You know what’s ridiculous? Freaking Europe. The European Commission has been hassling Microsoft over bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, an issue the U.S. dealt with, oh, a decade ago, when it might have actually been a problem. (The United States vs. Microsoft trial was settled in 2002; Microsoft was required to share information about Windows to help competitors. More info on Wikipedia.)
In the U.S. the question was whether the company was illegally leveraging its dominant position in personal computer operating systems into a dominant position in web browsers. Europe, however, has gone after Microsoft for things like their server products and Windows Media Player. Seriously, they made versions of Windows XP and Vista for Europe (called the N-editions) that were exactly the same as Windows everywhere else, except they didn’t come with Windows Media Player, just to appease the Euros. These sold alongside normal Windows. (As you can imagine, the crippled products went just gangbusters in the marketplace.) Besides, it’s Media Player! They’re really fighting the good fight across the Atlantic; I’m sure the inclusion of Media Player on Windows is the reason Apple has had such a hard time getting anyone to use iTunes, right?
Anyway, like the N-editions, Microsoft planned to offer Windows 7 E-editions to Europe; these would be Windows, except without Internet Explorer. I absolutely loved this idea. You guys don’t like IE? Fine, now you’ll never see it. Oh, and good luck downloading Opera without having a web browser in the first place, morons.
The Commission wasn’t very fond of this idea, suggesting instead that Microsoft should offer users a list of web browser choices to choose from. In other words, it wouldn’t be good enough for Microsoft to lose its home-field advantage; they also had to start including their competitors’ products within their own product. That is seriously one of the most absurd things I have ever heard, though I guess it falls in line with Europe’s goals for big businesses.
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s counter-proposal, released Friday, is not only to go ahead with this, but also to offer that choice through Windows Update to users of Windows XP and Vista. So if you bought a PC seven years ago but never learned enough about it to figure out installing new programs, well, today’s your lucky day. This is the definition of ridiculousness, but I can hardly blame Microsoft. Europe has much less fear of throwing its bureaucratic weight around and levying hefty fines than it does of competition.
The other reason this is stupid is: get with the times! Millions of people use Firefox by now, and with broadband access it takes, what, a minute tops for someone to switch browsers? Do they not have high-speed in Europe? Or will they find out, after all these maneuverings, that perhaps their continent’s best product in the area (the innovative Opera) just isn’t compelling for most people? I’ll bet on the latter.
2 comments:
Don't forget Chrome, my preferred browser. Aside from some minor compatibility issues, I've loved Chrome!
That is ridiculous Europeans refuse to download some alternative web browser on their own, so they are making Microsoft include an alternate. Europe, the epitome of laziness.
Chrome's great. I didn't love it at first but use it almost full-time now. I think Google joined Opera in complaining to the EU about Internet Explorer, which is pretty hilarious, considering they're probably going to be such a huge antitrust target in the years to come.
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