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Written by Administrator
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Sunday, 23 September 2007 |
"In its ruling, the Luxembourg-based Court of First Instance upheld
European Commission claims that Microsoft abused its dominant position
in the operating system market. Microsoft's allies and competitors have
been closely following the case since the Commission imposed antitrust
sanctions against the company in early 2004...
...[The Commission's Competition Commissioner] added that should Microsoft comply with the Commission's order, she
expects to see a "significant drop" in Microsoft's overwhelming market
share.
The 13-member court ruled that the Commission was justified
in requiring Microsoft to share certain technical specifications, or
protocols, with rivals so their products would work with Microsoft's
Windows operating system. The Commission is also requiring Microsoft to
offer an unbundled option to consumers when tying together two separate
products, such as Windows and the company's Media Player software."
Source: CNET.com News
This story has been ongoing now for way too long and the EU (European Union) was way off base right from the start. The EU is saying that Microsoft's monopoly and including products in their Windows operating system (such as Windows Media Player) puts them at too much of an advantage over alternative programs. Well this just doesn't make sense if you look at history. Competition is a good thing...not a bad thing. The only way people are going to think about getting an alternative to Microsoft's already built-in products is if they don't work well to begin with. The best example I can think of is Firefox, an alternative Web browser to Microsoft's (built-in) Internet Explorer. The only reason why Firefox came about and got so popular was because Microsoft's built-in product didn't work well to begin with. In turn, Microsoft had to do a major overhaul of IE to keep up with Firefox.
The EU's ruling to order Microsoft to make available a version of Windows that will be sold in Europe without Windows Media Player is just flat out stupid. Who is going to buy that anyway? No one! This whole court battle was a waste of time and money right from the start.
However, my favorite part of the whole story is when the EU Competition Commissioner says that she expects to see a "significant drop" in Microsoft's market share. What is she thinking? The Windows operating system has a 95 percent market share worldwide and she thinks that this ruling is going to change that? ....Give me a break! The only thing that that showed was the EU's ignorance when it comes to technology issues.
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