Opera chairman a longtime Microsoft critic
Opera's antitrust complaint against Microsoft may be new, but Chairman William Raduchel has been a critic of Microsoft's tactics for some time.
Raduchel was in a top strategy role at Sun Microsystems back in the late 1990s, when that company filed its antitrust suit against Microsoft. And he had some choice things to say about Microsoft at the time, according to quotes rediscovered by Todd Bishop over at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
In a 1999 book, High Noon, Raduchel is said to have likened Bill Gates to John Rockefeller, saying each had a sense that they had a "God-given right" to the power they enjoyed. Raduchel left Sun in 1999 to become AOL's chief technology officer.
Sun eventually settled its antitrust case with Microsoft in 2004.
It's interesting to note that Opera is the first big complaint we've heard about since Microsoft accepted the EU's decision. After a U.S. court ruled that Microsoft was a monopoly, a host of private antitrust complaints were filed, including Sun's. Anyone have ideas on who is next to complain to Brussels?
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
doesn't mean that you can discard that issue.
If at any time you have to particularly code for IE or for other
browsers because your code will work only on IE, means that the
case is valid.
We all know that CNET kisses MS's a$$. So, does this mean
anything?
I love it when guys like this refuse to take any responsibility for the decisions they made or the disappointing business results these decisions generated. All I can say is wake up and smell the coffee dude. The consistent part of this story of failure is your participation.
Lets force auto manufacturers to start selling cars without an engine or a stereo , because this is "bundling".
While were at it , let`s break up Mac`s bundling of browser and other software on their computers...and lets break up the iPod/iTunes monopoly...and break up Googles ever-growing monopoly.
MSFT isn`t preventing you from installing a different browser you fool. The EU is full of whiners and Socialists.
Yes, I realize that technically ignorant MS fanboy is redundant.
at about the same time Microsoft started letting IE Mac languish.
Apple, unlike Microsoft, has never crippled the Macintosh's
ability to run other developer's browsers nor bullied the entire
internet community into conforming to their "standards". These
are critical and important differences, and it this sort of behavior
will continue to put Microsoft in the hot-seat until they finally
change their ways.
Also, Microsoft has chosen not to make the Zune compatible
with the Mac, not Apple. I just plugged a friend's old,
gargantuan Creative MP3 player into my Mac the other day and
it showed up in iTunes, played, transferred files, etc. just fine.
DRM would have been a problem, but clearly Apple has put
vastly more effort into getting rid of that scourge than Microsoft.
If this jalopy of an MP3 player and the latest version of
iTunes/Leopard could make beautiful music together, you would
think the Zune could handle it. But Microsoft couldn't help
themselves from their own destructive behavior.
The EU is full of people who have better healthcare, more
vacation, a better education system and a higher standard of
living to go with their longer lifespans. Unlike the U.S., they also
continue to build high quality products in their own countries.
Corporatism takes a back seat to the people's needs. The
horrors of "socialists", indeed.
You are nothing but an ignorant Apple kiss-ass. While you are at it , go ahead and pay the EU (forced socialism) Value Added Tax ;)
Don't have to worry about any Java, DirectX, or anything that could infect or save something that I don't want.
And when I need it, I can turn it on whenever I want. Freedoms like that are not as easy with IE and it crashes as much as the crappy OS.
them. It's a good browser but hardly anything that Firefox can't do.
IE has not taken away it's thunder it's Mozilla that has managed to
make headway against Microsoft. Maybe Opera should complain
about Mozilla too?
server software to be open to their browsers. This is where
Microsoft is really abusing the monopoly they have on operating
systems. There are many web and enterprise software solutions
that either knowingly or unknowingly rely on Microsoft server
software that locks out anything but the latest versions of
Internet Explorer from accessing data locked up in their servers,
even though these are sold as "web based" applications.
Microsoft may eventually use their server software to force
people to upgrade from XP to Vista by no longer supporting
access from XP versions of IE. iSite Enterprise is a software
solution that supposedly allows doctors to access radiology
reports over the internet, but it only works with the latest
versions of IE. It even locks out Macintosh versions of Internet
Explorer. It clearly forces people to purchase the latest versions
of Microsoft software to use so-called "web based" software.
Enterprise software providers should do their part in boycotting
server solutions that lock people into non-standards based
proprietary "web" software. The internet belongs to everyone-
not just Bill Gates.
- Fried should address the issue instead of attackin g
- by zxcv1234zxcv December 16, 2007 1:11 PM PST
- In 2001, the Opera browser was becoming the second most commonly used browser, ahead of Netscape. Firefox did not exist at that time, so it was a three way race with Opera gaining ground quickly.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(12 Comments)In that year, Microsoft began targeting Opera by putting code on its websites (MSN, Hotmail and others) that caused their sites to appear differently: pages were made wider than the screen, objects did not appear in the right places or did not appear at all, logins would not work, etc.
That is, the websites would not work if Opera identified itself as "Opera". But if you changed the browser to identify itself at "Internet Explorer", the webpages were displayed properly. Microsoft falsely claimed that it was a problem with Opera, when in fact it was their own code, and was easily proven by simply examining the HTML source code of the pages.
Isn't it strange how c|net seems blissfully unaware or ignorant of its own newspage history? Read on:
http://www.news.com/2100-1023-274944.html
"The software giant admitted that it is watching for Opera strings--but only because it wants to encourage people to use standard-compliant browsers."
Since it is Microsoft's browser that violates the standards of the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org), that's at best a bald faced lie, and at worst, something c|net would censor if I said it.