Comments on: Opera lashes out over Microsoft's browser removal
The software maker's move to strip Internet Explorer from Windows 7 in Europe will do nothing to restore competition, the Norwegian browser maker tells CNET News.
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What I want to know is, in what way is Microsoft still breaking EU antitrust law after it removes IE from windows?
Microsoft gives IE to users for free when you buy Windows, Opera complained;
Microsoft let users to download IE themselves, Opera complained.
What the hell is Opera thinking?
What does "control monopole" mean?
There is certainly room to say that Microsoft's practices are hurting the competition. The question is, I think, can anything be done about it in a way that wont end up hurting consumers? Microsoft is trying to make the answer no. This may seem like further non-competitiveness, but their actions do place them back on the good side of the law they have been found in breach of, and its equally silly to force them to advertise for other companies.
One reason for Opera's current complaint is that Microsoft's bundling harmed Web standards, which, since Opera is known for their adherence to Web standards, made site compatibility an issue. Site compatibility has been a lingering problem for Opera and certainly a hindrance to their marketing ambitions.
And @plings is right. The central issue is the abuse of one monopoly (Windows) used to distort another market. Yes, Firefox has made inroads, but look at the resources it has taken to get there. For many years, Firefox was the de facto Google browser and they spent heavily to market it. Now, even with Google placing Chrome ads liberally on their heavily-visited sites, Chrome has at best cracked 2% market share worldwide.
If bundling does not distort the browser market, then why would Google and Mozilla both hop on Opera's bandwagon? Why would they not speak in defense of Microsoft or at least remain silent. If Opera is opportunistic and cannot compete, I conclude the same about Google and Mozilla.
Finally, it really is of no consequence to us here in the States. We can use IE8 bundled with Windows 7 happily ever after.
Sorry, but Microsoft has indeed damaged web standards. Open web standards.
You are just proving our point by pointing out the fact that Microsoft ignores the open web standards and abuses its dominant position to create lock-in using proprietary technologies.
By the way, Microsoft is a member of the W3C as well. So that's quite an ivory tower, then!
So, for arguments sake, let's assume that the law was broken. (There's an entire appeals process, of which I am not familiar with, but I'm sure is ongoing.) From this assumption, some corrective action must be taken to bring the company in line, right?
In order to correct things, then we have to establish what the infraction was. So I posit the question, specifically what "illegal" action did Microsoft take?
From reading the threads here, and my current understanding of the case, it seems like the "bundling" of IE with Windows was the infraction, as it made users less likely to embrace alternative browsers.
So it seems to me that "unbundling" IE from Windows would be a feasible corrective action to take. Is this not reasonable? (The fact that Microsoft is doing this unilaterally and preemptively should have no influence on how reasonable this solution is.)
Now, whether or not that's the only corrective step that will be taken will be left up to the EU.
Would the Internet be nearly as popular or as accessible for folks as it is now?
How would one acquire a web browser for his computer? (Yes, we can assume telnet and ftp are available, but let's face it, they're far more technical and difficult to use for many common computer users)
A better question: which browsers are available; Netscape? Mosaic? How would people know about them? Would we be paying for the browser? (I remember having to pay for Netscape over a decade ago).
And better yet: what happens when Microsoft's customers start asking for the browser to be included with their OS, so they don't have to go out and find a browser? What can the company do then?
Like it or not, bundling a browser does have its benefits. Whether it's for the layman that will likely look no further than the browser than came with the computer, or for the "computer-savvy" who choose to use it as a stepping stone to download an alternate browser, one can't deny that it's more convenient to have a working browser already in place (as opposed to having to find and install one).
1) The illegal action was to use its dominant position in one market to undermine competition in a different market. This is illegal.
2) Microsoft did more than just bundling. They violated standards, consciously created lock-in, etc.
3) Yes, the internet would have been as popular. Remember, Microsoft tried to push its Microsoft Network as an alternative to the internet before they realized that everyone was going on the internet instead.
4) Bundling a browser in this case had not benefits. It destroyed competition and held the web back for years. Because of Microsoft, open standards have been held back, and the web has not been innovated at the same pace as in industries with actual competition. This is clearly evidence of anti-competitive practices.
Is Microsoft still in violation of EU law after pulling IE from Windows? Is Opera's request to have their browser offered (and thus advertised) in some automatic way legitimate? I personally don't think so, but I'd like hear the other side of the argument.
It's tough to say if they are still in violation. On the face of it, it would appear to be similar to the media player case, and Microsoft has thus taken a similar, but perhaps cannier, solution. OEMs have had very little reason (and sometimes, as mentioned in the DoJ filings, Microsoft used very "aggressive" tactics to maintain bundling) to unbundle the browser. The same will be true here. Microsoft will make it very easy for OEMs to continue to bundle the browser. A nice subsidy on Windows 7 could be just the trick.
Another thing I wonder about is how many billions of dollars Google is willing to pay OEMs to bundle Chrome instead. I think that could be an interesting wrinkle to this.
Bear in mind this is all speculation on my part. Who knows what the EU will decide?
I agree its essentially a sneaky work around on Microsoft's part, and I would much rather they be forced to include some sort of auto-install where you can pick a number of browsers on first startup of Windows 7. I'm all for alternative browsers (a Chrome user myself). I just see it being difficult for them to force Microsoft to essentially advertise for other browsers that way, unless its framed as a punishment for being anti-competitive. And in that case, how long until their debt is paid and they can go back to just bundling IE or not-bundling anything? It would most likely be more of a legal tangle than anyone wants to deal with.
If Opera can't afford a cheap CD with their browser on it, how are they going to support their browser. Oh I forgot, send them an e-mail or join their forums to get a fix. How pathetic and small of them. Opera and the EU are opening up a very large can of worms that will flow into other businesses. The US may even retaliate at some time by going after EU companies for anything they can think of. This could turn real ugly somday if the EU doesn't stop.
BTW plings, the EU broke a lot of laws when it brought the world two wars.
Here I have an idea; why doesn't Windows 7 come with every browser known to man therefore eliminating any kind of 'unfair advantage'.
Face it Opera people don't want to download your browser and it isn't because they already have IE, it's because they don't like it. Spend less time whining about IE and more time making your browser better.
US needs to also withdraw its military from this region. Let them fend for themselves. I would love to see how long they last before they start speaking Russian and praying to Mecca.
and these providers should provide free supports for these apps and not just piggyback to market share at Microsofts expence.
That being said Nothing stops users in this day & age from downloading and installing your favourite software on your machine.
Article 82 of the EC Treaty (ex Article 86) is only applicable in EU context. And in EU, IE in the first place isn't that dominant as opposed to world-wide stats which is way beyond EU regulatory control.
To quote the article "incompatible with the common market insofar as it may affect trade between Member States." How does IE, being pre-installed affect trade between member state? In fact, Opera and the others can be seen as being "incompatible" with the prevailing "market standard" which is (if not by paper but by practice) defined by IE.
82(a) "directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions". Again how does a pre-installed application without any restrictions is imposing unfair trading conditions since all browsers are just a few clicks away.
82(b) "limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers; " again, how does one argue that pre-installed IE is prejudice of consumers?
82(c) "applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;". This is the only clause that might apply (if barely). Since it arguable that the "dissimilar" conditions is like a couple of clicks away. And removing IE puts everyone on similar "couple of clicks away".
82(d) "making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts." IMHO, I don't see this clause as relevant to IE case.
While I'm not a fan of M$, and my preferred browser is FF by virtue of the many extensions available. I don't see a strong case against MS in the first place. And MS decision to remove IE is brilliant decision by them to remove any anti-competitive perception without the need to pay "on behalf" of competition and let the market/OEM decide.
Also, after reading about M$ decision and Opera's rebut. It seem quite obvious to me that Opera's main objective is to get M$ to pay for their distribution channels.
Lastly, even if tons of browsers are pre-loaded, an average user would most probably choose IE still, by virtue of the MS brand and marketing. (Remember Netscape vs IE?) All it does is make MS commit more to marketing and making Windows even more expensive... consumers pay more in the end.
We are not simply talking about "a browser" here. What scared Microsoft years ago were claims from organizations like Netscape and Oracle that the web browser was eventually going to become the new operating system, or at least the UI for the new operating system. There is still some potential truth to this. It scares Microsoft to death.
Controlling the instrument that people use to control the web provides quite a bit of control to the direction of the web itself, and how people use it. What none of the comments I read here so far address is the fact that Microsoft would hardly be working so hard to control a "free" product if it didn't have massive follow-on impact to all of their other "non-free" products. In fact, Microsoft's aim is to drive people towards embracing the complete Microsoft "ecosystem" - which includes their web server IIS, their database engine MSSQL, their productivity suite Office (which is now being converted into an online version), etc etc etc. By pushing MS-specific and IE-specific technologies (ie Active-X, FrontPage, DCOM, etc.) this serves Microsoft's profit motives quite specifically by pushing the entire market in that direction - towards their proprietary technologies, and away from globally standard web and other technologies. That has always been Microsoft's strategy.
That, in a nutshell, is why IE is such a crucial issue to them. It is literally one of the primary keystones that facilitates all their other very profitable franchises.
Furthermore, you do not need a browser to download a browser. If this were the case, all those millions of MS Windows boxes out there would be incapable of downloading and installing security patches (and new versions of Microsoft's browser) by themselves while you sleep.
Lastly, Mozilla is not a non-profit organization. They made it quite clear when they created the "Mozilla.COM" domain to distribute Firefox etc. that they were going after profit in the marketplace.
http://news.cnet.com/8618-13505_3-10261716.html?communityId=2016&targetCommunityId=2016&blogId=16&messageId=8054840
QUOTING:
[re: Firefox's newly-touted ability to be customized by system administrators]
"The deployment functionality is nice but it won't make an impact, at least within my own company. Since IE has been the standard for many years (prior to that it was Netscape Communicator 4), all our intranet sites are designed for IE and a number of core web applications use ActiveX. To be honest, there isn't an incentive to use Firefox rather than IE within the enterprise - Windows comes with IE, can be patched as part of the usual Windows patching process, and offers basically the same functionality. Firefox may be faster but that's not really a key concern for our IT organisation."
The IE team was disbanded for several years. In other words, it remained unchanged for all those years. How does it expand the capabilities of browsers by not being worked on at all for many years?
Standards are crucial. Would you get on an airplane if you knew there were no standards what so ever for safety on airplanes?
Opera practically defined what a modern browser is. It pioneered things like popup blocking, the search field, multiple pages within the main window, speed dial, starting where you left off (sessions), easy way to delete private data, etc.
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- by ChottuKhanna June 12, 2009 4:17 AM PDT
- What a piece of crock ! If Opera wants users to use their browser- then they need to do it on their own. They can't expect Microsoft to deliver copies of their browser along with the operating system . Mr Hakon Wium Lie - build a product that the masses want and they will go find it - even if they have to use IE to get to your site to download it..
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- by plings June 12, 2009 4:57 AM PDT
- Actually, both Mozilla and Google support forcing Microsoft to carry multiple browsers. You are just blaming Opera here, but the other browser vendors are in on it as well.
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Showing 3 of 5 pages (358 Comments)By the way - has the Eu asked their users what they want ? Or are they making an assumption that they know best !