News

Microsoft is once again forced to unbundle WMP from its OS and pay a hefty fine. The appeal can go to one more court before being final.

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"The Court criticises, in particular, the obligation imposed on Microsoft to allow the monitoring trustee, independently of the Commission, access to its information, documents, premises and employees and also to the source code of its relevant products," it said. Microsoft has now been ordered to pay 80% of the Commission's legal costs, while the Commission has to carry a specific part of Microsoft's costs. The Commission welcomed the verdict. It will give its competition commissioner Neelie Kroes a much needed boost, after her office lost several high-profile anti-trust cases. Ms Kroes described the victory as "bittersweet", saying that software customers still have no more choice than they did three years ago.

I really can't stand reading articles about people defending Microsoft as a monolopy without understanding the facts. This article in News.com is one of them. Let me quote one thing...

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What's really new here? Not much. Microsoft has been accused--not just in Europe--of bludgeoning its way to the top of the software universe by using proprietary code and savvy marketing tie-ins to head off not just other operating systems but also add-on software products that could compete with Microsoft's own versions. Its allegedly anticompetitive bundling of Internet Explorer into Windows, for example, was a major focus of the EC's antitrust complaint and, indeed, Microsoft dutifully complied with Europe's unbundling order. The result is the marketing of a Euro-special version of Windows, sans browser, that no one in the world actually wants to purchase. Why should they? While it certainly helps Microsoft to have IE as a built-in default browser pre-installed on personal computers--on the theory that lazy users won't look any further for their browser needs--nothing stops those users from installing another browser if they wish. The inclusion of Internet Explorer is a cost benefit for consumers.

The question is why would consumers want IE unbundled from the CORE Windows operating system. Well, given the fact that there are MANY critical flaws in IE every month and also the fact that IE is tied into the CORE OF WINDOWS, you would think it would be a HUGE security risk by placing the browser in the OS like that. That is number one. Number two, Microsoft IE cannot be uninstalled no matter how hard you try... Vendor Lock-in? You need IE to run Windows Update. even if you install Firefox and set it to the default, IE still pops up with mundane crap.

Let's compare this with Apple's OS. Apple is also closed source so they should act like Microsoft, right? Wrong! Apple bundles software with their Mac OS, but that software can be easily uninstalled... just put it in the trash and empy it. All done. Seriously, take Safari and throw it in the trash... No more Safari. Now do you get it?

The European Union has some bite and is taking a chunk out of Microsoft because they haven't followed the ruling of the antitrust case in 2004. The daily fine has been backed dated to the ruling. Microsoft, are you listening? Open up your APIs!

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Brussels had warned Microsoft in December that it would face fines of 2m euros a day if the firm failed to meet the commission's demands.Under the 2004 ruling, Microsoft was told to provide rival firms with more information about its software, in order to enable them to write programs that could run more smoothly on Microsoft's widely-used Windows operating system.

The member states of the EU have taken an unofficial vote and all are in agreement with fining Microsoft $2.51 million backed dated to 2004. Microsoft was supposed to open up protocol and API information which they, of course, didn't do without large legal restrictions and such. That's what you get when a quasi-government that has some teeth gets you, unlike the American Antitrust case...

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The vote is (unofficially, and off the record) in. Regulators from the European Union's 25 member countries have, according to reports, unanimously found Microsoft guilty of non-compliance with the commission's landmark 2004 anti-trust ruling. The way is now clear for Microsoft to start paying a $2.51m a day fine backdated to December 15 for failing to meet the terms of the commission's ruling.