Posted on 01/17/2009 3:46:50 AM PST by reaganaut1
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union said Friday that Microsoft’s practice of selling the Internet Explorer browser together with its Windows operating system violated the union’s antitrust rules.
It ordered the software giant to untie the browser from its operating system in the 27-nation union, enabling makers of rival browsers to compete fairly.
“Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between Web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice,” the E.U. said in a statement.
It gave Microsoft eight weeks to respond, adding that the company could defend its position in a hearing if it found that useful.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It is convenient for Windows to come with the Internet Explorer browser, and they can install alternatives such as FireFox in a few minutes. What's the problem?
M$ ought to just tell the EU to live without Windows and Office from now on.
Mircosoft should simply ignore these fools just to see what happens.
“..............could defend its position in a hearing if it found that useful.”
You’re right. What can they do? Microsoft probably has more money than the EU, so they can’t hurt them there.
For all the problems with Microsoft, just think that most of us wouldn’t even have a computer if Microsoft hadn’t made it easy for us.
I’m trying to think of an alternative means of someone who isn’t that familiar with computers installing an internet browser, and it’s not coming to mind very easily.
How did I install FireFox? Well, I logged onto Internet Explorer, typed in FireFox into Google, and downloaded it.
These anti-Microsoft fools are making life harder on everyone.
Careful, you’re not allowed to say anything negative about Apple or anything positive about Microsoft on this board.
You watch Microsoft will just have it programmed to automatically download with Windows Update anyways.
Which is why these lawsuits are happening!
Jealous little EU. Any time anything is successful, it becomes a target for them. They’ve been after Microsoft for years.
I am curious how the Free Trader/Globalists are going to explain this one away...
Microsoft has no choice but to follow the EU....or they will lose a lucrative market. Lets see them try to recoup their European losses by selling to low-paid Asians and Latin Americans (good luck). Maybe they can adjust their browsers to not allow Falun Gong or Christian websites in Communist China...
I really have little sympathy for Microsoft....for they are so quick to fire Americans and hire foreigners....and campaign for the US to bring in illegals and H1-B visas. Their push to de-Americanize themselves has hit a huge roadblock...and their options are either bad...or not so good.
The problem with decoupling IE is that it really isn't decoupled. Outlook and Explorer are both intertwined with the functionality as is the desktop and menus. Uninstalling IE on any windows OS since Win95 would render the GUI almost inoperable.
AAARRRUUUUUUUUUGGGAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
Semper Fidelis
Dick G
~~~~~
Does DeBeers know that they have anti trust rules in Europe
*** Gill Bates!
Certainly the best browser Microsoft has yet produced.
For that matter, the Windows 7 Beta rocks as well. I installed it over my Vista OS several days ago and haven't looked back. Very exciting products.
No sorrow here. Microsoft cheats. Microsoft used its operating system to promote Word which killed off Word Perfect. Microsoft used its operating system to promote Excel which killed off Lotus 1,2,3. Microsoft used its operating system to promote Explorer which killed off Netscape.
Microsoft stole Apple’s technology to develop Windows. Apple only responded in court too late and too little.
No question about it, Microsoft cheats.
Europe is going to be forced to buy something, and the thing will have to work. That’s irony.
So how can one download a competitive browser on one’s new OS installation if there's no browser at all? Going to have to have a browser installation CD on hand first... What about all the OS patches and drivers required on a new installation all requiring a browser?
Microsoft ought to remove it just to spite the EU. Then see how the people feel about their retarded bureaucrats in charge...
Microsoft may not be perfect, but it works for me far more hours a day than any of my Congressmen, and is a lot cheaper, too.
Microsoft should simply do as the EU demands, but then CHARGE every stinking European person TRIPLE the price to download and install Internet Explorer....
...especially after the EU geeks come to realize how indepsensible Microsoft and Internet Explorer really are in the world of computers.
Apple hardly has clean hands.
Ever heard of Xerox?
Excel and Word cost money and always have. Word Perfect and Lotus 123 failed to compete.
Hardly the same thing as Netscape trying to compete with free. Microsoft did kill Netscape.
So is the EU going to demand that Apple not ship Safari with OSX?
Good question :-)
“Careful, you’re not allowed to say anything negative about Apple or anything positive about Microsoft on this board.”
News to me. Ive been here more than 10 years.
This silly attack by the EU has been going on for so long that it’s now completely irrelevant.
There are dozens of free browsers, so to speak of “innovation,” “competition,” and “choice” is preposterous.
You want a replacement for IE? Go to the Internet and download it in one minute, and another one minute to install it.
This is what happens when you have a bureaucracy that’s stuck on stupid.
And while I’m at it, is the EU going to demand that Linix not be free? It is a full OS which is drastically more substantial than just some Internet browser...
After all it is pretty hard to compete with free, just ask Netscape.
I wrote my own Notepad program. It’s unfair that Microsoft includes Notepad with Windows because it does not allow me to compete fairly with Microsoft’s Notepad, so they should take Notepad out of Windows.
Oops... Make that Linux...
thank you.
“I made this post made using a Puppy Linux live cd...”
- - -
Good for you, but your link does not work.
I thought if you deleted IE from Windows you’d have major problems with updating?
All my Linux installations have at least 4 or 5 different browsers installed, for the same reasons. I try out different browsers on Windows and Linux boxes and use the ones I like and ignore the rest.
Or is that too simple-minded for some folks?
;^)
The EU and others even in our own USA, mostly Libs, have an agenda to destroy the free market system. Chipping away a little piece at a time. Remember the days before MS? Commodore, IBM, Tandy, Curtis Sinclair and more. No standards and one system to the next could not communicate or even share files with each other. Like it or not MS (with Apple technology) came up with windows and made it possible to get where we are now on a global level. And as has already been mentioned, Firefox and Google Chrome can easily be downloaded and used instead. I use them all depending on what I want to do or where I want to go on the web.
I think I’ll go download the new IE8 beta and give it a spin on Al Gore’s internet thingy! :-)
Really? Exactly what "technology" did Microsoft "steal" from Apple?
As far as I understand it, Microsoft decided that the GUI interface (which Apple had... ahem, appropriated from Xerox, was the way of the future. Kudos to both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for their development of the GUI. Jobs was pissed off that he exposed his next product to Gates and Gates immediatly persued it as well. That said, it's a HELL of a long way from "stealing technology". Both men had the foresight to develop Xerox's technology. I get annoyed when the Apple fans repeat this canard. If you can show me the code that Microsoft copied from Apple to figure out how to do something, you would have a case. As it is they both persued the same idea. If anyone is an injured party here, it is Xerox.
Not even close. If you remove Safari from OSX, the OS still works. If you take IE out of Windows, the cracks appear.
Gee, maybe the same way everybody did it for years, by using FTP?
It's what the browsers use internally for downloads, anyway.
And who says there can't be a browser there?
The point is to have browsers that aren't so tied into the OS that others can't compete, not to have no browsers.
Some call it cheating. You hear that a lot. But it's really only that MS had a better business model, delivering greater total value to its customers than any of its competitors.
you can thank kaliphornia for giving eu the idea to do this
For years ,anyone who wants to has been able to download or even have sent free to their home or business,Ubuntu linux on CD.
As much as I dislike some M$ practices,the EU is trying to close the barn door after the horse is out!
IF M$ had been prevented from providing any web browsers,Netscape would probably be still dominant.
AOL actually killed off Netscape,after buying it.
I suppose you forgot the Canyon episode?
Or the threats that Gates & co. made to Apple?
I suppose you forgot the fact that Apple paid for (not stole) the technology from Xerox?
Or the fact that "Gadgets" on Windows came out years after "Widgets" on OSX. Maybe that's not stealing code, but it's certainly stealing ideas.
But there was a long while (before lawsuits forced the issue) that you couldn't buy an Intel computer without buying Windows.
Damn' straight, as should ANY company that has a Government or "Union" trying to tell them how to build and sell their product.
Oh wait, we have that happening here in the US with the Gub'mint and the Detroit big-three!
The day the Government tells me how to run my business is the day I tell them how much it costs to buy it. If they refuse to buy my business so they can run it as THEY see fit, then I tell them to go piss up a rope.
That one got me. I am so illiterate with this stuff and I thought I had to have Safari. I was in the middle of downloading it when my son happened to call and told me,"No". Good thing he knew how to get it off my computer.
I hate being the perfect target dope that falls for things like Safari. :(
Microsoft used its operating system to promote Word which killed off Word Perfect. Microsoft used its operating system to promote Excel which killed off Lotus 1,2,3.
Then download Open Office. Totally free with all the functionality you could want.
Microsoft used its operating system to promote Explorer which killed off Netscape.
Considering I'm viewing this page on my free, superior Mozilla Firefox 3 browser, I'm thinking that's not much of an issue either.
There are some genuine beefs with monopolistic practices, but this web browser thing is beyond ridiculous.
FTP or WGET come to mind. Of course you can open up your package manager and pull it from a repository.
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