EU hits Microsoft with Unprecedented Fine

About damn time, Microsoft has been stalling for over 2 years now and did nothing to implement the ruling. However, since MS said they'd take it to the courts, it will take quite a while until we've got something definite.
 
Personally I think this is stupid, but then it matters little what I think.

If more companies made decent software maybe it would matter, but it seems that the majority want protection so they can produce crappy software and still sell it.

There are plenty of companies that make good software, but I am not particularly enamored with the likes of real anyway.
 
Yeah, I love the EU comments about Vista's inclusion of PDF-like text rendering "we're looking into it". Wha!? For the love of god, why shouldn't decent native text rendering and format be part of the OS, and why aren't they chastizing Apple, Sun, NeXT, and others for doing it? It's ok to include ASCII, but not to include anything that might put Adobe out of business. Oh, I see. Anyway, the EU has its hands full (atleast the benelux francophone countries) trying to stop iTunes, and compete against Google.

Maybe if they stopped trying to win by courts, and create some dynamism in their economies, they might produce a Google-like company.
 
Its extremely stupid from my point of view. They're basically preventing great features to be intergrated into Windows. Want a better Windows? Then slap these ass hats in the face.

I also love also MS is so nicely targeted, yes they're the huge player, but there are many others (specifically Apple) who get to happily intergrate whole suits of applications in their OS.
 
Skrying said:
Its extremely stupid from my point of view. They're basically preventing great features to be intergrated into Windows. Want a better Windows? Then slap these ass hats in the face.

I also love also MS is so nicely targeted, yes they're the huge player, but there are many others (specifically Apple) who get to happily intergrate whole suits of applications in their OS.
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This issue has nothing to do with features afaik. Rather it deals with open standards. MS is not giving 3rd parties enough knowledge of the various internal APIs and data structures they need to work with. Of course, in order to give all that information you practically have to make windows open source, and I guess this worries them. Although, you could mitigate this by the use of NDAs I suppose.
 
DudeMiester said:
This issue has nothing to do with features afaik. Rather it deals with open standards. MS is not giving 3rd parties enough knowledge of the various internal APIs and data structures they need to work with. Of course, in order to give all that information you practically have to make windows open source, and I guess this worries them. Although, you could mitigate this by the use of NDAs I suppose.
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I disagree. DirectShow and DXVA APIs are public, yet the EU ruled that MS cannot bundle a media player with the operating system! I mean, come on, media playback is as fundamental as a TCP/IP stack nowadays. It's a commodity, and ruling that Windows Media Player can't be bundled is a slap in the face to end users. There are ample Open Source/Free media players out there. Anyone expecting to maintain a market in media player chrome/UI that end users purchase is stupid. WMP is just a frigging front end. If you want it to play back On2, DIVX, MP4, H.264, Quicktime, or other "non MS" technology, you just release a codec. What now? End users must live with a non-integrated OEMed player like CyberDVD or WinDVD? Big-win for users eh?

And yet, Apple bundles *everything* into OS X. It's what makes it easy to use and so nicely integrated. Quicktime, PDF, iTunes. Plus, preinstalled 99% of the time, iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, iSync, Garage Band, etc And Apple's integrated apps are far more professional and compete far more with commercial apps than MS's sucky builtins.

Yes, one can make good arguments for opening up the API, like letting Firefox be the system wide HTML component. But I frankly don't see the point in saying they can't bundle IE. Web browsing is too fundamental, and too many desktop UIs are now built with HTML widgets inside them to unbundle it.
 
That is true, DemoCoder, and the Linux distributions also bundle much more with their installations (though end up disabling some of the functionality for legal reasons, the pay versions should all be fully-functional).

These lawsuits against Microsoft on monpolistic grounds are really focusing on the wrong sorts of things, in my opinion. The real monopolistic practices in which Microsoft is engaged are its development of proprietary API interfaces (e.g. you can't use DirectX directly on any other platform), as well as near total lack of support for open API interfaces. This means that once users start using Windows, they have a very hard time switching to any other OS.

Mac OS X, on the other hand, has a very large degree of interoperability with Linux and other Unix-based operating systems. This forces it to (largely) stand on its merits as an operating system (user interface, hardware support, performance, etc.), instead of locking users into a single platform.

Unfortunately, it may possibly be that the lawyers involved recognize this, but don't feel that they have any legal case on these grounds.
 
Skrying said:
Its extremely stupid from my point of view. They're basically preventing great features to be intergrated into Windows. Want a better Windows? Then slap these ass hats in the face.
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Err, those "features" are mostly crap anyway.

Also, I don't think MS will pay this, they'll drag this through courts for years and it'll eventually be settled.

Demo: The problem with the Media Player was that you couldn't choose not to install it or were not able to uninstall it after the windows installation. Same goes for IE.
 
DemoCoder said:
I disagree. DirectShow and DXVA APIs are public, yet the EU ruled that MS cannot bundle a media player with the operating system!

I mean, come on, media playback is as fundamental as a TCP/IP stack nowadays. It's a commodity, and ruling that Windows Media Player can't be bundled is a slap in the face to end users.
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That's wrong. They can bundle it, they just have to offer a version without it - which they did months ago (and no one really cared btw). I kind of agree that the media player issue is a bit silly but you got it wrong.

The bigger issue has always been interface documentation wrt non-MS work group server solutions and that's what the current fine is about. It's never been about opening the source code either, that's simply MS FUD.

Commission concludes on Microsoft investigation, imposes conduct remedies and a fine

In order to restore the conditions of fair competition, the Commission has imposed the following remedies:

As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant products.

To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area(6), Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration. The disclosure order concerns the interface documentation only, and not the Windows source code, as this is not necessary to achieve the development of interoperable products.

[...]
Microsoft retains the right to offer a version of its Windows client PC operating system product with WMP. However, Microsoft must refrain from using any commercial, technological or contractual terms that would have the effect of rendering the unbundled version of Windows less attractive or performing. In particular, it must not give PC manufacturers a discount conditional on their buying Windows together with WMP.
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I don't think it's all that unreasonable. There's no denying that MS has leveraged its de facto monopoly in PC operating systems to stifle the competition. If MS were to design their OS more modular, i.e. enable system builders to easily customize it with regard to certain components like media player, web browsers etc. they wouldn't have all these problems. The completely unneccessary tight integration of certain components is IMO clearly designed to force their solutions down everyones throats.

Also, MS has always been very tight lipped about certain interface specifications, document formats and such which is also a deliberate attempt to block competitors from offering interoperable products.
 
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L233 said:
Also, MS has always been very tight lipped about certain interface specifications, document formats and such which is also a deliberate attempt to block competitors from offering interoperable products.
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See NTFS.
 
L233 said:
That's wrong. They can bundle it, they just have to offer a version without it - which they did months ago (and no one really cared btw).
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I'd say that's because everyone gets Windows bundled with their PC. I personally never, ever met someone who went to the store and bought Windows there.
 
_xxx_ said:
I'd say that's because everyone gets Windows bundled with their PC. I personally never, ever met someone who went to the store and bought Windows there.
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I did. :D The windows versions that come with PCs are often not full versions, i.e. you only get a recovery disc and the license is pretty much bound to the specific PC because of that.

I think the best thing German courts ever did wrt to Microsoft was to allow retailers to sell OEM system builder versions unbundled from hardware. That dropped the outrageous retail price of Windows by like 50%. Of course, since then MS doesn't even sell retail versions of WinXP in Germany anymore but who the fuck cares. The only difference was the cardboard box and the 20 page installation manual.
 
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That fine may be large for some comanies. But for microsoft, it's a drop in the bucket. They'll make that money back real quick aand nothing will still get resolved other than the EU being a little richer.
 
This whole EU-MS story is hilarious...

I remember a time, not THAT long ago, when there was a pretty much solid (transatlantic) nerd/geek consensus regarding the unethical way MS conducts business.

Of course, all that changed when a political entity powerful enough to stand up to MS actually did it!

Then suddenly all the cute little 'murricans were filled with patriotic zeal and left their wits at the door... ;)
 
I´m not a big fan of Microsoft, but I don´t agree with what the EU is doing. They´re telling a huge company to throw up billions of dollars of R&D out of the window, showing their competitors all the work they´ve (microsoft) done. It´s unacceptable. They want microsoft to teach other companys how to not be incompetent.
What´s next? Telling Wal Mart to sell products with higher prices, to let others being competitive?

I think the US should force FIAT to open up ALL of its Ferrari secrets to GM, or Ford. What about it? Let them be competitive too!

Sorry about the rant. But this false altruism (the EU telling that they are making all this because of the customers) is making me sick.
 
Wow, you are so unbelievably off base, fbomber. This has nothing to do with throwing anything out the window. This has to do with Microsoft documenting their API's so that other companies can compete to produce software for the OS on a level playing field.
 
fbomber666 said:
I´m not a big fan of Microsoft, but I don´t agree with what the EU is doing. They´re telling a huge company to throw up billions of dollars of R&D out of the window, showing their competitors all the work they´ve (microsoft) done. It´s unacceptable. They want microsoft to teach other companys how to not be incompetent.
What´s next? Telling Wal Mart to sell products with higher prices, to let others being competitive?
Click to expand...

Read L233's post. It's all about interfaces.
 
fbomber666 said:
I think the US should force FIAT to open up ALL of its Ferrari secrets to GM, or Ford. What about it? Let them be competitive too!
Click to expand...
What does that have to do with what's being discussed here? The analogy is absolutely stupid.
 
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