The European Court of First Instance will give its long-awaited verdict in Microsoft's antitrust appeal on Sept. 17, people involved in the matter said Tuesday. It is by far the biggest antitrust case ever referred to the European Union's second highest court. The outcome of the appeal, which will have taken more than three years, will influence the future shape of the software industry and be a reference point for future antitrust cases, especially those in the fast-changing world of information technology. The European Commission ruled in 2004 that Microsoft had abused the dominant position of its Windows OS to muscle in on other sectors of the software market.
By bundling Windows Media Player, its audio and video playing software, into Windows, Microsoft competed unfairly against rivals such as RealNetworks and Apple, the Commission ruled. And by failing to share technical information about how to interoperate with Windows PCs, Microsoft managed to steal a march in the market for low-end server operating systems. Microsoft appealed both threads of that ruling, and in April last year the court held a three-day hearing at which the Commission and Microsoft, together with their respective software industry allies, tried to convince the judges of their arguments.
View: The full story
News source: InfoWorld
By bundling Windows Media Player, its audio and video playing software, into Windows, Microsoft competed unfairly against rivals such as RealNetworks and Apple, the Commission ruled. And by failing to share technical information about how to interoperate with Windows PCs, Microsoft managed to steal a march in the market for low-end server operating systems. Microsoft appealed both threads of that ruling, and in April last year the court held a three-day hearing at which the Commission and Microsoft, together with their respective software industry allies, tried to convince the judges of their arguments.
View: The full story News source: InfoWorld
yay for European Commision, fighting for the consumer at every cornor....
yay for European Commision, fighting for the consumer at every cornor....
Sorry to disagree. New "feature" choices should be left to the consumer - not pushed by the manufacturer. Every new "feature" added is just another attack vector for those seeking to compromise a system - worse yet when that "feature" is integrated at the OS level.
Let the consumer choose what they want - just imagine how much faster Windows would run minus a whole lot of value-added "feature" we've been given over the years!
yay for European Commision, fighting for the consumer at every cornor....
Sorry to disagree. New "feature" choices should be left to the consumer - not pushed by the manufacturer. Every new "feature" added is just another attack vector for those seeking to compromise a system - worse yet when that "feature" is integrated at the OS level.
Let the consumer choose what they want - just imagine how much faster Windows would run minus a whole lot of value-added "feature" we've been given over the years!
Yes, I too long for the days where actually getting a computer into a usable state required the purchase of dozens of applicaitons and hours of additional work after an install to get everything up and running. Somehow I suspect you forget what it was like back in the Win311 days...
Let the consumer choose what they want - just imagine how much faster Windows would run minus a whole lot of value-added "feature" we've been given over the years!
Please provide us photo of your copy of Windows XP N.
or GTFO
stick that crap where sun don't shine
And what happens if the EC does nothing? We end up with Microsoft having full control over the industry with no effective competition - that means they can charge whatever prices they want and put in whatever "features" they want, whether good for the consumer or not. Considering Windows is run on 95% of computers and used by virtually all businesses in the western world the implications are VERY serious. When you read about all the dodgy practices with OEMs and see all the smear campaigns against Linux it makes you realise how aggressive Microsoft has been to get to the position they're in now - they're not some innocent company being penalised for popular a great product. The EC has an obligation to protect the consumer - this is what is appears to be doing. Don't forget that they might find Microsoft innocent.
This isn't about cutting features - it's about letting other companies compete fairly.
Yes, I really hate how all those programs that aren't running use up your resources and slow your system down.
Yes, I really hate how all those programs use up your resources and slow your system down – even though most of them aren't loaded into memory until you actually use them.
huh? and you'd know this how?
huh? and you'd know this how?
Because the Dept. of Homeland Security Gut-O-Meter is up to Gutlevel "I'm Almost Positive"
Don't you watch Colbert?
They are just as bad as the RIAA
Last edited by MvT Cracker on 18 Jul 2007 - 20:18
Bill Gates
lol cry me a river.
it was an old quote but one of my favs
Hey, just substitute Osama Bin Laden for Saddam Hussein and the quotation works just fine.
But some of you MacDonald's earthing thuds obviously don't understand some things, any know only about Microsoft. The fact that almost everything they do is based on a stolen idea from someone else doesn't matter to you.
Microsoft shouldn't HAVE to supply anything. The EU wants the source to Windows and all external protocols opened up to those (competition) that wants it. I'd like to see how you'd feel if you spent millions or billions developing something only to be told that you have to open it up to your competition. Remember the days when companies would actually compete to get business? Now all they can do is whine and cry that they can't make apps worth a damn and claim it's because of a monopolistic company.
I do agree. There should be options to pick what is or isn't installed. IMO, the kernel, graphics, sound, input/output and networking should be all that it's installed as a default.
That would leave a relatively useless computer for most people. "Default" is what everyone clicks.
i didn't know there was a OS being developed in the UK...is there a link?.....google came up blank.
But some of you MacDonald's earthing thuds obviously don't understand some things, any know only about Microsoft. The fact that almost everything they do is based on a stolen idea from someone else doesn't matter to you.
wma files work in other media players and wma is a great standard wmp can be uninstalled and you can install anything you like I don't see the problem
why the **** would I want a linux system to mess with windows files that are needed to boot linux could prevent windows from booting and thats anti competetive and why can't they make their own independent boot system
And microsoft is not about greed they spent billions to make vista and only charge a few hundred dollars
Microsoft Provides Jobs somethings thats needed unlike open source
Last edited by MvT Cracker on 18 Jul 2007 - 20:22
wtf are you talking about: it's windows' boot loader which overwrites other boot loaders, and just ignores other installed operating systems.
Now that's funny... do you really mean to say they should charge like, say a billion per license?
Tell that to those working at RedHat, HP, Cisco, Sun, Novell, IBM...
Indeed, and the Vista bootloader doesn't even work properly with XP installs - with XP and Vista on different partitions it ends up only booting if you have the Vista disc in, which is pretty useless. How the hell did Vista get past quality control?
Indeed, and the Vista bootloader doesn't even work properly with XP installs - with XP and Vista on different partitions it ends up only booting if you have the Vista disc in, which is pretty useless. How the hell did Vista get past quality control?
Ummm or not. I can tell you that is not true because I currently run Xp and Vista just fine. Although I'm getting rid of the XP, keeping Vista, and adding Ubuntu.
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