Micro$oft punished for 500 Million €/$ by EU [Archive]

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bond

24th March 2004, 10:14

The European Commission (maybe the highest institution of the European Union) punished m$ to pay a 500 million € (over the thumb thats the same value in $ ;) ) for abusing its monopoly power
thats the highest value ever used by the commission

mainly thats the case because of m$ windows media player instelled by default on all windows systems (used to push its wm9 crap formats, in a more and more important market)

read more (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/45919) (german)

now we have it from the official side what type of company m$ is. i hope this will soil their reputation and help open source alternatives

they deserve it!!!

and my personal opinion :D
dont use the windows media formats!!!

GIR

24th March 2004, 11:21

That's It!! I've had it, I've had enough of all this microsoft bashing, hmm, umm, nah, please continue the verbal onslaught for our viewing pleasure :D

Wilbert

24th March 2004, 11:41

The European Commission (maybe the highest institution of the European Union)
Sorry for being off topic :) But, the highest institution of the EU is the European Court of Justice.

virus

24th March 2004, 12:27

Originally posted by bond
now we have it from the official side what type of company m$ is. i hope this will soil their reputation and help open source alternatives

unfortunately, not one of these 500.000.000 euro will effectively go to support open source and/or freeware projects... that would have been great. :(

bond

24th March 2004, 12:52

Originally posted by virus
unfortunately, not one of these 500.000.000 euro will effectively go to support open source and/or freeware projects... that would have been great.not directly of course, but many firms/governments will hopefully realise now that m$ _is_ abusing their powers (which effectively means that people have to pay higher prices for software products than they would have to pay if m$ wasnt dominating the market) and will therefore use other products (like some governments already use linux)

Originally posted by GIR
That's It!! I've had it, I've had enough of all this microsoft bashing, hmm, umm, nah, please continue the verbal onslaught for our viewing pleasurewell the point is the european commission doesnt enforce a half a billion penalty because they love bashing m$, or have an "anit-micro$oft" attidude :rolleyes:
they do this for good reasons (or said the other way round, the reasons why m$ can be bashed are worth 500.000.000 € :D )

Originally posted by Wilbert
Sorry for being off topic :) But, the highest institution of the EU is the European Court of Justice.well thats why i said the commission is maybe/one of the highest institutions of the EU
you cant say that there is ONE highest institution in any state, but if you make a list, its maybe the commission, the court, the council and the parliament

echooff

24th March 2004, 14:18

well the point is the european commission doesnt enforce a half a billion penalty because they love bashing m$, or have an "anit-micro$oft" attidude

Its a money grab, pure and simple. The proof will be when you discover none of the affected customers will be compensated.

bond

24th March 2004, 14:26

Originally posted by echooff
Its a money grab, pure and simple. The proof will be when you discover none of the affected customers will be compensated.you are mixing different things up
the decision of the commission has nothing directly to do with affected customers

the commission is not a court where mistreated customers can sue on getting money back (of course they can still do this at the European Court of Justice or in their home countries, maybe with success)
the commission decides whether or not a company violates the european antitrust law and if thats the case it has to take steps to change this, not less not more

communist

24th March 2004, 14:33

Good :)
M$ already plans to appeal that decision - I hope they fail miserably :p

Sirber

24th March 2004, 14:48

What'S the big deal by bundeling WMP with windows? They do worse things!, like bundeling windows with every PC :devil:

bond

24th March 2004, 15:05

Originally posted by Sirber
What'S the big deal by bundeling WMP with windows?in the official statement (http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/382|0|RAPID&lg=en&display=) of the european commission on the 500 million € fine to punish micro$oft it says:

Commission concludes on Microsoft investigation, imposes conduct remedies and a fine
...
the investigation concluded that the ubiquity which was immediately afforded to WMP as a result of it being tied with the Windows PC OS artificially reduces the incentives of music, film and other media companies, as well software developers and content providers to develop their offerings to competing media players.

As a result, Microsoft's tying of its media player product has the effect of foreclosing the market to competitors, and hence ultimately reducing consumer choice, since competing products are set at a disadvantage which is not related to their price or quality.

Available data already show a clear trend in favour of WMP and Windows Media technology. Absent intervention from the Commission, the tying of WMP with Windows is likely to make the market "tip" definitively in Microsoft's favour. This would allow Microsoft to control related markets in the digital media sector, such as encoding technology, software for broadcasting of music over the Internet and digital rights management etc.

More generally, the Commission is concerned that Microsoft's tying of WMP is an example of a more general business model which, given Microsoft's virtual monopoly in PC operating systems, deters innovation and reduces consumer choice in any technologies which Microsoft could conceivably take interest in and tie with Windows in the future.man, they are speaking from my heart, all the arguments the community brought up for years, finally confirmed by maybe one of the most important governmental organisations worldwide

"an example of a more general business model"
"foreclosing the market to competitors"
"controlling markets"
"reducing consumer choice"

my conclusion: dont use the windows media formats! use, point to and support the alternatives!

echooff

24th March 2004, 15:34

No Bond I am not mixing things up. If the true end result was forcing a seperation of the media player, there would have been a different penalty. Microsoft can write this off as a cost of doing business until they get the proper bribe into the proper pocket or political party coffer.

24th March 2004, 15:40

What I find a definite outrage with the WMP bundling, is that in Windows XP SP1, though you do actually have a choosing applet thingie for app association (1st or 3rd party), when you deselect WMP, IT WILL STILL BE ASSOCIATED TO FILETYPES until you deselect all the filetypes FROM WITHIN WMP ITSELF! For some weird reason WMP goes around standard filetype association that other apps can control. What's even worse is I have to accept some license agreement that I don't even want to accept (though in my country clickthrough license agreements aren't lawfully valid), to access the app, so I can disable the file accosiations.

albertgasset

24th March 2004, 15:59

Originally posted by bond
The European Commission (maybe the highest institution of the European Union) punished m$ to pay a 500 million €

Also, Microsoft have to release a Windows version without WMP for computer vendors in 90 days. And make Windows more "transparent", giving more information about the OS to competitors, so they can compete with Microsoft products, in a period of 120 days.

easybeat

24th March 2004, 20:07

kilg0r3

24th March 2004, 20:21

Read the second part of my signature ...

Joe Fenton

24th March 2004, 21:12

bond

24th March 2004, 21:13

Originally posted by easybeat
Sorry I just don't agree with this Microsoft bashing.again this goes beyond "simple m$ bashing of some unimportant users in some unimportant internet forum" there was a decision of a governmental organisation based on real laws after 4 years of examinations and negotiations

Would you expect Coca-Cola to include a can of Pepsi in every 6 pack they sell, or course not. Microsoft should be able to include whatever software they like and it's up to us the consumer not to buy it if we don't approve.you dont get the decision:
the decision is not about helping mistreated users, its about helping mistreated competitors (which indirectly affects us users again, as when there are monopolies we have less product choice, higher prices, less innovations...)
also m$ isnt forced to include any competitors products into their software, the decision is about forbidding m$ to exclude/discriminate competitors products right from the start

Read the second part of my signature ...
-> Did you know that M$ has 53 Billion (Mrd.) Dollar of cash reserve?
...
As for the $500million fin, well the EU have just decided to milk the Cash Cow rather than tackle some real issues.again you guys missed big parts of the decision:
m$ doesnt only have to pay the fine, it also has to offer windows without the media player and open important parts of their OS, used protocols/apis, so that their competitors get the possibility to produce products which can directly interoperate with windows, which wasnt the case till now

guys, take some law and economics courses at your university and you will better understand what this decision really means and what a big step this is

Joe Fenton

24th March 2004, 21:20

m$ doesnt only have to pay the fine, it also has to offer without the media player and open important parts of their OS, used protocols/apis, so that their competitors get the possibility to produce products which can directly interoperate with windows, which wasnt the case till now

They'll probably do like they did recently here in the US - offer a license for the SPECIFICATION sheet for protocols/APIs for $50,000 each.

"You need three different spec sheets? That'll be $150,000."

MS is arguing to the DOJ that virtually no one is buying their $50,000 API specifications proving that no one needs them, so they should be allowed to make them secret again.

bond

24th March 2004, 21:25

Originally posted by Joe Fenton
They'll probably do like they did recently here in the US - offer a license for the SPECIFICATION sheet for protocols/APIs for $50,000 each.

"You need three different spec sheets? That'll be $150,000."

MS is arguing to the DOJ that virtually no one is buying their $50,000 API specifications proving that no one needs them, so they should be allowed to make them secret again. if you read the decision of the commission you will see that there will be a Monitoring Trustee, under the authority of the Commission, to ensure that Microsoft does not charge too high a price for the information.

Joe Fenton

24th March 2004, 21:45

Let's pray they do a better job than the DOJ.

bond

24th March 2004, 21:52

Originally posted by Joe Fenton
Let's pray they do a better job than the DOJ. whats doj exactly?

smiller667

24th March 2004, 22:57

DOJ - Department of Justice.

On a different note, the fine could have been much higher - up to 3 billion Euro (10% of a company's worldwide turnover, this is quoted from a news service).

easybeat

24th March 2004, 23:09

Fair enough I won't cry over MS getting split up but how was this situation allowed to develop?
Let's face it MS exploited a weakness in the laws and rose to a position of dominance, so whether you like them or loathe them they have been allowed to do that and in business they are in a position that every major corporation in the world would like to be in - no serious competitors. Squashing the competition is every businessman's dream and allows them to stiff the consumer.

The fault therefore is not entirely MS's, the majority of the blame must lie with the governments who have allowed them to get to this position.
As for the EU fine do you think it is to seriously prevent MS doing this again? or is it just a cash grab because the oppurtunity is there?

Doobie

25th March 2004, 02:43

Easybeat, your analogy is bad. At the very least, you should be talking about a vending machine that you own rather than a six-pack than coke produces. Microsoft makes the soda, but Dell sells the vending machines.

Suppose Coke was so popular that you had to stock it in your vending machines to have customers. But, suppose that Coke forbid you from stocking competing brands in your machine? Would you agree that Coke is going too far? That's exactly what Microsoft has done in the past. And, that is typical of their anti-competative behavior. They abuse the market in ways only a monopoly has the ability to do.

As Microsoft has been grossely abusive of the Free Market in the past, it is reasonable to be less tolerant with their behavior now. They do have a virtual monopoly of the OS and it would reasonably be harmful if they extend that monopoly into media players (and thus encoding, etc.). Maybe it's their right, as you seem to believe, that MS should have the right use their monopoly power to grow monopolies in related areas. But, I think if MS doesn't want the government in the way, they should forfeit of government copyright and patent protections. Afterall, the only legitimate function of government intrusion with copyright and patent law is to stimulate creation, and microsoft doesn't want that.

Originally posted by easybeat
Sorry I just don't agree with this Microsoft bashing.
So what if they are a monopoly it's their competitors and the various governments involved faults for letting them get like that in the first place.
Would you expect Coca-Cola to include a can of Pepsi in every 6 pack they sell, or course not. Microsoft should be able to include whatever software they like and it's up to us the consumer not to buy it if we don't approve.
As for the $500million fin, well the EU have just decided to milk the Cash Cow rather than tackle some real issues.

Neo Neko

25th March 2004, 05:07

Originally posted by easybeat
Sorry I just don't agree with this Microsoft bashing.
So what if they are a monopoly it's their competitors and the various governments involved faults for letting them get like that in the first place.
Would you expect Coca-Cola to include a can of Pepsi in every 6 pack they sell, or course not. Microsoft should be able to include whatever software they like and it's up to us the consumer not to buy it if we don't approve.
As for the $500million fin, well the EU have just decided to milk the Cash Cow rather than tackle some real issues.

Tipical opinions of the uneducated masses. Shallow, misguided, and missing the point.

Originally posted by easybeat
Fair enough I won't cry over MS getting split up but how was this situation allowed to develop?
Let's face it MS exploited a weakness in the laws and rose to a position of dominance, so whether you like them or loathe them they have been allowed to do that and in business they are in a position that every major corporation in the world would like to be in - no serious competitors. Squashing the competition is every businessman's dream and allows them to stiff the consumer.

The fault therefore is not entirely MS's, the majority of the blame must lie with the governments who have allowed them to get to this position.
As for the EU fine do you think it is to seriously prevent MS doing this again? or is it just a cash grab because the oppurtunity is there?

After everyone explaning it to you, you still don't get it do you? You need to educate yourself. Let me suggest a few items for basic reading/viewing and a little condensed background history to get you started. First head over to your local library and check out a copy of "Pirates of Silicon Valley" (http://alt.tnt.tv/movies/tntoriginals/pirates/) on VHS or DVD. Whichever one they have. It gives some very good background for the strugle and shows you who exactly is responsible. This video is required viewing at most technical institutions and even universities for those in CIS and especially the IT fields. It's kinda like "See Spot Run." for the computer related fields. Second head over here (http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.html) and read a rather unbiased account of what exactly the great innovator has actually innovated. Don't be suprised if you can count them all on your fingers and not need to break out your toes. Then check out this (http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/notinvented.html) page to get a good account of who actually wrote alot of the aplications etc that Microsoft claim as their own. Those lists are not all encompasing. But rest assured they indeed show the real trend.

Anyone with an oppinion worth listening to knows the beginning. Back in the 1970s Microsoft formed with the advent of the Altair computer kit. In 1974 Paul Allen while on his way to visit Bill Gates stopped to browse some of the latest magazines. One of which featured the Altair 8080 computer kit. It was touted as the first computer kit to rival commercial models. He then told Bill. Bill within a few days called the maker of the ALTAIR, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems and told him the straight faced lie that he and Paul had written a version of Basic for the Altair. Not only was this untrue, but neither of them had ever touched and altair or seen one in anything other than a magazine picture let alone develop software for it. When the head of MITS expressed an interest in their fictitious BASIC Gates spent the next several weeks with little sleep feverishly working on actually coding the version of Basic on a paper tape reader. While Allen looked for a way to emulate the Altair on their schools PDP-10. 8 weeks later they had a basic workable implementation of well BASIC and Paul Allen flew out to MITS to demo it. And the rest as they say is history. They sold the rights to the software to MITS and a year later Gates dropped out of college moved to a motell room in New Mexico with Paul Allen and founded Microsoft. That's right. Microsoft started with a lie. But that was only the beginning. A harbenger of things to come.

After the sale of Altair BASIC Microsoft hit a long dry spell where as a company there was not much goign on. It was purely by chance that at the time IBM was getting ready to release their PCs based on modular architechture. But they were lacking an operating system. Bill's mother a secratary for one of the higher ups at IBM over heard this and mentioned that her son was writing an "operating system". Or at least she thought he was. This piqued the interest of IBM and a meeting was arranged. The day of the meeting Paul Allen, Steve Balmer, and Bill Gates(sans morals and with poker face) sat in one of the conference rooms. Durring that session Gates went solo trying to market IBM the OS he was working on.(It is important to note at this point that he was not working on nor had ever worked on writing an OS ever.) After sitting through the confidence man's spin session the IBM execs bought in and gave $50,000 as a first investment in Microsoft Vaporware 2.0(Altair BASIC being Vaporware 1.0). Allen and Balmer managed while being gobsmacked to remain silent during Bill's bovine excrement slinging session. But once out of earshot on the steps of IBM Paul Allen had to broach the question. "What are you nuts? We don't have an operating system!" Ok not so much a question but you get the gist. To which Bill Gates the man with the plan replied "We'll think of something.". Thank goodnes in the end Paul Allen did think of something and pulled Bill's bacon out of the fire once again. Through Allen; Gates and friends were able to track down a local programmer they had heard of who wrote a Disk Operating System for the TRS-80. After a short time negotiating with Bill the man quickly sold the rights to the software for $50,000USD.(how convinient) "He was like who in their right mind PAYS for software? Corporations and government agencies contract or hire people to write software for them. But no one actually BUYS software. Everyone else simply writes software and gives it away."(that's right. Opensource and freeware predate the pay software model) Little did he know that this was all about to change. With the source code in hand Gates and crew began the fevered task of quickly writing *kof*porting*kof* DOS. Viola! MS DOS is born! Bill being the evil genius that he is got IBM to agree to som pretty outlandish terms over DOS. Instead of selling them the rights to DOS outright they got them to agree to let Microsoft retain ownership and "license" it to them. Something basically unheard of at the time. Over the years that followed Microsoft established itself in the market with the help and funding of IBM. Once Microsoft came into their own they began to languish and stall. IBM demanded upgrades and fixes to MS DOS in return for the funding they were giving Microsoft. And Microsoft was more than happy to take the funding and give them little or nothing in return.

During this time it is important to note the advent of the GUI on the PC. After a visit to palo-alto to see a demo of XEROX-PARC Jobs and the Woz walked away with XEROX's concent to use many innovations developed for PARC on their computer systems. This included the concept of aplication windows(which Microsoft is trying to claim as their own), drag and drop, and what would drag and drop be without the mouse. Microsoft fealing on top of the world decided to be more brash than ever. Rather than just lying this time Microsoft felt up for IP theft. Rather than getting permission from Xerox to use their inventions and not wanting to get left behind by anyone Microsoft created their first GUI in violation of all sorts of IP and copyright laws. They lucked out though. Xerox did not think much on a corporate level of the acomplishments of XEROX-PARC and had given the rights to Apple Computer to use them for free. So they saw little use in persuing Microsoft over their agredious violation. Viola MS Windows is born!

At some point IBM got fed up with sinking money into Microsoft and getting little or no return. So a joint venture was started with Microsft under the supervision of IBM. It was to be the sucessor to MS DOS/Windows. Namely OS/2. Microsoft played along with IBM through the first internal revisions of OS/2. But when IBM revealed their ambition to sell OS/2 to the consumer market they envoked the unholy wrath of Microsoft. Microsoft had grown so powerfull and dominant in that time with the help of IBM that they turned their earlier arangemnts with IBM and played them against IBM.(It was important to note at this time that the market had since been flooded with IBM compatable PCs and that via actual competition IBM no longer controlled the market.) Microsoft turned and bit the hand that fed it threatening to sustantially increase IBMs licensing fees for MS Products in relation to other PC OEM to make the move unprofitable.(See DOJ vs. Microsoft) IBM sadly submitted allowing the Archaeic MS Windows to stay in controll of the market and deprive people of a wholly superior operating system and an actual choice. IBM was never known for taking chances. It was simply by the grace of God they risked developing a micro computer in the first place. They are after all gods of the mainframe/macro computer. Unable to sell OS/2 to the masses and not being able to sell it to anyone else without Microsoft's concent due to their involvement. IBM basically gave Microsoft the complete rights to the small bits of OS/2 they had helped with and sold them cheap the rights to the rest of OS/2 so it would not be a total waste.(IBM "does" still sell and use OS/2. They use it mainly internally and sell it to a few large corporations.) Viola! Windows Lanmanager/NT was born.

At that time Microsoft was not using the excuse of bundling aplications to run their competitiors out of buisness. Their competitors were already there and had large customer bases so that would not have worked anyway. Instead Microsoft began releasing patches and updates and specifically changing core components of Windows un-announced in order to "break" their competitiors products.(This was part of the basis for the DOJ anti-trust case against Microsoft. And Microsoft was found guilty so don't deny it) Once Microsoft ruined the reputation of their biggest competitors they began premptive actions via aplication bundling to keep future competitiors out of their markets.( See The Browser Wars) Along with more purposefull breaking of compatability with compeeting programs. Not only did Microsoft use bundling to begin replacing Netscape with Internet Explorer. They even royally screwed the company they got Intenet Explorer from in the first place. They purposefully entered into a contract in bad faith to pay royalties for each version of Spyglass softwares version of Mosaic rebadged Internet Explorer they sold. After less than a year or so selling IE in select stores to people with current MS Windows versions it was announced that Microsoft would with the new version of MS Windows be bundling Internet Explorer and that it would no longer be sold separatly. Effectively wiggling out of their responsibility to pay Spyglass software millions in licensing etc.

Everyone else knows the rest for the most part. Netshow appeared and evolved into Windows Media; which was bundled to kill off Real Media and Apple Quicktime. Microsoft used their controll to extort a free version of Norton Defrag to be bundled with all later Windows OS which has since become known as Windows Defrag or the defrag tool in general. Basically killing off that market for Norton, Symantec and many others in the long run. There are only a few such non Microsoft software any more. And most of those are only sold to large corporations and not home users. Microsoft also extorted citrix out of the use of a basic version of their metaframe program hear after known as MS Windows Terminal Services and most recently evolved into the Windows XP remote desktop feature. Basically killing off the market for Citrix with alot of businesses and shutting them out of ever entering the consumer market. And with MS Windows XP Microsoft introduced their own basic CD burning component which is to be greatly improved and bundled with the next version of MS Windows effectively killing off the market for companies like Ahead and Roxio. Microsoft did not create Word. They did not create Excel. They did not create Power Point. They did not create Front Page. They did not create Visio. They did not create Publisher. They didn't create their own popular flight simulator software. And they did not create much much more. Not only did they not create most of the software they sell. In the 1990s It was popular for them to announce that they were going to be releasing new aplications in new and virgining technology fields. Which would often bring those fields to an immediate halt as they waited to see what Microsoft would release. Which often turned out to be nothing. This effectively stifled innovation in computer technology for much of the 1990s and keps lots of markets open for future exploration by MS. As a result things like palmtop computing were in part delayed for almost a decade.

As a company Microsoft could not innovate their way out of a wet paper sack. And the one big innovation they are responsible for is the pay software model. Microsoft has wronged so many people and they are justified in their anger. Sure the government failed to stop this earlier. But ultimatly there is only Microsoft to blame. So don't ever try to pass off the FUD that someone other than Microsoft is responsible for their current state. It was Microsoft's decision to play things as they did. Earlier govenrment intervention likely would not have swayed them in this course.(Especially considdering that the DOJ vs. Microsoft case made no difference here.) Back in the 90's Microsoft was only abusing geeks and nerds. Because they were the only ones using computers at home at the time. And as usual the geeks and nerds being meek and often submissive were ignored by society and the government. It is only since the Internet boom that PCs have infiltrated to the majority of homes of average non-geeks/nerds. And is the reason why only now even though it is largely to late action as innefectual as it is, is taking place. Saying it's not Microsoft's fault is alot like saying it was not your fault you ran over that innocent padestrian. It's just not so. So drop this "It's not Microsoft's fault." act.

Neo Neko

25th March 2004, 05:10

Wow that went longer than I intended. I think paragraphs are in order for even such a short dissertation. *editing in a propper word processing software* OpenOffice ofcourse. :D

Mug Funky

25th March 2004, 08:27

@ neo neko:

after reading that spiel i got all guilty and downloaded and installed mozilla :)

Elephant

25th March 2004, 09:24

Thanks Neo Neko!

I heard that mozilla was better... Maybe I'll give it a try. Do you think it will work on window XP? MS might have something in one of their updates that will mess my computer up! ;)

I was a Mac user until MS Flight Simulator. VER. 5 didn't come out for the Mac (and never has to the best of my knowledge). That was in the early 90's I believe. I wonder how many other computer users made the switch because of that. Come to think of it, makes me want to get rid of MS office and my Pocket PC too!

Sure do wish that there was an alternative to MS. And now, they're trying to shut down Linux. Microsoft is bankrolling SCO's play.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14556

It would be nice if there was an open source movement that could compete! I would love to see MS go down right along with the RIAA and the bunch!

bond

25th March 2004, 11:05

Originally posted by Neo Neko
At this time Microsoft was not using the excuse of bundling aplications to run their competitiors out of buisness. Their competitors were already there and had large customer bases so that would not have worked anyway.
Instead Microsoft began releasing patches and updates and specifically changing core components of Windows un-announced in order to "break" their competitiors products.(This was part of the basis for the DOJ anti-trust case against Microsoft. And Microsoft was found guilty so don't deny it)

Once Microsoft ruined the reputation of their biggest competitors they began premptive actions via aplication bundling to keep future competitiors out of their markets.(Browser Wars) Along with more purposefull breaking of compatability with compeeting programs.
Not only did Microsoft use bundling to begin replacing Netscape with Internet Explorer ... After less than a year or so selling IE in select stores to people with current MS Windows versions it was announced that Microsoft would with the new version of MS Windows be bundling Internet Explorer and that it would no longer be sold separatly. ...
Windows Media; which was bundled to kill off Real Media and Apple Quicktime.
Microsoft used their controll to extort a free version of Norton Defrag to be bundled with all later Windows OS which has since become known as Windows Defrag or the defrag tool in general. Basically killing off that market for Norton, Symantec and many others in the long run. ...
And with MS Windows XP Microsoft introduced their own basic CD burning component which is to be greatly improved and bundled with the next version of MS Windows effectively killing off the market for companies like Ahead and Roxio.some of the very good points in your post :)

i think what makes the windows media player a special case relatively to the mentioned other cases (browsers, etc...) is that it doesnt only affect one products market, but very strongly a whole other very important markets too:
in fact the upcoming digital multimedia business will be THE market of the future, and m$ has very much interests that these market will depend on them:
music stores: wma9
video: wmv9 in hd-dvd

and in fact to prevent this was one of the reasons for the european commission to act like they did:
... reduces the incentives of music, film and other media companies ... and content providers to develop their offerings to competing media ...
Available data already show already a clear trend in favour of Windows Media technology ...
This would allow Microsoft to control related markets in the digital media sector, such as encoding technology, software for broadcasting of music over the Internet and digital rights management, etc ...

Mug Funky

25th March 2004, 11:09

i'd rather go without music completely if all i had to choose from was WMA9 or nothing.

i'd learn the fekking piano...

25th March 2004, 11:44

@Neo Neko
Beautiful, such a long post without paragraphs. *pinks away a tear* Posts like those call for a "justify" post style, to make it even prettier.

Neo Neko

25th March 2004, 11:56

Well oddly enough for all the dammage that Microsoft has done they have indirectly done alot of good as well. Without Microsoft opensource as we know it today would not exist. Microsoft has by their own actions spawned the competitor they can't destroy; and who will in the long run quite possibly keep them in check in the future. Microsoft is the inspiration and drive behind opensource. Without Microsoft many of the people who contribute to opensource would likely be gainfully employed at one of thousands of small software companies with no interest in doing this sort of thing in their spare time. Lets face it. Good will will only get you so far. Were it not for the teeming masses of angry nerds and geeks with an axe to grind against Microsoft opensource would have likely gotten nowhere.

Also as great as Apple and the Mac are it was IBM's PC architecture and Microsoft's Windows that brought computers to the general public enmasse. And also gave us the high power low cost PCs and hardware we have today. That is something that Apple and the Mac would not likely have ever been able to do. But that should not excuse Microsoft from their conduct. As is often popular to say. The ends don't justify the means. Even without Microsoft the prolifferation of comuters and related technologies to the public at large would have happened anyway. All Microsoft did was speed the adoption.

In the end I did not post to make anyone feel guilty enough to run opensource or non-microsoft products. Those are things people should be evaluating any time they make a software decision in the first place. You should not need guilt. In all honesty there are times and situations where Microsoft software is not only functional but even apropriate. I don't have a grudge with people running MS Windows or other MS software. I run one copy myself. I play the rare game or two on it and do alot of my mutimedia tasks on it till *NIX gets fully up to speed for that. Which is coming together at a decent pace as we speak. The problem is that not all of those in Microsoft's 90+% market share really need Microsoft's products. You don't need Microsoft Windows or Internet Explorer to browse the internet. You don't need outlook/outlook express to get your email. You don't need Windows Media to play music or videos. And you don't need MS Office to do office tasks. There are viable alternatives to MS software in every one of these categories. But Microsoft makes it basically impossible to sell such products. You can't go to your local Best Buy or most consumer electronics stores to find Apple computers. In fact you are hard pressed to go to any consumer electronics or computer store and find any computers not using INTEL x86 or compatable CPUs or computers sold without MS Windows. And that is largely due to Microsoft. Though we as the general public and the government do bear some responsibility for standing idly by and letting this come to pass.

This 500 million fine is nothing. Microsoft makes that much in just under a week. If anything there need to be more fines with sanctions and restrictions firmly imposed upon them. And they need to be long term. I honestly think that the best answer is to break Microsoft in two. Separate the OS from the aplications. If we did that and ensured they were not collaborating behind the sceens it would radically change the situation. A filing Microsoft made back in 2002 to the US SEC showed that of 6+ divisions of Microsoft at the time only two actually made any money. That is not such a big deal untill you take into account the fact that all the divisions that did not make money did not break even either. They all lost more money than what was invested in them. That alone should sound alarm bells. Whats worse is that these divisions are not small Microsoft side projects. These are groups like the Internet Explorer group, Amir's Windows Media group, and the Xbox group. These are big divisions and incurring big losses. Enough to put the average corporation out of business in a snap. Microsoft is using their controll in just two markets to bankroll their way in controll of easily twice as many more markets. No company no matter how good they are or how good their product is stands a decent chance of survival in that situation.

As computer users this is our history. We all need to learn it or be doomed to repeat it. With as ubiquitous as the PC has become today these are the kinds of things that need to be taught in middle and highschool history classes. They are becoming increasingly more relivent than what is currently being taught in many of them.

Is Microsoft as a corporation a largely immoral company? Yes. But that is not a crime. If we arrested people in business for being immoral there would not be many businesses around. But Microsoft has done many things that go beyond being just immoral to being illegal. And yet they have the unmitigated guall to complain when people do the same to them. When the only people that have anything good to say about you are your bankers and investers you need to re-evaluate your image a bit. In fact what had gotten my ire up recently was one of the talking heads on Fox News. It drove home the point that the general business market as a whole are largely oblivious to the truth. As the reader so eloquently put it "The fine is in response to Microsoft's bundling of compatable software with their operating system."! Compatable? Compatable! Don't other people write compatable software? Why then is it not bundled? And who in their right mind would bundle incompatable software?! It's days like that which make it feel like an uphill battle.

avih

25th March 2004, 14:41

Neo Neko, :) can we put your posts into a hall or fame or something? (just re-paragraph the 1st one).

2X:goodpost:

easybeat

25th March 2004, 20:07

Neo, even though you were venting you spleen at me that was one hell of a post.I'll just take the criticism on the chin and bow out now if you don't mind.(I read your post and the links)
Guess there's a bad guy in every argument and this time it's me, life would be pretty boring though if we all shared they same opinions.

Neo Neko

25th March 2004, 20:56

Originally posted by easybeat
Neo, even though you were venting you spleen at me that was one hell of a post.I'll just take the criticism on the chin and bow out now if you don't mind.(I read your post and the links)
Guess there's a bad guy in every argument and this time it's me, life would be pretty boring though if we all shared they same opinions.

Who said you are the bad guy? Not me. Just uneducated. And that is nothing to serious at all. Most of us are here after all to learn. Albeit mostly video related information. But with Microsoft's courting with media corporations via their media technologies and DRM this then becomes relivent. To be honest with you I was once like you in your opinion. But I quite possibly have a leg up on you with nearly 20 years of computer experience having a computer in one form or another since before the time I was 10. While most people are just now getting into this boat I have been in it and living it for most of my life. This sort of thing is often the unspoken history of things which very few people are exposed to. That is why I say that with the use of computers by school children today that this needs to be taught in the history classes. Joe user just does not understand what this is all about. When they see Microsoft they just see a sucessful business and someone they would like to immitate. What they don't see is the history and the fact that Microsoft will not allow immitators let alone competitors. What I posted was not specifically aimed at you. But is more for the eddification of all those who were previously unexposed. Which does include you. But not just you. ;)

If I piqued your interest with any of this I am here to tell you that this only scratches the surface and only serves as a rough outline of PC history. It goes so much deeper. And in directions you might not have guessed. On that subject what about the relationship between SCO and Microsoft? Everyone now knows that Microsoft is helping to fund SCO's so called assault against Linux. Though SCO has never gone after Linux, rather companies who are or have migrated to it from SCO systems. The assault on Linux thing is just a smoke screen to slow the adoption of Linux and boost Microsoft's shares. To whit Microsoft's investment has seen some small success. But would it intrest anyone to know that this is not the first time Microsoft and SCO have worked together? SCO actually hired Microsoft in the late 1970's to write a Unix like OS for SCO. MS Xenix anyone? Xenix faded away in the early 1980s. But I am quite sure portions live on as SCO Unixware. SCO Unixware being the product in question that those accused were migrating to Linux from. :D Deeper and deeper. :devil:

easybeat

25th March 2004, 21:28

No problems Neo, I guess you like Microsoft as much as I like the European Parliament. Check out this to see the sort of double dealing they do.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3556021.stm
Here's where Microsoft's $500million is headed.

Neo Neko

25th March 2004, 22:06

Yeah I have real questions as to what they are going to be doing with it as well. I am still for fining and sanctions agains Microsoft. Even if they don't necessarily do the right thing with the money in the end. If I sit around wating for an action that is 100% agreeable I will die on my ass. Not something anyone really wants to do. Quite frankly I not only have issues with Microsoft but with the RIAA, MPAA, OPEC, major auto manufacturers, politicians in general, special interest groups, and even the UN. To be otherwise would be hypocritical.

easybeat

25th March 2004, 23:14

As I've said on another forum elsewhere we are heading towards a "Rollerball" like future where big corporations run the world.

Elephant

25th March 2004, 23:37

Originally posted by easybeat
As I've said on another forum elsewhere we are heading towards a "Rollerball" like future where big corporations run the world.

I think we are already there... but it will get worse.

Neo Neko

26th March 2004, 01:06

Yeah without Rebeca that movie would have been just plain weak. :p And it is scarry in it's own right. Not as much as Orwell's depiction of the future that is coming to pass. But still.

sysKin

26th March 2004, 09:00

Heh, look at this: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994818

According to this article, MS defends itself and says that removing WMP will hurt users, because MS already has a monopoly in media players and many websites will not work without their WMP.

How exactly such claim is going to help them - I don't know.

Perhaps EU should let them prove this point and then double the fine, as they will have admitted (and documented) exactly the thing that is illegal - using one monopoly to create another.

bond

26th March 2004, 09:30

Originally posted by sysKin
According to this article, MS defends itself and says that removing WMP will hurt users, because MS already has a monopoly in media players and many websites will not work without their WMP.haha, of course they will not work, like websites offering .mov files will also not work without quicktime :rolleyes:
man, this windows media bias caused by wmp was one of the reasons, why m$ has to remove its player from windows by default

seems that m$ is trying hard to save at least a little bit of the reputation they lost now, cause such a dumb argumentation will surely not help them in front of the court, but maybe in some user's mind...
or said the other way round: they seem not to have better arguments against the eu's decision :D

Sirber

26th March 2004, 14:01

The programs may not use WMP's graphical interface, but they rely on its application program interfaces (APIs), isolated snippets of code that perform functions such as rewind, forward or graphics rendering.

Without these APIs, software developers will have to write in these functions themselves, says Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology in Washington DC, who is strongly opposed to the EU ruling. "As a software provider you will have complete unpredictability about what you will find on a computer."Do quicktime or realplayer uses APIs or a "browser plugin"?

DaveId

2nd June 2004, 19:45

people do indeed have strong opinions regarding microsoft... before i get into anything, i gotta make one point..
if you think there is something wrong with microsoft as a company, tell me one thing that you do that separates you from the rest of the consumers in the world... and for every thing that you do differently from the average consumer, prehaps we can find one thing that microsoft does differently from the average company.. i doubt highly that most people that visit these forums, or use computers daily, know much about living a non-consumptual life.. as long as we are consumers, we need suppliers.. plain and simple, microsoft is a good provider, they sell us something that we have come to accept needing, and we buy it... whose fault is it that we buy it??????
now then....
i do not agree with the opinion that microsofts bundling of a media player (that just happens to playback their formats) is any different than windows being shipped with an mp3 decoder, internet explorer, or outlook express... and to anyone that thinks the XP-SP1 'Set Programs Access and Defaults" options that disable these built in programs actually REMOVES the programs, try it.... and look in your program files folder, they are not gone, just removed from your start menu...
all i know is, if i DE-select windows media player on installation, or from the add-remove programs, file associations are to MY default player (zoom), wmp 6.4 does not even exist on the computer (not even in the program files/windows media player folder)...
i use mozilla firefox as a web browser, thunderbird as an email client, winamp for music, zoomplayer for video, and microsoft for windows and office.....
i definately do not support companies like microsoft, so i dont buy from them.. and don't use their programs.. there is always an alternative..
i do also know that some x-windows servers on *nix machines come with media players installed, such as xmms, or mplayer... is it just that microsoft also developed compression codecs that their player could play back but by default did not play in other programs? what if realmedia put out an operating system bundled with realplayer? would we say, take out your player from your operating system? or put windows media player in as well?
i hope not....
dave
but maybe i am totally wrong

communist

2nd June 2004, 20:59

Originally posted by DaveId
they sell us something that we have come to accept needing

From a M$ EULA
The Software is licensed, not sold.

Originally posted by DaveId
microsoft is a good provider

No ;)

Originally posted by DaveId
if i DE-select windows media player on installation, or from the add-remove programs, file associations are to MY default player (zoom), wmp 6.4 does not even exist on the computer (not even in the program files/windows media player folder)...

Hmm?! Try Start -> Run -> mplayer2 [ENTER]

Originally posted by DaveId
i do also know that some x-windows servers on *nix machines come with media players installed, such as xmms, or mplayer...
Where you can easily remove it without having to fear of tearing the OS apart.
Same with IE - windows was running fine without it or it as an additional program. M$ has just 'tightly intergrated' it into newer windows versions so that removing it is impossible - though just to make sure everyone _is_ using it after all. In addition to this they can - after creating a monopoly in OS - use it to create another one in audio / video compression and delivering technologies (see bond's post).
After that they will go after another thing and so on on and until everything depends on M$ - now do you really want this? :devil: ;)

Neo Neko

2nd June 2004, 22:29

Originally posted by DaveId
people do indeed have strong opinions regarding microsoft... before i get into anything, i gotta make one point..
if you think there is something wrong with microsoft as a company, tell me one thing that you do that separates you from the rest of the consumers in the world...

Education and two decades of first hand Microsoft consumer experience

Originally posted by DaveId
and for every thing that you do differently from the average consumer, prehaps we can find one thing that microsoft does differently from the average company..

You don't have to look that deep to figure out what Microsoft is doing differently. Microsoft does what most other companies can only dream about. Microsoft single handedly invented the "pay" software market/economy. Before that all software was basically free and open source. Having got in on the ground level Microsoft has put themselves in a place of control over the entire PC consumer market. Dictating to OEMs how they can sell or package their own products. Purposefully breaking competitors software. Basically throwing their weight around to muscle in everywhere else. It's all laid out in black and white in the failed DOJ anti-trust hearings. They were found guilty of things that would have gotten any other company dismantled. Yet they were not.

Originally posted by DaveId
i doubt highly that most people that visit these forums, or use computers daily, know much about living a non-consumptual life.. as long as we are consumers, we need suppliers.. plain and simple, microsoft is a good provider,

Hardly. They misrepresent the produts they sell. Often selling us products that anyone else would barely considder "beta" quality as final tested products. Further they lock us into their products trying to reduce our choices. By doing things like adopting and breaking openstandards what they call "embracing and extending" they do this.

Originally posted by DaveId
they sell us something that we have come to accept needing, and we buy it... whose fault is it that we buy it??????

It is not any one persons fault. Ultimatly consumers are to blame for setling on paying more for less. But mostly blame can be laid on Microsoft for their tactics and business practices. In the relative absence of choice that Microsoft has created Microsoft is often the only choice. And when consumers have to make a choice that generally means Microsoft. Some of us can build our own Microsoft free systems. But the average PC shopper is hard pressed to find non-Microsoft based systems for sale in their area. Very few places sell many Mac systems let alone carry Mac at all. And even fewer carry Linux systems. So ultimatly Microsoft is the result of no choice at all.

Originally posted by DaveId
i do not agree with the opinion that microsofts bundling of a media player (that just happens to playback their formats) is any different than windows being shipped with an mp3 decoder, internet explorer, or outlook express...

I don't remember anyone making that oppinion. It's all a problem. And Microsoft uses them all to discourage competition. The Media Player issue is just more central to the subject of the forum.

Originally posted by DaveId
and to anyone that thinks the XP-SP1 'Set Programs Access and Defaults" options that disable these built in programs actually REMOVES the programs, try it.... and look in your program files folder, they are not gone, just removed from your start menu...
all i know is, if i DE-select windows media player on installation, or from the add-remove programs, file associations are to MY default player (zoom), wmp 6.4 does not even exist on the computer (not even in the program files/windows media player folder)...

Wrong it is still there. As has been said before Mplayer2.exe will still be there and will still handle all media untill you install and associate them with something else. And when it comes down to it WMP hardly plays media anyway. It is just a directshow interface. And that Microsoft will not allow you to remove. Thank god for Windows Lite. It does what Microsoft says you can't. To bad you have to pay yet more again just so you can get even less.

Originally posted by DaveId
i use mozilla firefox as a web browser, thunderbird as an email client, winamp for music, zoomplayer for video, and microsoft for windows and office.....
i definately do not support companies like microsoft, so i dont buy from them.. and don't use their programs.. there is always an alternative..

You are being slightly hypocritical there. Why no OpenOffice.org and or Linux/BSD/BeOS/QNX?

Originally posted by DaveId
i do also know that some x-windows servers on *nix machines come with media players installed, such as xmms, or mplayer...

There is really only one X-window server software as far as that's concerned. Ok it is kinda two now. I took the X.org plunge monday. But it is still largely the same thing. And neither the Xfree or X.org groups are responsible for any media player software or advocate any particular media software. So actually what you state is a prime example of what Microsoft is dooing wrong and what *NIX distros are dooing right. With *NIX you really have a choice. Where with Microsoft you really don't. You get directshow whether you want it or not.

Originally posted by DaveId
is it just that microsoft also developed compression codecs that their player could play back but by default did not play in other programs?

No but it should be easy to see how that only exacerbates the situation.

Originally posted by DaveId
what if realmedia put out an operating system bundled with realplayer? would we say, take out your player from your operating system? or put windows media player in as well?

No. But that would not be a double standard. In an ideal situation everyone should be free to bundle what they want. But this is hardly an ideal situation. Microsoft can use their situation to push their products to the detrement of everyone. And that is the difference. Demanding that Microsoft allow choice is basically just trying to re-introduce copetition back into the equation. It is about the control Microsoft can exert. If they did not have the control they have then there would be no issue with them bundling what they do. But just by bundling something Microsoft can make it the defacto standard product even if it is the worst product in that market! And Microsoft has a history of shoddy products.

**This message was posted under Mozilla 1.6 under KDE 3.2.2 under X.org under Gentoo Linux using Linx kernel 2.6.4**

sysKin

3rd June 2004, 03:12

Originally posted by DaveId
[...]they sell us something that we have come to accept needing, and we buy it... whose fault is it that we buy it??????
now then....
i do not agree with the opinion that microsofts bundling of a media player (that just happens to playback their formats) is any different than windows being shipped with an mp3 decoder, internet explorer, or outlook express...
There is a main difference, which you missed. It is not illegal or problematic to bundle one software with another, that is not the problem here.
It is, however, illegal to use a monopoly in a way that helps to create another monopoly. This is one of the main points of anti-trust laws.

WMP was not a problem when it just played AVIs or mp3s - there are another programs that do that, MS has no benefit when you use them to play MP3s or not. It was a real utility, nothing more.

Now, however, WindowsMedia is a market. MS sells the technology, takes money for DRMing it, takes money from ZoomPlayer (pro) for the right to play the files. It is a new market, with real money and competitors which are easy to identify - Real and Apple.

It can be easly seen that by budling WMP with windows, MS is using the monopoly in one market to create an advantage in a completely different market. About one hundret years ago, governments decided that it is against the public interest (and even economical interest) and banned it. Simple.

Radek

sysKin

3rd June 2004, 03:39

Hi, me again ;)
Originally posted by DaveId
whose fault is it that we buy it??????
Indeed, MS is accused of monopolistic behaviour much more than other monopolies. However, there is a reason.

There is a thing in economy called a Network Effect. This means that if someone else buys a product, it somehow affects your choice about a similar product.

Quite often there is no network effect. Just because your neighbours, friends and co-workers like/buy a butter of a famous brand, it will not affect your choice of butter.

Sometimes the effect is negative. If everyone likes a new shopping centre, you might avoid it, because there is no parking space or you just don't like the crowd.

Quite often the positive effect isn't big, like with cars - sure, you will not buy a car from a small factory because you are afraid that replacement parts will not be available, but it is not *that* strong to create a monopoly by itself.
The positive effect usually also drives the prices up (because the demand goes up), which helps to keep everything under control.

It is obvious that a market of operating systems, office applications, or instant messengers has a very very strong positive network effect. If all your employees bought, or are train in, MS word, it is almost always cheaper to buy MS word than install free OOo. If everyone on this planet has windows installed, software companies will write new programs for windows, which means that their clients will buy windows. If your friends have MSN, you will not install ICQ.
If 90% of users can play WMV files, you will encode your online stuff in WMV, and some of the remaining 10% will install new software to play WMV.

At the same time, costs don't rise because of high demand - MS can easly sell as many licenses as they want.

This is the only reason why competitors can't compete with MS. The network effect is so strong that they have no way of doing anything about it.

Rash

27th July 2004, 06:19

Err, OK I don't know if I should post this. Well, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Home Theater Forum (http://www.hometheaterforum.com). It is basically a huge forum for discussion about Home Theaters design, equipment and softwares (DVDs, LDs, etc). It is known that some industry members visit that forum as well.

What I wanted to say is that the people in that forum supports the WM9 codec for the next generation HD discs (HD-DVD and BD). They truly believe that it is the best thing there is. Once I tried to say WM9 doesn't beat usual MPEG4 (based on Doom9's comparisons) but they didn't believe me. As far as I can tell, everybody is hypnotized with the www.wmvhd.com demos.

Well, I'm not really against the WM9 codec. Actually, I think it is quite nice (look at those demos). What I am afraid of is Microsoft politics to "rule" the entertainment industry.

10th September 2004, 00:35

Hi all,

Just a small note, because I saw users saying it's okay for MS to bundle all their software. Maybe it is, but it's certainly not okay for them to restrict access to third-party software.

I had made a "Lecteur Multimédia" (which means a media player) when I had Win98. It was first for my own use, but I then distributed it to many people. My program was fast, disn't use much ressources, would play wav,avi,mpg,mid,mod,s3m,xm,it, and others. It was simple to use. It was... perfect (for my needs).

Everytime I would update Windows Media Player, to see if I could benefit from some of it's "new" features, it would DELETE all shortcuts in the Desktop and Start Menu linking to my program, and mess up the file associations.

Now that I'm using WinXP, my program no longer works. In fact, 12 of my programs (made for MS-DOS and Win98) no longer work. Win98 compatibility mode is a joke, and a bad one.

If anyone here knows a bit of reverse engineering, have you ever taken a look at Windows code ? Personnally I think that names of sections of code like "USER!BOZOSLIVEHERE" are not very descriptive.

With every version of Windows, Microsoft distances the user from the computer. They call that "user friendliness". Simple things like changing the boot logo become more difficult. In Win98 it was a bitmap file one had to edit. Now it's an exe file from which you have to change the paletted image. But, this exe-file is dependant on the service pack that is installed. So you install this new service pack which corrects (cought) *adds* (cought) bugs, and you have to remake your logo. Autoexec.bat isn't executed anymore, bu then, even if it would, the CHOICE command doesn't exist anymore.

Registry problems, browser security problems, blue screen, etc. : User friendly.

Remember: Bugs come in through open Windows.

Neo Neko

10th September 2004, 03:15

Originally posted by KR
Remember: Bugs come in through open Windows.

And here's where the irony comes in. MS Windows is closed. Ok not so much irony ans it is funny and pathetic. Bugs are inescapable. Open or closed. But those that are open allow everyone to scrutinize for such things. ;)

shevegen

19th January 2005, 16:57

"the CHOICE command doesn't exist anymore."

User choice is a bad thing for MS anyway, so why even have a command which subtly hints that you, as a user, have a choice.
:>

Shinigami-Sama

3rd February 2005, 22:25

Originally posted by communist
Same with IE - windows was running fine without it or it as an additional program. M$ has just 'tightly intergrated' it into newer windows versions so that removing it is impossible - though just to make sure everyone _is_ using it after all. In addition to this they can - after creating a monopoly in OS - use it to create another one in audio / video compression and delivering technologies (see bond's post).
After that they will go after another thing and so on on and until everything depends on M$ - now do you really want this? :devil: ;)
heh I;ve been tring to get IE off my machine for a week now
I even took it off useing the add/remove windows compents bar
and it;s still there
and even used spybot to "secure shredder" it 99 times
and it still comes back
but I;ve got firefox as my defualt now
goes to show you how far m$ goes to shaft us eh?
so I'm all for a spilt of M$
and this nice 'little' fine ;)

Neo Neko

3rd February 2005, 22:33

Well if you are willing to pay you can get rid of it. :D http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html

Shinigami-Sama

3rd February 2005, 22:36

I think not
I thikn i;d rather learn how to find it in hte registry and get rid of it that way
or find a simalar app to do it
or I'll just live with siting my my comp

Elias

4th February 2005, 08:15

Originally posted by easybeat
As for the EU fine do you think it is to seriously prevent MS doing this again? or is it just a cash grab because the oppurtunity is there? I say it's a cash grab, but either way, we who don't like the greedy and very evil company Micro$oft benefit from this "cash grab" :)

Inventive Software

4th February 2005, 14:21

Isn't 500M euros about 1% of Microsoft's cash reserves? I seem to recall that they have more than $50 Billion dollars in reserve, so $1/2 Billion dollars ain't gonna hit em that hard.

I love bashing Microsoft, don't you?

bond

4th February 2005, 14:24

well people shouldnt mix up what the company is worth on the stock market (thats why billy is always handled as (one of) the richest) and what is really available for spending
thats a huge difference

keel

5th February 2005, 03:04

Originally posted by DaveId
.....prehaps we can find one thing that microsoft does differently from the average company...
How about Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, and the average company is not, for starters?

ChronoCross

28th May 2005, 17:45

I'd just like to put in my two sense to this issue and if anything has been repeated just bear with me. Yes I know I'm bringing back an old thread.

1) The common computer user does not care what they use to play something as long as it takes little or no effort. Do you honestly think they will go searching around for a media player they don't know will work. I think not, everyone will still be using windows media player.

2) If you don't want to use windows media player then don't. I personally don't as I use either VLC or MPC.

3) That fine of 500mil is fine.....but requiring them to strip down their program to barebones because some companies are whining about it makes no sense. So now we are making it a requirement for programs to carry competing products simply to try and prevent a monopoly? So wil that mean if Nero gets a monopoly in terms of cash cow for mpeg-4 AVC does that mean we should start asking for them to include x.264, moonlight, and others in recode?

4) page 1 suggested breaking up microsoft......I am no fan of microsoft but breaking up a company is no solution. It takes away all reason for any company to improve their position in the market for fear of becoming too big and then being smashed to pieces.

Neo Neko

29th May 2005, 07:15

Originally posted by ChronoCross
1) The common computer user does not care what they use to play something as long as it takes little or no effort. Do you honestly think they will go searching around for a media player they don't know will work. I think not, everyone will still be using windows media player.

Many of us BSD/Linux users started aout as common users. And just like other common users we got fed up with at least one aspect of Microsoft's software or behavior. Other Common users will to. Lots of people are getting fed up with viral/mal/spyware that Windows is so easily compromised with.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
2) If you don't want to use windows media player then don't. I personally don't as I use either VLC or MPC.

Microsoft uses their position as the pre-emenent make that only commercial OS vendor for cheap Intel (Linux does not count as it is not an OS. And has no commercial ownership/development) systems etc to hide the fact that people have a choice. Or to at least make a choice for change more dificult. With Microsoft using their monopoly platform for leverage they can keep even the most competitive competition from making any progress into almost any market. If you still consider yourself a common user think again. Common users are afraid to or don't even realize in most cases that they can install software on their wintell systems. Meaning MPC. Meaning VLC. And Microsoft likes it that way. Have you ever looked at the repair kiosks at places like best buy etc? Have you ever wondered WHY they have a "software install service"? Surely there is no money to be made in that as software is so easy to install. Or is there.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
3) That fine of 500mil is fine.....but requiring them to strip down their program to barebones because some companies are whining about it makes no sense.

No actually it makes perfect sense. You just don't understand. I used to share your current oppinion. Let me attempt to make an annalogy. Lets assume for a moment you want to start a small company to write an OS for home PCs. To even have a chance you will have to first accomplish one of two things. Either write an OS so jaw dropping so amaising it would be considered a killer app unto itself. Or you will have to make you OS as compatable with Microsoft Windows as possible. The first is rather rare. You as an individual would probably have a better chance at getting struck by lightning. And the second course? Well you would probably rather be struck by lightning than attempt it as a comercial entity. First of all in order to be compatable you are going to have to implement alot of pattented methods/technologies. Which is all fine and dandy as long as you are not on the radar. But the moment you start to make a name for yourself and get sucess Microsoft will focus a fraction of their might on you and just like an ant under a magnifying glass in the sun you will sizzle and pop! Your company will collapse either in failed licensing attempts or trying to CYA in pattent littigation. It does not matter if the pattents are fraudulent. For desktop PCs etc Microsoft is the gate keeper. And they don't let anyone pass if they can help it. Whether it is fair competition or underhanded unethical business practices Microsoft is open to all possibilities. And it would not be the first time. Now replace OS with Media Player, Office Suite, or Developer Tools and it is all equally aplicable. And Microsoft is using their position in those markets to push their way into new markes. So they can say the same about Set Tops, Consoles, Online Music, and Media Formats/Codecs. And once they get that they will move on to other markets. Rinse lather repeat.

Can you see the problem? Innovation mostly comes from small groups or companies with low buerocracy and high technical agility. But Microsoft etc use their position to keep all the little guys out. So the only way you can make it in is to be one of the big guys from the start. But the big guys like where they are and change is risk. So innovation is kept under tight reigns. It is dangerous after all. So it is kept to a tiny trickle and charged premium prices to obtain. Minor improvements or bugfixes are lauded with the same hype and fanfare of the super bowl winners. As a result most people can't generally fathom or handl real innovation.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
So now we are making it a requirement for programs to carry competing products simply to try and prevent a monopoly?

It is called regulation. Or at least an attempt at. We have many such monopolies here in the states. They are generally reffered to as public utilities.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
So wil that mean if Nero gets a monopoly in terms of cash cow for mpeg-4 AVC does that mean we should start asking for them to include x.264, moonlight, and others in recode?

No. Only if they act unfairly or resort to illegal tactics that would lead them to becoming a convicted monopoly like Microsoft. Microsoft IS a CONVICTED monopoly. It would be REDICULOUS to expect it of any REGULAR software company.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
4) page 1 suggested breaking up microsoft......I am no fan of microsoft but breaking up a company is no solution. It takes away all reason for any company to improve their position in the market for fear of becoming too big and then being smashed to pieces.

No just the opposite. REGULAR companies have no reason to fear such things. Microsoft is NOT a Regular company. Breaking Microsoft up would force them idealy to compete with eachother. Leading to more competition, better products, and lower prices. Albeit with reduced profits. And that's the part Microsof does not like. In their golden age they could turn a profit for nothing. Now they can't. And are getting pissed / making mistakes.

ChronoCross

29th May 2005, 07:38

I just wanted to post on the last thing you said since it's 1:30am and I'm tired lol. I'll reread the rest later.

What do you consider a regular company? Idealy int he buisness world you are trying to be the best, to destroy all your competitors through innovation, that is the purpose of buisness is to make as much money as humanly possible.

Now if we start classifying companies with this goal as monopolistic then it takes away desire to be the best...so why start a company if your just going to be mediocre. All companies do things that we are gonna find quaestionable.

for example: the intel compiler I read awhile back actually puts in flags that says that if it's not an intel processor to disable all things like sse, sse2, mmx, etc on other processors. I personally thought it was a bad decision but aren't they within their rights as a product maker to make decisions about their products?

i pose a question. IF lets say microsoft wasn't making any money at all....remember this is a hypothetical. but still owned 98% of the market in terms of usage. would they have still been convicted of a monopoly?

Neo Neko

29th May 2005, 19:07

Originally posted by ChronoCross
I just wanted to post on the last thing you said since it's 1:30am and I'm tired lol. I'll reread the rest later.

What do you consider a regular company? Idealy int he buisness world you are trying to be the best, to destroy all your competitors through innovation, that is the purpose of buisness is to make as much money as humanly possible.

No the goal was never really to destroy your competitors. If you were any sort of real capitalist your response wouild be to outperform/innovate your competitors through fair ethical practices to obtain higher market share. That is more or less what the ideal called capitalism puts forth. It relies on flawed human personalities to make decisions that benefit us all.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
Now if we start classifying companies with this goal as monopolistic then it takes away desire to be the best...so why start a company if your just going to be mediocre. All companies do things that we are gonna find quaestionable.

Regular companies have nothing to fear from it. If your are a regular company who has not achieved market dominance by and or still uses unethical illegal means to supress the competition. You have nothing to worry about. You keep making this jump to a logical fallicy that Microsoft is the typical regular company. They are not. Yes companies behave unethically from time to time. But many don't have enough power on their own to control the markets they are in. Microsoft does. That is why when Microsoft does it it is worse and requires special action.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
for example: the intel compiler I read awhile back actually puts in flags that says that if it's not an intel processor to disable all things like sse, sse2, mmx, etc on other processors. I personally thought it was a bad decision but aren't they within their rights as a product maker to make decisions about their products?

Yes. Yes they are. Because there are quite a few companies putting out compilers etc. Not the least of which is Microsoft. There is also Borland. The Code Warrior products. Not to mention many others of varrying language and license. In short Intel does not have the compiler market cornered. They make a decent product for their chipset. Other than that their compiler offerings are rather meager and not that much better than other offerings. There are some places GCC actually beats the intel compiler on their own chipset. Intel through their work on their compiler does not keep small players out of that market. If anything they help push the envelope and foster competition with other compiler devs etc. Microsoft does not.

Originally posted by ChronoCross
i pose a question. IF lets say microsoft wasn't making any money at all....remember this is a hypothetical. but still owned 98% of the market in terms of usage. would they have still been convicted of a monopoly?

Yes. Being a monopoly is not a function directly related to profits. Microsoft could be raking in the cash but have such a bloated middle management structure etc that after all the bills are paid net profit would be cose to zero. This is not far from the truth today. Being a monopoly is when a company with market control uses undue force to remove all competition from the market thus perpetuating the monopoly. Nothing says a monopoly MUST turn a profit to be classified as a monopoly. That just typically happens with monopolies because they can set the prices wherever they like. Even a 1000% markup is achievable. Monopolies are bad for the market and consuumers. Microsoft had a rather big part to play in the tech buble burst in the late 90's.

shevegen

29th May 2005, 19:35

Instead of losening MS monopoly the EU should enable weaker competitors to enter the market easily, and not tossing in huge obstacles like trivia patents which help those that have more money during court cases.

Joe Fenton

29th May 2005, 22:09

Read Microsoft's SEC 10Ks some time. You'll notice right off that only two divisions make a profit: Windows and Office, usually through forced bundling. All other division sell at a loss ON PURPOSE to drive the competition under. MS can do that because the Windows and Office divisions make enough money to cover the losses. THAT is why MS NEEDS to be broken up into separate companies. If the VisualStudio divsion can't count on being funded by the Windows and Office divisions, they'd have to compete fairly with companies like Metrowerks. Same argument for other divisions. Imagine if the XBox division actually had to show a profit on its own...

Neo Neko

30th May 2005, 03:31

Spot on Joe. Indeed as far as most things go Microsoft's products are rarely the best. Nowadays at least. There is no need to be. No one can compete as no one has matching resources. Save for maybe opensource. :D

ChronoCross

2nd June 2005, 02:10

Doobie

2nd June 2005, 04:44

Sorry I just don't agree with this Microsoft bashing.
So what if they are a monopoly it's their competitors and the various governments involved faults for letting them get like that in the first place.
Would you expect Coca-Cola to include a can of Pepsi in every 6 pack they sell, or course not. Microsoft should be able to include whatever software they like and it's up to us the consumer not to buy it if we don't approve.
As for the $500million fin, well the EU have just decided to milk the Cash Cow rather than tackle some real issues.

When did Coke ever force soft drink buyers of competing products to pay for Coke whether or not they buy Coke? Microsoft did this back in the OS/2 days, and was forced to end it with a consent decree with the government. Microsoft has a long history of abusing its monopoly power to keep down the competition.

If you wish to be a rabid anti-government type, remember that Microsoft only has a near monopoly because of government copyright and patent law.

As for the 500-million-dollar fine, that's pocket change to Microsoft.

hyperenrgy

2nd June 2005, 17:38

i personaly always use real one player or quicktime. i dont like wmp

Arachnotron

2nd June 2005, 21:51

Has there ever been a EU competitor to MS in the OS and OFFICE? I lack all knowledge on it.Wasn't StarOffice originally a commercial product by a German company called StarDivision?

Neo Neko

2nd June 2005, 22:06

@neo neko
Destruction of your competitors is generally a byproduct of a well designed buisiness practices. Even honest buisnesses simply provide better services/products that can push others out of the market. I happen to know someone who owns a grocery store and he through honesty as well as some rather inovative and hard work was able to beat out all the other grocery stores in town.

Destruction of competitors is generally a byproduct of a poorly managed competitor. It is by no means common or general for competitors to be run out of business or self destruct. Those are extrodinary circumstances.

@neo neko again
Microsofts products are indeed generally never the best. Their monopoly stems from the early 90's OS war. Everyone started out ont he same foot(MS and apple) at least. Still in the end MS won.

That is a very superficial oppinion. Microsoft won yes. But how did they win? Was it by providing better more compatable, more secure, and competitively priced software? Or was it by threatening vendors who wished to offer competing products, breaking compatability against competitors products, and all the while selling their products for more than reasonable markup? If you are to believe the verdict of the US DOJ Antitrust case against Microsoft the latter is clearly the case. Microsoft is not "your average business". Everyone needs to give up on the argument "we should not do it because it will discourage all the other regular companies.". It is a false argument.

I still don't think they should break up MS. I do however think their buisness practices should be looked over

Been there done that. The US DOJ concluded just as the EU commision has that Microsoft behaved unethically/illegaly abusing their position to the detrement of all their competitors and many of their partners. In order to make effective arguments you should really be up to date on your topics and their history.

but I think that anyone who takes a loss in several departments simply to "drive out the competition" is just a ridiculous thought.

I am not sure what you are getting at with that comment. Are you saying that Microsoft is rediculous because that is what they have done? Or are you saying that anyone who point out the fact that Microsoft sells almost all it's products at a loss nowadays save for Windows and Office to drive out competition in new markets is being rediculous?

It just means they are trying to inovate as well.

No actually it is generally the opposite. Most innovation comes from small cash strapped startups. In competitive/innovative markets you generally do not earn enough money from one or two divisions to fund a much much larger company. That typically only happens when you have market controll and are able to push rediculously high consumer product markups. And if you have market controll there is very little incentive to innovate or compete.

If people buy in to their product then that must mean it is good in some ways. If it wasn't then people would have no reason to buy it.

If people buy their product it may be the only option offered to most people. Just because people buy it does not mean it is good in any way. Go to any large consumer electronics store where the average person would buy a computer and accesories. How many non Apple computers there run or are sold with anything but windows and related loss leader products from Microsoft. Best Buy has 0% that are not sold with Windows.(hell they typically don't even cary Macs!) Same for Comp USA and almost every other retailer. And on the rare occasion there is an intel system not sold with Windows it is not generally sold with any os at all. And if someone were to want to buy an OS Windows is often the first/only thing suggested or avalible. You think it is limited to Electronics retail outlets? Think again. Go to Dell, HP/Compaq, Gateway, etc, etc, etc and try to buy a consumer desktop system with any OS other than Windows. Good luck. Best case scenario would be that they would sell you a machine installed with Windows and offer you a free disk with a Linux distribution they will not support. Yep sounds like Microsoft has some pretty stiff competition in the consumer market. At least considdering the fact that all their competitors are shut out.

@everyone
Has there ever been a EU competitor to MS in the OS and OFFICE? I lack all knowledge on it.

Not in both markets at once. Typically a regular company only does one or the other. I am not sure about the rest of europe but GB was at one time largely using Acorn OS on RISC machines like BBC Micros etc. Microsoft let europe alone for most of the 70's and 80's. Building up their monopoly in the US. Which they then used to leverage foriegn markets and put their foriegn competitors out of business. Destroying the foriegn markets software economys. Not only has Microsoft dammaged our US economy. But many European ones as well.

Neo Neko

2nd June 2005, 22:10

Wasn't StarOffice originally a commercial product by a German company called StarDivision?

WOW! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice) You sir are indeed correct! I only became aware of it after Sun bought it apparently. This I did not know. Interesting.......

outsiders71

7th August 2006, 00:24

Bundling WMP doesn't control you from encoding with <insert here>, you can still go download them and install them if you want. M$ isn't forcing you to use WMP.

They should stop bundling Notepad, Solitaire and the Calculator tool as well. They are preventing us from getting real applications we like :rolleyes:.

bond

15th August 2006, 19:44

m$ now needs to pay 2 million € per day till they change their business tactics as required by the eu

Chainmax

15th August 2006, 20:23

So, an equivalent to dropping a nickel at the mall fountain each day, huh?

SirCanealot

17th August 2006, 16:16

I hate this discussion.

They want them not to bundle WMP with Windows? Bullcrap. What will the first thing my parents do when thet get their new PC with no WMP? "How do I play my media filers? What shall I use? How do I use this?" WMP provides a recognisable and simple program for people to use, which works most of the time. Should they not bundle codecs either? "How do I play my mp3 files which played on my computer fine beforehand." "Use winamp or foobar." "where do I get these? How do I use them?"
Think I have time for that crap? No.......

Yeah, I agree. They're cutting off people using things like Notepad++ and Lotus. Hell, by budling Wordpad with Windows, they're stopping people from even using other microsoft products, like Word!

This is like saying that steros shouldn't come with cars. Kitchens with a home. A remote with a TV. It really annoys me, and I see no problems with WMP being bludleded with Windows. I don't use WMP; I mostly use Zoom Player and a little bit of MPC. Do my parents? No, they mostly use WMP because it's piss easy to use and comes with the damn PC. And my parents are fairly PC literate; there's tons of people who're worse than them...
Hell, I helped my mum rip some mp3s for her media player with WMP. What do the EU want me to tell her to do? "Okay, mum, download and install DBPowerAmp, rip them to FLAC, then download and install Foobar and use the latest version of LAME to encode them to mp3, or skip Foobar and use command prompt."
Sure, my method is better, but is she going to be able to do that or want to do it? No.......

bond

17th August 2006, 18:26

bundling products harming competition is illegal, simple as that

Doom9

17th August 2006, 18:37

Doobie

17th August 2006, 18:39

They want them not to bundle WMP with Windows? Bullcrap.

MS has supplied non-WMP versions of Windows. But, no one bought it (because it was the same price as regular windows).

Forcing MS to provide a non-WMP version of Windows is a dumb way to address Microsoft's abusive practices.

I'd strip MS of copyright protection of the existing Windows API, for restitution as well as to stimulate competition. And, I'd protect the right of PC makers to bundle any software they want with their PCs.

bond

17th August 2006, 18:51

m$ didnt do enough to change their illegal practices. thats why they now pay 2 million per day till they change them

zambelli

17th August 2006, 21:58

it isn't about the player, it's about the player supporting basically only Microsoft codecs and only loading Microsoft codecs from the net. If WMP offered to download and install divx, xvid, and x264 decoders and supported ogm/mkv/mp4/mov containers (or offered to download the appropriate filters when needed), nobody would object.
I hate to interject, but I have to disagree with this part. All of the fuss has indeed been about the player, because it wasn't Intervideo or DivX that were objecting - it was Real Networks, Apple and other player makers at the time. Remember that this case is actually fairly old at this point - it goes back to the 1990s.

I think it's pretty natural that a Microsoft player is built primarily around Microsoft codecs. Real Player is built primarily around Real codecs, and Quicktime around Apple codecs. Do either Real or Quicktime ship with DivX support? I don't think so.

I'm not sure if you remember, but a long time ago 3rd party codecs did in fact get hosted on the MS codec server. Codecs such as Cinepak, Indeo, Duck, L&H, Voxware, etc. What seemed like a good idea at the time eventually became a problem. Some codecs changed owners (Indeo: Intel --> Ligos), some codecs entirely lost owners, some were terribly buggy, and most were not updated and maintained regularly enough. So essentially, 3rd parties' problems suddenly became Microsoft's problems because now MS testers had to test somebody else's code and we couldn't even fix the bugs because we didn't own the code. After the big security push of SP2, the decision was made to phase out support for any 3rd party codecs that we didn't own the code to. So it wasn't a political decision. It was simply a business decision to stop supporting something we had no way of actually supporting. If we don't own the code, we can't vouch for its functionality and security, and that makes it very difficult for a business to be accountable to its customers.

As far as support for XviD, OGM, MKV and other OSS formats/codecs goes. Well, I think you can see how that could easily turn into a proprietary vs OSS legal issue. Microsoft doesn't ship OSS code with Windows. Even offering binaries on a codec server could be pretty iffy from a legal perspective. Wouldn't that technically even break a few GPLs, offering binary code without source? And we couldn't own the source in order to do maintainance on it because, once again, we don't handle open-source code, and I would imagine most of the OSS community wouldn't want Microsoft touching any of it anyway. ;)

Well, I'll try to stay out of most of this discussion since a) I'm somewhat biased, and b) I shouldn't be discussing legal cases anyway. I just wanted to clarify the whole codec server issue, for sake of accuracy of information. :)

Shinigami-Sama

17th August 2006, 23:25

quicktime allows for external codecs and filters to be added, thats how I got dvix to work on an Emac3

all they have to do is add a way to import new formats into the player.

Doom9

17th August 2006, 23:34

it was Real Networks, Apple and other player makers at the time.And can WMP play RM/RMVB/MOV/MP4 files? It can't.... ;) And since OEMs weren't allowed to install those other players.. there's a clear pattern in trying to lock out any non MS stuff..

And Microsoft never hosted the important codecs.. at no point in time was it ever possible to play a file encoded with a reasonable codec (DivX 3 and up).. to this date Windows needs third party software to play MPEG-2 content.

zambelli

18th August 2006, 00:34

And can WMP play RM/RMVB/MOV/MP4 files? It can't.... ;) And since OEMs weren't allowed to install those other players.. there's a clear pattern in trying to lock out any non MS stuff..
I don't know about OEMs not being allowed to install other players. I've seen plenty of OEM machines with players other than WMP, but perhaps you're talking about some older practice dating back to the time the case originated.

Why would WMP be expected to play RM/RMVB/MOV/MP4 files? In fact, if it did, couldn't you make an even bigger case that Microsoft is monopolizing the player market by removing the customers' need to install other companies' players? "Oh, I don't need to install Real Player because WMP already handles those formats." I would imagine Real folks wouldn't be too thrilled about that either. It's kind of a lose-lose situation for Microsoft. If MS supports only its own formats, then it's accused of discriminating against other formats. If it supports other formats, then it's accused of discrimating against other players and products.

And Microsoft never hosted the important codecs.. at no point in time was it ever possible to play a file encoded with a reasonable codec (DivX 3 and up).. to this date Windows needs third party software to play MPEG-2 content.
Oh come on now, I know you know the answers to both these arguments! DivX3 was a hacked MS codec! You can't seriously expect a company to host a hacked version of its own binary? :eek: As for MPEG-2, the issue there has always been the MPEG-LA decoder license fee. Oh, and if MS had decided to take the hit and cough up the money for an MPEG-2 license with each XP copy, don't you think Cyberlink and Intervideo might've considered that "abuse of dominant market position"?

zambelli

18th August 2006, 00:39

quicktime allows for external codecs and filters to be added, thats how I got dvix to work on an Emac3
all they have to do is add a way to import new formats into the player.
Microsoft supports that too. It's called DirectShow. ;)
Even the DivX plugin for Mac is a 3rd party plugin.

ricardo.santos

18th August 2006, 06:21

just my opinion: from a consumer point of view i think the E.U. is only after the money, i see no problem with having WMP on my PC as i have a choice to download other players. I use VLC.

they´re just after the money, 2 milion a day.

Why would WMP be expected to play RM/RMVB/MOV/MP4 files? In fact, if it did, couldn't you make an even bigger case that Microsoft is monopolizing the player market by removing the customers' need to install other companies' players? "Oh, I don't need to install Real Player because WMP already handles those formats." I would imagine Real folks wouldn't be too thrilled about that either. It's kind of a lose-lose situation for Microsoft. If MS supports only its own formats, then it's accused of discriminating against other formats. If it supports other formats, then it's accused of discrimating against other players and products.

Oh come on now, I know you know the answers to both these arguments! DivX3 was a hacked MS codec! You can't seriously expect a company to host a hacked version of its own binary? :eek: As for MPEG-2, the issue there has always been the MPEG-LA decoder license fee. Oh, and if MS had decided to take the hit and cough up the money for an MPEG-2 license with each XP copy, don't you think Cyberlink and Intervideo might've considered that "abuse of dominant market position"?

I hate this discussion.

They want them not to bundle WMP with Windows? Bullcrap. What will the first thing my parents do when thet get their new PC with no WMP? "How do I play my media filers? What shall I use? How do I use this?" WMP provides a recognisable and simple program for people to use, which works most of the time. Should they not bundle codecs either? "How do I play my mp3 files which played on my computer fine beforehand." "Use winamp or foobar." "where do I get these? How do I use them?"
Think I have time for that crap? No.......

Yeah, I agree. They're cutting off people using things like Notepad++ and Lotus. Hell, by budling Wordpad with Windows, they're stopping people from even using other microsoft products, like Word!

This is like saying that steros shouldn't come with cars. Kitchens with a home. A remote with a TV. It really annoys me, and I see no problems with WMP being bludleded with Windows. I don't use WMP; I mostly use Zoom Player and a little bit of MPC. Do my parents? No, they mostly use WMP because it's piss easy to use and comes with the damn PC. And my parents are fairly PC literate; there's tons of people who're worse than them...
Hell, I helped my mum rip some mp3s for her media player with WMP. What do the EU want me to tell her to do? "Okay, mum, download and install DBPowerAmp, rip them to FLAC, then download and install Foobar and use the latest version of LAME to encode them to mp3, or skip Foobar and use command prompt."
Sure, my method is better, but is she going to be able to do that or want to do it? No......

Doom9

18th August 2006, 14:14

Why would WMP be expected to play RM/RMVB/MOV/MP4 files? In fact, if it did, couldn't you make an even bigger case that Microsoft is monopolizing the player market by removing the customers' need to install other companies' players? "Oh, I don't need to install Real Player because WMP already handles those formats." I would imagine Real folks wouldn't be too thrilled about that either.Why would you need the real player? Real makes no money with it.. it makes money with content, and people can't play it unless they have to install a third party player, which is beyond the capabilities of most people (that this is a sad state of affairs is a different matter entirely.. ) The same essentially goes for Apple.. you only need to buy their player if you want to use the encoder facility.
The main reason the WMP plays but MS formats is to condition people to only expect those formats. It is right in line with the refusal to support ODF.. who needs Office when you can have a free alternative that may not be as good and have as many features, but does enough to satisfy 99% of all user's needs?

Of course, from your point of view, this is how most corporations conduct business, and that's why we have laws to limit certain business practices.

And media players are a small part of the whole affair.. the more important part is opening up APIs, then there's using the desktop market dominance to push other server operating systems out of the market and software licensing.

SeeMoreDigital

18th August 2006, 14:22

I'm interested to know, which integrated applications do people here feel should be removed from Windows XP?

bond

18th August 2006, 17:42

the reason for the fine has been described here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=463819#post463819

Sirber

18th August 2006, 18:03

I think it's pretty natural that a Microsoft player is built primarily around Microsoft codecs. Real Player is built primarily around Real codecs, and Quicktime around Apple codecs. Do either Real or Quicktime ship with DivX support? I don't think so.Last time I checked RealPlayer had MPEG4 support.

bond

18th August 2006, 18:23

quicktime also supports mpeg-4

SeeMoreDigital

18th August 2006, 18:31

the reason for the fine has been described here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=463819#post463819Indeed...

However, I think it would be interesting to obtain opinions from Doom9 forum members, as to which WinXP features they think should be removed!

Cheers

Sirber

18th August 2006, 20:08

MSN, WMP, IE, mspaint ;)

SeeMoreDigital

18th August 2006, 20:18

Thanks Sirber....

I've got another. How about getting rid of WinXP's embedded CD burning software? That can't be fair!

Anything else anyone?

GodofaGap

18th August 2006, 20:58

Preferably nothing at all. It's all fine and dandy that Microsoft offers a stripped down version of Windows because it must, but when given the choice I'd rather keep the functionality. I'm quite fond of the CD burning feature.

quicktime also supports mpeg-4
They support in the Apple way. But they certainly don't support DivX.

karl_lillevold

18th August 2006, 21:02

As you may have seen on digg.com or other news sites, Real will soon make available WMV decoder s/w for Linux. I am intentionally refraining from adding any opinion to this statement.

SeeMoreDigital

18th August 2006, 21:04

They support in the Apple way. But they certainly don't support DivX.According to their web site, QuickTime player can support DivX: -

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/components.html

Not tried it though....

GodofaGap

18th August 2006, 22:30

I don't want to get into hair splitting with this, but a component is not out-of-the-box support. You can also install a DivX DirectShow filter for WMP.

But AFAIK QT doesn't support any MPEG4 ASP feature and it certainly doesn't support DivX subtitles and chapters.

Shinigami-Sama

18th August 2006, 22:39

played divx5 rips on an Emac
had differant gamma so it was slightly off but played well

zambelli

19th August 2006, 03:33

As you may have seen on digg.com or other news sites, Real will soon make available WMV decoder s/w for Linux. I am intentionally refraining from adding any opinion to this statement.
I'm guessing that's based on a VC-1 license?

bond

19th August 2006, 14:18

They support in the Apple way. But they certainly don't support DivX.of course it supports divx

GodofaGap

20th August 2006, 10:18

If you would have read two posts down a better explanation of my statement was given. I'm sorry for the inaccuracy in my first post about this.

But AFAIK QT doesn't support any MPEG4 ASP feature and it certainly doesn't support DivX subtitles and chapters.

Is this wrong?

SeeMoreDigital

20th August 2006, 11:06

Is this wrong?With the correct plug-in's QT can play MPEG-4 ASP video streams within AVI and MP4... From what I remember (but it's along time ago) 3ivx's (D4 4.5.1) codec suite offers this...

smok3

20th August 2006, 11:39

qt can play xvid in mp4 as well, when encode was done with some care :)

my old note says:
- no bframes
- only h263 quantization allowed
- simply put: nothing from "advanced simple profile" - like qpel, ect...

of course iam sure there is no way to play bastardized avi called divx, why would there be one anyway?

---

back on topic, quoted:
Available data already show a clear trend in favour of WMP and Windows Media technology. Absent intervention from the Commission, the tying of WMP with Windows is likely to make the market "tip" definitively in Microsoft's favour. This would allow Microsoft to control related markets in the digital media sector, such as encoding technology, software for broadcasting of music over the Internet and digital rights management etc.

from http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/04/382&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

This is the fact, and you don't need to really study some sort of statistic to get there...., however in some other thread it is quite clear that some people do not understand the danger and also stupidity included in such monopolistic approach. I was told by such person that ms uses a 'special/not for normal users' encoding software for bigger studios which is imho another nice case to open for any decent Commission.

GodofaGap

20th August 2006, 11:39

So now you make me quote the other part of my post. It's nice people actually read here...

I don't want to get into hair splitting with this, but a component is not out-of-the-box support. You can also install a DivX DirectShow filter for WMP.

Sirber

20th August 2006, 14:02

I've got another. How about getting rid of WinXP's embedded CD burning software? That can't be fair!Unfair and useless. Take twice the time to burn a CD (no DVD support yet) coz it's making a ISO first.

The firewall is weak too, only one way. Why bundeling things if they are weak and incomplete?

SirCanealot

20th August 2006, 16:09

Didn't MS have plans for a virus scanner a while ago?

It'd greatly amuse me if MS actually got it running decently and then the courts told them to remove that too :rolleyes:

foxyshadis

20th August 2006, 18:02

What exactly do you want? Every microsoft feature to come with a list of competitors' products that you can buy if you need more features or want non-microsoft?

smok3, um, not-for-consumers is a perfectly legal business model for high-end products, or hundreds of companies would get shut down overnight.

zambelli

20th August 2006, 22:35

smok3, um, not-for-consumers is a perfectly legal business model for high-end products, or hundreds of companies would get shut down overnight.
:goodpost: Thanks. Indeed, it's any company's right to make their software products available only to select customers. I wasn't aware that companies were suddenly required by law to make all their software freely available to all interested parties. :sly:

zambelli

20th August 2006, 22:55

The firewall is weak too, only one way. Why bundeling things if they are weak and incomplete?
Because some level of security is better than none?

If Windows shipped with a firewall superior to any other firewall product on the market - don't you think Symantec, McAfee, Zone Labs, F-Secure and others might find that, ummm, "abuse of dominant market position". :confused: At least this way you can say, "Sure, XP has a firewall, but if you want the best protection, you should get XYZ...", the same way you can argue that your new Honda Civic needs a brand new Sony CD-MP3 player because its stock one is "just OK".

I really don't understand this conflicting attitude where people want MS to ship an OS with every feature superior to anything currently available on the market, yet they complain whenever a particular area of the software market gets cornered due to this very same practice. You have to understand that for every person that complains because Windows doesn't come with an integrated RSS reader or Podcasting solution, there will be another person that will complain about the very same feature being integrated into the OS. How can any company win that battle?

Sirber

20th August 2006, 23:16

Because some level of security is better than none?True, but is allowing any running software to add itself to the firewall something "secure"? Best no security than a false sense of security. Same goes for uPNP ;)

foxyshadis

21st August 2006, 01:18

Does that happen when running as a normal, non-admin user? If not, then you forgot the first rule of computer security: If untrusted code is running in a priveledged account, it can do anything it wants, you've already given up all security. No checkbox can do more than slow its creator down while he figures out how to bypass it.

Any firewall that asks you whether software running as root should be allowed access, is doing it as a courtesy; any malware can instantly either add a trust for itself or shut the firewall down.

Sirber

21st August 2006, 01:22

Do you run in "normal, non-admin user"? Under NT it's not viable. Most software require to be run as admin, else all you get is My Documents :sly:
I'd love a linux-like desktop, where you have to enter root password to do system modifications, while in user mode. So you ahve the protection AND the power at the same time :)

foxyshadis

21st August 2006, 02:23

Runas works, and tools exist to automatically prompt for runas instead of immediately failing whenever you perform a security-limited action.

It's actually getting easier as the years go on to run all but a few packages as non-admin, though it's still easier for me to regularly use 2 different accounts depending on what I need. (I'm willing to hunt down the registry permissions and even make appcompat shims for some vital software, like quickbooks for work, but for some things it's just less annoying to use switch user.)

cabal09

21st August 2006, 20:58

I wonder if the computers used by the EU during their investigation ran on Windows?;)