have a chance of happening, and more importantly, of sticking.
You are making it ever more apparent that you are not actually one of us folks in the trenches fighting and reporting on this battle. In fact, it seems that you want to deny that there *is* still a battle at all, because Chrome (mostly) works OK for you on your home desktop.
Edit: BTW, OSNews.com’s textarea widget for editing a post is only 2 lines high on my webkit based browser. So I suppose I am posting on a site which is, itself, a part of the problem.
Edited 2009-06-12 17:20 UTC
I don’t see where I’m putting any credence in them being accurate – in fact, I quite clearly stated that they are not a very accurate way to measure this stuff. Still, they indicate trends, and all of them agree: IE’s share is dwindling FAST.
So there’s an IE-specific site. Sure, it’s stupid, but how often do you encounter it? Maybe America is running behind or something, I don’t now, but the rest of the world is pretty much free of that nonsense now. Maybe some insignificant ones, but that’s it.
This is EXACTLY what is going on RIGHT NOW. IE is no longer “the default” browser people use. It comes installed by default – yes – but the amount of people disregarding it is huge, and growing every month. Companies will follow through, but give them some time.
You can’t change this simply by snapping a finger. This takes time. Have some patience. There is no magic instant cure.
Will you please stop being so arrogant and condescending? It detracts from your otherwise usually good arguments.
https://www.4emweb.com/Default.asp
http://warrantycentral.net
http://www.servicechannel.com/sc/login/client_login.asp
http://www.ajantunes.com/stores/roundup_food_equipment/
http://servicebench.com
http://manage.cpostores.com
Just a few business critical sites (off the top of my head and hardly a comprehensive list), that 60 of my users at just *one* of my customer sites have to worry about… oh… every working day.
Chrome works for you on the sites you like. And if a site doesn’t play well, you have the luxury of saying “f–k’em” and not visiting that site. And based upon that you declare victory on behalf of us all.
But you keep missing that point, and mistaking my strong disagreement with your cavalier, overconfident, and complacent attitude, based upon my substantial first hand experience, with “arrogance”.
Thom, there is a whole world on the web that your experience obviously does not bring you into contact with. And it is one which Microsoft cares a lot more about than what you use to browse Twitter and Blogspot.
Edited 2009-06-12 18:17 UTC
So, your first-hand experience is somehow magically more qualified than mine? I never talk about my private life or my line of work, so you have no idea what I do, what my experience is, and so on.
Your experience could very well be true, but it’s not even all that relevant to this story, most of all because you’re American, and this story deals solely with Europe.
This is my last post in this discussion with you, because I’m pretty fed up with your condescending and arrogant attitude. I’m trying to have a fair discussion with you here, but you keep trying to make all sorts of statements about my experience and browsing habits that you have no knowledge of. This is very, very annoying and detracts from your arguments.
ROTFLMAO. I’m surprised you would say such a thing here. You regularly use OSNews as your personal blog, relate experiences ‘at University’ frequently, not to mention opinions on music, and pretty much anything else that most people vomit into their personal blogs… and yet you have never mentioned actually doing any support of business desktops. What conclusion would you expect us to come to? If you have all this experience, then by all means present it. I’m listening.
Mighty nice of you to acknowledge the possibility that I might not be outright lying.
Wow. Now *that’s* arrogant. We’re all in this together, pardner.
Yes, the government of my country has utterly failed to effectively deal with Microsoft. Yes, some of us are looking to your EU to help us where our own government has failed. Hopefully, now that Cthon is out of the White House, maybe folks like me won’t be so humbled as to have to appeal to other countries for help.
On the contrary, the fact that your “works for me” attitude does not mean that there is not still a huge and dangerous problem on the business desktop is perhaps the most significant point I am making. It is simply a point which you are choosing to deny and/or ignore.
And now I’ve said about all I care to say on this topic, in this thread.
Edited 2009-06-12 19:10 UTC
Well, breaking my own promise, but what the heck.
This is blatantly not true. I outright acknowledged your problem, so you’re lying with the above. This is what I said:
You could’ve made all your points without the condescending and arrogant attitude, and we would’ve actually contributed something meaningful to this discussion. Instead, you decided to take this opportunity – yet again – to mock me. Which is fine by me, but you aren’t doing your arguments a favour with that.
Edited 2009-06-12 19:12 UTC
I agree but it also depends on the business. In a previous position, the business is limited by many webapps that break unless you use IE6. A freaking enterprise class organization and they’re crippled by IE6. No IE7. IE8; forget about it.
On the other hand, one of the first changes at a business after that was installing Firefox thanks to click happy users and IE7 being left wide open for a few weeks. The .net vulnerability injection has reduced that solutions effectiveness though.
Agreed that this likely varies from business area to business area. Since my customers run Linux desktops, the IE6 fetish you describe actually ameliorates my situation, at least by a bit. I rely upon Crossover Office for the IE sessions. And while IE6 is a supported app, IE7 and later are not.
Of course, as an admin with a conscience, setting this up for my users is actually contributing to the problem. But what choice do I really have?
Edited 2009-06-12 21:33 UTC
Linux desktops but IE required. Bless them for the platform choice but it just seems backwards to keep the stiffy over IE like that. Here’s hopeing they get over it and fix there webapps.
Just to be clear, my customers want to use Linux and Epiphany. But we have to do business through 3rd parties’ web apps which require IE. My customers, my customers’ employees, and I are all victims of those third parties… all of whom are much bigger than we are and don’t particularly have to care what we want.
I keep Voodoo dolls of some of their support techs. But stab as I might with the needles, it hasn’t seemed to do any good.
In the end, we have to do what supports the user’s needs with as must security as we’re able to include. IE only webapps are a horrid thing but suck is the F’d up industry we work in.
Well, it won’t do you any good if you don’t listen, that’s for sure. Simple dismiss and denial won’t grow your businness (well, there’s always room for exceptions…).
Please elaborate.
“This is a direct result from Firefox’ popularity, and instead of trying to get a free ride on Firefox’ success, maybe Opera should try to build and market a product people want.”
I don’t necessarily agree with what Opera is demanding. Although if you take away the addon/plugin feature from Firefox I would probably prefer to use IE over Firefox, since both are about similar in slowness and I don’t have to go download another browser. I think Firefox lags behind Opera in certain features. So for Opera to develop a product that people want would be to get rid of all their features and make a slow and bland browser instead. The problem with Opera is that it is too customizable which makes it confusing for the average users.
Edited 2009-06-12 16:42 UTC
They should have a package manager of some sort like reactos’s “download” it will have a description of all free to download browsers that are allowed to be redistributed and the user then will just click to install it.
MS has to answer to it’s shareholders. The could do a popup during install including browser installs on the disk. Updates could expand the list with network stored installs but only after initial install. With the update utility moving to a client rather than a webapp, they could even leave the browser out completely until a basic network connection is configured.
I see this the same was as a Microsoft repository though. Windows users would benefit greatly from Windows Update being expanded into a network repository. All your apps are vetted through the repository maintainer for compatibility and quality levels. Those with highspeed internet simply fill the checkbox beside Adobe Photoshop, Firefox, MS Office, and Quicktime; whamoo.. your done and the invoice is in the mail or hitting your credit card before the transfer is done. MS own software distribution for business accounts provides ISO downloads for some of the products already.
The problem with both of these things; even if MS culture allowed such heresy, the shareholders wouldn’t stand for it. Providing easier access to competitive products versus maintaining barriers to user choice and competition does not maximize investor returns. Investors get to vote and they don’t care about the product, they care about stock values and equities.
Unless corporate culture and investors have a complete paradigm shift including cutting ties with father Bill and ousting Monkey Dancer, an MS network repository could only ever include MS software outside of vendor written hardware drivers.
Opera wants to force Microsoft to essentially promote their product. WTF? That’s so unbelievably childish of them. Especially considering their poor market share these days – Opera is on it’s way out, in my opinion. I know I sure as hell won’t use it.
Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous that Microsoft had to come to this point (unbundling IE8 with Windows 7). So is Apple going to be forced to unbundle Safari? Is Ubuntu going to be forced to unbundle Firefox? Of course not. So where is the fairness in that? And don’t give me the FOSS party line – “well its different because Microsoft has a monopoly”. Bullshit. It’s not different at all. Firefox is doing fine, competing on it’s own. So is Safari.
People do have a choice. It’s unbelievably easy to download a different browser using IE if that’s what you want to do.
Companies shouldn’t be forced to inform users about the choices they have. Users are grownups. Users can find out for themselves. But it’s never enough for the virus-like FOSSers. It’s always about them. What’s next, collective software development farms?
In what other industry can a company be forced to promote it’s COMPETITOR’S product? It’s bullshit that Microsoft is forced into this position.
I really can not think of any examples, at least not recently where a company was expected to promote a competitor directly. With Opera’s response, it shows even more clearly their desire to get market share through legislation rather than innovation. All this can do is open a floodgate for companies to simply complain their way into the market. And yes Firefox is extremely relevant in that it shows exactly how Opera’s argument has failed, their marketing has failed, and their product has failed.
What is interesting is the overall response to Opera has not been positive, even among many who never seemed to be friendly towards anything Microsoft related. The importance here is that once again Opera fails in public relations and marketing.
I agree with your tone and conclusion, but Opera isn’t FOSS. They are a for-profit, private company with closed-source product. You can think of Opera Software like all the other companies at the end of their run that tried to litigate a future, but failed.
I think Microsoft should bundle IE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome and allow the user to select which one to install. Opera can be safely ignored since its global market share is less than 1% regardless of which metric you use. If questioned why, MS can simply say that browsers with less than 1% are inconsequential; where do they draw the line and include every Tom, Dick and Harry browser?
Open your osX applications folder, select Safari, press delete; it’s uninstalled.
Open the Ubuntu package manager, uncheck Firefox, put a check beside your browser of choice; problem solved.
If you forgo the liveCD for a full install disk such as Mandriva Free or Powerpack, you’ll have a full list of browsers to choose at the very start; no issue there.
BSDs.. choices yet again during install.
Show me the IE uninstall button that removes more than the icon please.
It’s not just a FOSS complaint. 95% market share makes a company a monopoly regardless of the industry or product line. That’s not software hippie’s making noise; that’s law. It’s not even inherently illegal unless that legal monopoly status is used for unfair advantage against competitors. “Unfair advantage” being decided by courts of law though the US courts threw out the penalties in the case of Microsoft being found guilty.
As for “it’s unbelievably easy”, your assuming consumers realize they have any choice at all. When you can walk into your local computer-mart and see the same hardware with three different OS platforms on display; come back and tell us about consumers being educated and having choice.
“In what other industry can a company be forced to promote it’s COMPETITOR’S product? It’s bullshit that Microsoft is forced into this position.”
When you are legally found to be the monopoly position, laws become applicable too you which are not applicable to non-monopoly status. These protect the consumer and the market. Again, this is not “stupid FOSS hippies” thing, it’s a legal thing.
Get over your FOSS hate for a second and think this through a little further.
“Removes more than the icon”?
Why?
The dlls on which IE is built are part of the Windows API. Are you actually demanding that API that third party apps rely on be removed?
Ok Captain Fabulous, if it’s just the libraries which IE and other programs rely on, why is iexplore.exe still on the system and responding too:
Start -> Run -> iexplore.exe
You’d think that removing through add/remove would result in only the minimal shared DLL left behind not simply having IE step behind the wizard’s curtain.
Sorry, but I had to mod you down.
IE8 is removed from my Win7 system. typing “iexplore.exe” in the run box gives an error.
While it stayed in XP after “uninstalling”, this is about Windows 7.
Also, XP does say it just removes the icon.
I don’t remember about Vista, though.
I do appreciate you pointing out why, I’ve had comments I thought fully on topic and not remotely hostile but modded down and I always spend a minute wondering what the heck for. If there is a “why comment was modded down” function, I’ve not found it yet.
I also appreciate the correction on Win7. It’s new enough that it’s still outside my general scope. I’m mucking with the RC now but it won’t fully come into play until retail release. Hopefully it’s not simply removing iexplore.exe and the icon; I’m good with an uninstall that leaves the minimal shared libraries behind. That hasn’t been the case with previous Windows versions though.
Boohoo – you can’t uninstall the IE DLLs. Go cry about it. Who cares? It’s not acting as a browser anymore and it won’t ask to be your default browser after that point. What’s the problem? Is it too much for you to handle, having evil Microsoft code dirtying up your Windows installation?
Last I knew companies that are monopolies still are not legally obilgated to promote competitors products.
Again – boohoo. People need to take responsibility for and educate themselves. I’m tired of this sense of entitlement – that companies should HAVE to hold peoples hands. They shouldn’t.
Start > Run > iexplore.exe
Oh, what’s that? And it’s even asking to be default.
If you remove IE using the add/remove option, it will still appear every time you use Messenger, for example.
Yet you ignore the sense of entitlement with which Microsoft treats the computer market and privately owned machines. I guess it’s a matter of convenience for which abuses we choose to recognize huh.
Opera wants to be bundled in a Windows 7 installation. Period. No other solution will work or solve their market share problem.
Firefox, Safari, and Chrome make money because they tried new revenue models. Opera is a for-profit company that hasn’t successfully monetized their desktop product. First they sold it in an era when the other 2 big names were free. Then they went to mixed ad-supported/ purchase. Then they adopted a Google arrangement. Because of their portability and early entry, they do well in mobile markets, but their Q1 2009 report admits they still haven’t found a way to monetize their large Opera Mini base. They have a good lead, but don’t know how to use it. Their problem isn’t Microsoft; the company is just poorly run.
Differences between desktop browsers are far less than their similarities. Opera has no compelling reason for people to seek it out.
Opera has been out for 15 years. It has consistently received favorable reviews. I even paid my $35 (39?) a decade ago. If it was going to succeed, success would have happened. The fact that Opera has to use the state’s force shows the company is running out of steam and original business ideas. In the end, my $35 was poorly invested charity that I now regret.
Whiny assed idiots. MS is damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Let Microsoft do what they want. They’re perfectly in their own rights to include IE as the default browser. This in no way impedes the ability of users to install their own browser.
Well said about Opera, Thom. I agree what they’re doing is just childish.
I also find the whole EU antitrust investigation and Microsoft’s response to it as being somewhat immature.
If the EU is really that concerned about IE, why not just have MS ship all the browsers pre-installed. Or maybe MS could have a program that runs on connection to the net, gets a list of available browsers, and asks the user which ones they want. And anyone who makes a browser should be able to add it to the list.
That way the user can choose from hundreds of different browsers which ones they like!
I’d be pleased to see just Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and IE on the list. However, your idea could be made workable. Ubuntu has a mechanism whereby users can vote for packages. So where there is a choice of packages with similar functionality, new users can compare the “star ratings” of the apps (three stars, four stars, etc.) to get an idea of other users’ opinions regarding them.
Not a bad idea, really. Although I suspect you were not serious about your “proposal”.
Edited 2009-06-12 21:22 UTC
It is pretty well known that I love the Opera web browser. Not because I am a fan boy, but because it does what I want, when i want, and I don’t have to use anything else to complete my tasks/goals. That being said Opera’s exec’s need to stop whining and do some damn marketing work.
Even if your browser was on a list of browsers readily available within Windows the VAST majority of people wouldn’t pick it. why? because users don’t know you. People flocked to Chrome for a few reason, but primarily it was Google’s brand name recognition and association with making good products. Opera, is not widely known of, and therefore unable to leverage an advantage like that. Fortunately there is a remedy that would double your market share in a week. ADVERTIZE!
If you took all the time and energy you put into crying to mommy into an advertising campaign you would be better poised to have a larger market share. If you really want to hit the masses try this approach.
Take out a 30+ second TV add (yes I know they are very expensive) and pick the regions that are home to the more internet connected customers. Show off the browser a bit, but do it in a form that makes it like a tease. Then do something on the lines of, “go to Opera.com and see what you’ve been missing.â€
Here just have someone with those movie announcer type voices read this on the air, while going through a movie trailer style commercial (like LG did for it’s Scarlet line of TV’s).
:Script: “In the beginning the internet was slow, unorganized, and a frustrating (cut to a user in front of his screen being overly upset at his computer’s internet speed, emotionally says “Come on already!†as if his download is to slow. Perhaps have him so frustrated he is shaking his CRT monitor). People longed for something better, a new way to connect, a better way to connect. Something faster, smoother and safer than before. You wanted it, so we made it! Introducing Opera, an internet experience like never before. Seamlessly connect to all aspects of your digital life and say good bye to the past and hello to the future of the web. Opera, an internet experience like no other!â€
“Visit Opera.com to download the free Opera web browser. Join the Opera revolution and take back control of the web!â€
(then leave a tantalizing high rez circling 3D Opera style O in the center of the screen, with a bit of reflection under it like the OSX dock icons, and under that put the URL displaying as if the computer just typed it in one letter at a time, but not slowly. Then under it, appearing slightly later, put “Opera, it’s what you’ve been waiting for.†Then have the O stop spinning and zoom the through the center, as if you just went into warp speed, leaving people curios and impressed.)
Congratulations Opera, I have just solved your problem. It took me 3 minutes to come up with that, and literally no real creativity on my end. Hell offer me the head marketing position for your company and I will personally do it myself. Look forward to hearing from you.
So because there are several browsers out there, it is considered uncompetitive to include a browser within the OS.
How come does this not apply to text editors? Isn’t including Wordpad/Notepad inside Windows an uncompetitive move?
This is absurd. And expecting a company to actually promote competing products using pop-ups is downright ridiculous. And I honestly doubt the user-friendliness of being presented a pop-up with (currently) 5 different options.
It seems to me that the EU is only searching for reasons to fine MS, and is now upset because it has lost one.
Steve Jobs must be laughing.
So the PC ‘experience’ is getting a bit more convoluted, and you have a popup to choose your browser, as the install would be than simple!
Or perhaps is Bill Gates who is laughing now, sure as ever that EU must be driven by crazy zealots, what is the sense on this?
It is just stupid that a software company cannot include their own browser with their operating system by default. And why SHOULD they bundle other browsers? That’s why companies like opera software started, to offer alternatives.
I’d be pissed if I installed my OS to find that there was no browser and I had to specifically say “I want to install a browser”.
of course the eu isn’t happy: a compliant microsoft means no more insane fines and revenue for brussels’ bureaucrats.
expect the antitrust commissar to up the ante with ever more frivolous demands.
it depresses me to think these people have the last word in dictating the product of a private company in the name of competition, then go on subsidizing and bailing out national champion industries and agriculture.
to quote the onion: it never ends this sh*t
Well If the EU actually understood what they are talking about it would well worth the salt. True tomorrow i come up with a browser called “EU nuts explorer” then what should Microsoft do. Recall all windows copy and then resupply the user base with a new build that says
“oh now “Choose your browser”
===================
Opeda
Fidefox
Kdome
Indarnut Explorer.
EU Nuts Explorer.
====================
The EU should just have asked microsoft to set to open a default web page on logon or a double click on the internet icon taking the user to a microsoft site showing options. Any new ones will show up there.
Like they have as default search engine options today on IE.
Go ahead biased guys and tell me that I am crazy to say this or am a MS fanboy. I use Vista and Firefox for extensive Java enabled sites/Safari 4 for my fun surfing (cos its fast)/IE (when i need custom activex)/Chrome when I am using Orkut or Gmail or some things casual. I personally am a fan of kmeleon.
Edited 2009-06-13 07:56 UTC
A bit off topic but has anyone seen this page?
http://www.opera.com/freedom/
On June 16th at 9:00 a.m (CEDT), we will reinvent the Web.
Thanks for pointing this out. Perhaps even it’s the release date of Opera 10, or maybe they really do have something new to show.