Rivals contest FCC's ruling on Verizon

Communications industry group asks a court to review decision to lift business broadband rules for Verizon.

The story "Rivals contest FCC's ruling on Verizon" published March 29, 2006 at 4:47 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[Pascoli]

Where does this madness stops?

As if ms didn't have enough problem with products delays. The all premiss of the this antitrust ruling is bogus anyway. For one, windows has always had a media player included since win 3 or so, second, most people where unsing many players for different formats. Real simply knocked itself down with no help from ms. They simply had ****** product. Competition exist in the market place. Just look at itunes and fire fox. They came out with fun and innovative products and people switched. Also, we didn't have another windows os since 2001 to bundle anything with it. So any competitor has had over half a decade to innovate and gain consummers mind share. But, no, vista comes out and all of the sudden it's their fault if you don't do well in the market place. This is where I really have respect for Apple. They were smaller than many of these company in the late 90's and were at the brink of extinction. We didn't hear them complain much (at least publicly) about ms damaging them. They went to work and created amazing technologies (os x, i live, ipod...) for me, the irony is where would real, java be today if it was not for ms bundling them with windows and helping create the ecosystem that made them popular?

[parodyca]

It stops when MS loses its monopoly

As long as MS has a virtual Monopoly on computer desktops, there will always be a legitimate concern about them abusing that monopoly to advance their own products over the competition.
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The problem is not just because MS includes 'a' media player, but because the media player they include is the only one which plays MS format content. That combined with the fact that MSwin is on 90% of desktops creates a hell of an incentive for content produces to use MS format. It was the same story with Netscape vs. IE.
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The only reason iTunes is so popular is because MS does not have a competitive product YET!
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There are only two fair solutions to this mess. 1) Microsoft is broken up into a Windows and 'Other Software' companies.
2) Microsoft respects and adheres to some strict limits on the use of their monopoly.
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There is a third, MS loses their monopoly, but I don't dare be quire so hopeful yet.

I'm not Microsoftie, but...

...isn't this all a little ridiculous? It's one thing to say that it's wrong when Microsoft forbids its OEMs from installing Netscape, RealPlayer, etc. It's another to say that MS can't even bundle IE, Windows Media Player, etc. (And I say that as a Firefox and iTunes user.)

Further and further up the stack, software will become gratis, in part thanks to open-source software, and also from bundling with the operating system -- Linux distros and Mac OS X bundle too. This isn't anti-trust. Now, I have specific technical complaints with MS including a rendering engine and then leaving it so vulnerable to attack, but that's not a complaint against the theory.

Europe is setting some bad precedent that could come back and haunt other, less evil companies. And other software companies -- dinosaurs trying to base their business model on legally forcing us to pay money for their software -- won't be much better off for it. If not replaced by Microsoft, then the FOSS movement will do it.

[Tanjore]

Almost all operating systems ship with integrated products

Almost all products now ship with integrated products.

What is the point in buying an OS that does not let me
1) Browse the net
2) Listen to music.

Apple, Google, Mozilla are giving good competition to microsoft. EU action is ridiculos.

Looks like European Union did not learn making windowsxp ship without media player. There were no buyers for OS without media player.

I am not for predatorial tactics. If microsoft does it then, it should be taken to task. But, not drawn into pesky legal battles.

[JJWhitney]

Napoleon complex?

Part of this is the EU thrilled that it can blackmail and bully a company to show how smart and powerful they are. However MS does not really help its own case by some of its practices. Strapping bailing wire around IE and the OS and calling it integrated brought most of this junk down on themselves.

[J_Satch]

re: Napoleon complex?

"the EU thrilled that it can blackmail and bully a company"

It's not just that they can bully a company but that they can bully an American company. That's where the EU is really getting it's rocks off.

[ejryder3]

Sick and Tired of EU BS

Enough is enough already. If Europeans are too stupid to download other media players/browsers, that's their problem!
The US Government is already monitoring MS's every move with this stuff. The EU simply needs to stick it.

[Lolo Gecko]

swell ...

EU anti-trust = anti-US

it's stuff like this that makes the EU what it is today :)

[Captain_Spock]

The EU IS Making Pres. Hugo Chavez's Venezuela....

...look like like the "real" champion of "of the open-source Linux operating system and other non-proprietary programs that avoid dependence on Microsoft products."; read the rest of this another srory here:

"Venezuela promotes free open-source software as alternative to Microsoft"

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/03/24/1487930.htm" target="_newWindow">http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/03/24/1487930.htm</a>

<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=51738" target="_newWindow">http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=51738</a>

Just what is wrong with the EU? if; "More than 180 Venezuelan cooperatives and 500 small to medium companies ( Pyme) have registered with the Science &#38; Technology (MCT) Ministry to provide technical support for public organs in the migration process of free software"... then, what is so wrong with the minds of those in the EU to do the same, something may be terribly wrong with the "g... matter" in their heads! Or, is it that they have a very different "money making" agenda other that the development of a "sound" IT Industry for themselves?