Windows 7 success might be decided in court

Jesus, no. No-one in their right mind would purposely install any version of Real's god-awful player. That's about the only point where Windows' UAC could come in handy.

Run RealPlayer.exe.

Are you sure? Really? Do you know how much of a piece of shit this is? Honestly, it's dreadful. You really want to? OK, but on your head be it.

Microsoft doing something good for the consumer?!?
...Yeah, right.

M$ works for itself, not for it's customers.

Apple are worse than Microsoft. Safari, quicktime, and all the other crap that comes standard on an apple. Now they claim its a good thing yet complain about Microsoft doing the exact same thing. At least Microsoft is software only, if anything Apple are worse by trying to control software and hardware!

"But if we release the documentation, then we'll lose our crown jewels" ... to MicroSoft, "the code is the documentation". That's why they can't release the documentation - they don't want the competition to copy the code! (Quite why the competition would WANT to copy the code, I can't fathom.) But I think that's why MS's engineers, when rewriting SMB into CIFS, made such extensive use of the Samba documentation. It was the only documentation they had about how their network protocols actually worked! Cheers, Wol

Doesn't Apple set Safari as the default browser. And what about iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie??? Mick is right, Apple not only sets the default software, but also default hardware for their OS. They have absolutely no right to take MS to the court before doing the same with Apple.

Dont mistaken me as an apple fanboy, quite the opposite, but Apple is a niche market for idiots who like shiney things, They dont have a monopoly position to abuse. Well except the monopoly over their fanboys minds, but some would argue that if those minds could be taken in by apple its not a big loss anyway.

What all the fuss with Antitrust is all about?

I'm no MS fanboi, but I really aren't getting this.

Why aren't MS allowed to bundle free software with their operating system? This includes internet broswer, media player, email client etc etc?

Why not? It's their software! It's their OS!

I agree that it SHOULDN'T be inmcluded, but only from a technical view - An operating system should be just that, an OPERATING SYSTEM - in other words, an Application launcher. It should be designed to launch apps only, and you install the apps you want.

And most people realise that included apps aren't the greatest anyway, and purchase/install other stuff.

But Antitrust? Monopoly?

I don't get this.

Car manufacturers install Car stereos in the factory, they install shiny Mag wheels, tinted windows etc.
Are the car radio manufacturers taking Ford to court because nobody is buying the after-market stereo anymore? Or how about the mag wheel companies?
No! Becasue people still do want different things.

I don't get it.

Why doesn't M$ just agree to give the mafia x-amount oops sorry EU every year and they'll be left alone. You'll all notice they don't give Apple or any of the Linux firms hassles for doing the same thigns with their products!

Exactly guys. Everyone must realize that when the European Commision extracts penalties from Microsoft, this money gets charged right back to worldwide consumers in the selling price of Windows. Microsoft has a monopoly. It can do this. European penalties are part of its cost of doing business.

You got it right in your description of "an os should just be an application launcher". The problem is, Windows is NOT an "application launcher" - it is an "MS software platform". Take the NetScape Navigator furore for example - Windows was explicitly designed so it DIDN'T launch Navigator - even when that was what the user wanted. Go back a few years - Windows For Workgroups and Office 95 were both designed to make sure that Windows DIDN'T launch WordPerfect. Go back another few years - "DOS ain't done til Lotus won't run". THAT is why MS is under such scrutiny - they have a track record of sabotaging the opposition. Cheers, Wol

I find it quite unbelievable that people try to defend the Microsoft monopoly. These people are the 'creationists' of IT.

Microsoft are convicted monopolists, and really don't deserve their day in court. The company should be broken up.

Quite simply the reason that these companies are without market share and need to sue for it is they have crappy products. Opera still has far less market share than the relatively new Firefox. Realplayer still is a crappy player 14+ years after its introduction (features ads, takes forever to load, etc.). Itunes is quickly becoming the new defacto standard for media player in Windows, not because of Antitrust lawsuits either. Personally I think they should integrate JetAudio from Cowon America. It converts audio and video, play's around 50+ formats of media, rips in many formats, broadcasts, etc.

Apple can bundle whatever they want because they have never had more than 10% of the world PC market, Microsoft on the other hand has, over 90%. It is how they got this 90%+ market share that puts them under greater scrutiny. When a single company dominates a certain market they start to do things to bend the market their way to hold on to their market share, or artificially inflate the prices of their products because nothing competes with them, sometimes because their platform (windows)gets in the way.

IE4 for Win95 was the straw that broke the camel's back and kicked off the anti-trust proceedings, it completely integrated itself into the OS. The windows loading screen actually changed to say "Windows 95 with Internet Explorer". You couldn't uninstall it after that without wiping and doing a fresh install. It was the first time internet explorer was integrated into the OS. Windows 3.11 you had the choice to run any browser you wanted, none came installed by default. This started to eat into the market that Opera and Netscape et al occupied before Microsoft had even thought of IE, and reduced their ability to compete fairly.

A lot of people have forgotten that Microsoft still is a monopoly, maybe not legally, but for all intents and purposes they have maintained a stranglehold on the market for far too long and have a history of bad corporate behavior.

I personally hope that they do get in a bit of hot water over Windows 7 it will bring them down a peg and remind them that if they can't do it right, get out of the way of someone who can.

Apple might not have a monopoly in the PC market, but they do in the MP3 market. So why is it that you have to use Itunes for uploading software to your Ipod/Iphone as standard. Why can you not use it without that? And why cant you pull the songs off your ipod back onto your computer from Itunes?

And yes there are alternatives out there but apple arent happy about them. Apple lock out far more than microsoft ever done.

Wol has it spot on. On my home Win XP Pro 64-bit system I went under Control Panel Windows Components and REMOVED Internet Explorer. My default browser was set to Firefox. And yet, there are aplications that launch Internet Explorer explicitly and SUCCESSFULLY (bad coding, true) despite it not being listed as being installed on my system, and Firefox being the default Windows browser. Another fun trick is bring up the Windows file Explorer, and type a web address in the file address bar, and you have Internet Explorer. Windows Update is also explicitly Internet Explorer. Why have standards when a monopoly can bend/break them for it's own whim. Don't need to expend extra effort coding to a standard, just make a new one! It's a closed OS so anyone that wants their code to run properly on the OS MUST play by their rules. Cheers, John

Two reasons actually. First, IBM wanted DOS, MS gave them DOS, IBM was the monopoly for office workstations...TADA. Second, Apple did have the lions share of the home PC market, but thier rediculous control over thier hardware and software led them to thier niche. I remember when me and my friends all had different types of PCs (Apple included). They were all so different. An actual off the shelf box of software would often contain disks for many different platforms. Graphics were so different across those platforms. Its kind of better now adays really. One hardware platform (x86) and many different OSs to run. Hell even STRATUS runs on Intel HW now.

Deek you can go on about Microsoft having 90% of the market all you like but that shows Microsoft are giving the public what they want otherwise they'd go for Linux which is FREE. You anti Microsoft people are all the same and hate the truth

you know, i applaud the EU for the antitrust measures.. but apple is way worse than ms.

grasp this: to change the default web browser in mac os X 10.5 ... you have to do it through safari's options! how does that sound? the same for mail. apple suggests not uninstalling safari because you'll loose the functionality of changing the default browser. Does it get any better than this?

Someone else mentioned this but it bares mentioning again. All Microsoft has to do to sidestep the EU and DOJ is load Real player, Quicktime, Firefox, and Opera as browser choices during the install routine. That allows the choice of installing alternative programs from the beginning, but to bring it home even better, let's say users don't want to install the alternatives during OS boot. All Microsoft has to do is make sure that a shortcut to the installs for the alternative media players and browsers shows up on the desktop once setup is complete. That STILL gives users options. If they still choose not to install the alternative programs, that's up to them but what complaint could there be from the EU or the DOJ if Microsoft actually gave us these choices in Windows 7? Vista would be long forgotten easily then....

If Windows 7 install without IE, how would you go into internet to download other browser? Should microsoft windows 7 CD come with other browser.. why? why microsoft have to make the work for other browser companies?

Under now circumstances would Microsoft include alternative software with Windows. The whole point of Internet Exploder and Windows Media Player was to lock the end user into Microsoft technologies, so that it's a lot harder to switch operating systems. This is why Internet Exploder is not standards compliant, and why it will only run on Windows. Every business who codes for IE locks out end users who don't use IE, and if they know what's good for them, they'll switch to Windows (and IE). If you signed up for a DRM music service based on Windows Media Player, switching operating systems, or media players, means you loose your library, and have to pay again. Unless you stick with Windows and Windows Media Player.

Microsoft has no interest in changing this. In fact they will fight the EU and the DOJ until the bitter end to be able to keep IE and WMP on as many systems as possible, for as long as possible.

To Johnno, The difference is Microsoft purposely doesn't stick to standards - they make IE different, clearly not better, just different. Because Windows has a monopoly and so many people use IE, web sites become IE specific and don't work well with other browsers. It scares me to think how close Microsoft came to their goal - they nearly made the net IE only, which would mean the net was Windows only. For your car radio example, imagine 95% of people drove Fords. Ford doesn't like CD and releases Ford Disc(FD) instead. FD doesn't sound any better then CD, but in a Ford FD works better than a CD. In any other car CD is better than the FD. 95% of people would then be driving FD compatible Fords, eventually some bands decide to release their music in FD format only, most people don't care because they have Fords anyway. The end result is people that like music are locked into the Ford monopoly. Microsoft nearly managed this with the web and IE - I'm very thankful Firefox and Safari gained popularity when they did, another couple of years and it might have been too late.

FYI, you don't need a browser to "go into internet" ... (the HTTP protocol was invented LONG after internet).

To download a browser, you may use TELNET or FTP, for instance...

@Chris: You actually have Microsoft to thank for the existence of Firefox at all when they ran Netscape and their crappy browsers out of town. Good riddance to their low quality crap. Mozilla was also a dog for a long time too, meaning IE was the de facto best browser at the time, regardless of your alliances. Now Firefox still has a pretty shoddy marketshare because, quite frankly, it doesn't offer much over IE. @Linxbe: Get real would you? The idea that you ship a desktop OS without a browser is at best ridiculous, but to expect people to use Telnet or FTP? That takes it to a new level of idiocy.

Lots of comments swing for and against both Microsoft AND Apple here. I converted to the PC from my Apple a LONG time ago. And the reason is mostly cost.
If i buy an Apple, i'm locked into whatever packages they offer and the very limited after-market hardware support.
If i buy a PC, i can put as little money into a very wide assortment of third party parts and build a machine capable of everything but high end game play. And later, if i want to add that high end card, it will work because of the manufacturer supported drivers.

Sure, Apple can get away with it because they have small market penetration. Yes, their using Intel CPUs does open new roads, but can I go to any store and just BUY OS X to put on my Intel based home-built???? The day THAT happens, then we truly have an alternative to Windows.

Linux is only free for folks who don't' value their time.

Just because Microsoft is most popular doesn't make it a monopoly.

#1) Not locking out competition.
With the (imo small) exception of the embedding of IE into Windows OS's, there is nothing Microsoft does to disrupt using third-party software. What piece of software or hardware have you tried using with Windows that it refused to install, (barring run-of-the-mill driver glitches, which happen to all companies at one time or another)? I use OpenOffice - no problems there. Firefox? fine. Thunderbird? okay. Itunes? Quicktime? Java? McAfee? Adobe? Symantec? Practically any game or plug-in... even when it was coded in your mom's basement? What about running it on other systems - Oh wait, Office Suite and Windows runs on Mac!

#2 Not bundling/tying - or at least not any more than anyone else.
All computers from a retailer come LOADED with bundled nonsense (at least here in the US) - the least of your concern is the media player or browser, which are EXTREMELY easy to replace via a few minute download or a trip to a store. You can purchase various versions of Office with different components included even, and choose which to install when you get home. What about Apple? Every time Itunes updates it tries to install Quicktime and Safari, and vis versa. The default is "download and install". That's got to be illegal.

#3 Not price-fixing.
Since when was any Microsoft product the cheapest on the market? Oh wait: NEVER! Many times they're the most expensive. There is a cheaper or even free version of just about everything they sell, and in many cases, it works better.

So why do people buy Microsoft? Who knows. People may buy it because that's what they're used to: it's what they use at work and school (heck, sometimes they use Macs or Unix... figure that one out). Why is that Microsoft's fault? Don't like Microsoft? Buy something else. No one's stopping you.

Gemi - you've clearly forgotten (or never experienced) 95 and earlier ... Microsoft was CONVICTED of DELIBERATELY making it a nightmare for users who wanted to use Netscape Navigator. I didn't experience that, but I did experience the WordPerfect war. I've seen a rock-solid WP6 install go bad just because I upgraded Windows underneath it. And it wasn't the odd install - it was EVERY install I tried it on. I've experienced WP6.1 die on me because I installed Office 95 on the pc. And again, it wasn't the odd install, it was EVERY install. How on earth can it be accident (or poor MS testing) if it happens for me EVERY SINGLE TIME! Oh - and I also got bitten by the DR-DOS mess. I stopped using DR-DOS because I got bitten repeatedly by trashed disks. That I can't blame for sure on MS, but it sure looks likely... By the way, don't ask "what software does Windows refuse to install". MS has *never* done that. They just pull dirty tricks so the user blames the third party for bugs when it's actually Windows pulling a fast one. And lastly - "don't like Windows, buy something else"? Some people are quite happy to buy something else. Problem is, MS has made it very hard not to buy Windows too. I've actually dodged the Windows tax by buying an Acer Aspire. But I would have liked a larger keyboard. Only snag - anything with a larger keyboard was XP-only :-(
Cheers,
Wol

To address some of the history with WordPerfect: Novell acquired WordPerfect in 1994 after losing marketshare steadily for 4 years - arguably due to not releasing a Windows 3.0 version right away, and then even WP5.2's heavy key commands did not mesh well with the mouse-centric style of Windows - and immediately filed suit against Microsoft. That looks like money-grubbing after failure to adapt to market trends. DR-DOS was a mess, to be sure, but even that was a little money-grubbing, as a suit was filed by Caldera immediately after Caldera acquired DR-DOS. Other suits against Microsoft have involved bundling/tying products together, and I would argue that it is possible to construe that IE is integral to Windows in terms of how the search bar works, for example, and that the appearance of two products (browser and OS) is incidental when they are in reality just one (hybrid local/remote file handling system). There still has yet to be a suit to conclude that Microsoft's actions have damaged the consumer; for example, how many people bought Windows-N after the EC fought so hard for it? Wiki that one sometime. This, of course, is all irrelevant, as this article is about a preemptive attack by the European Commission on Windows 7 involving closed code. My point about Apple still stands: they are bundling, closed-code, proprietary fiends, but don't catch any flak for it: that is simply outrageous and demonstrates that someone has got it in for Microsoft.

The only thing MS has to do is provide documentation... big deal.

Having IE and MP with Windows is ok. The problem was that couple of years back Netscape worked slower than IE BECAUSE of the lack of support from MS to developers.

Shiping 3rd party software with your product is just idiotic... noone in their right mind would do it.

Nowdays having an OS without any net browser is just unexepteble.

Imagine having a clean install of the OS, and you want to install Firefox from the net... Ergm... what will you use to visit Mozilla's site for the 1st time? ;)

Fitz's comment (see comment # 1) was the only thing worth reading in this non news article. Read it folks and know how right (and articulate) he is. We should start a website for Real Player haters. Of all things associated with the computer, Real Player stands heads and shoulders above the rest as the worst piece of shit .

What I don't understand is why MS is being forced to give their competition anything. MS knows what is good for itself: make your code easy to use, otherwise people will use another OS. Anything else is corporate suicide. If it became hard to make 3rd party software work with the OS, people will migrate to something else. That was half the problem with the initial Vista release, and MS paid the price - in the market, not the courtroom. It's not like there aren't a whole bunch of other OS's out there that would be happy to take market share if MS decided to actually try to lock out competition. And plenty of software companies that would be glad to stop coding in DirectX. Personally, if game programmers started making games for Linux releases (or Linux coders had a good hack for running Windows-coded games) I would drop Vista like its on fire. Just about all of the rest of my other software is free-ware/open-source (aside from games). That's my free choice as a consumer. If MS wants to pre-load all sorts of (crappy) MS goodies on my install disk, that's their loss. Shouldn't need the EC to tell them that.

...without IE bundled with Windows, and Safari with OS X, I'd have no browser to take me to getfirefox.com ;)

No but seriously, I LIKE how they come bundled with apps I can use, to get the apps I want. If they offered a selection, it would just add one more step in the process of getting the OS running so I can start configuring it for my needs.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to spend three hours installing all the shvit I'd need to have a functional computer after buying a new copy of an OS.