EU Fines Microsoft $613m

[λ]

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- The European Union has found Microsoft guilty of abusing the "near-monopoly" of its Windows PC operating system and fined it a record 497 million euros ($613 million).
http://www.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/03/24/microsoft.eu/index.html

Dontcha just love the EU? :D

[CanadianGuy]

I saw that too. It's a harsh world out there. Seems like you get nailed for doing anything these days. Microsoft is too successful so lets nail 'em.

[λ]

Originally posted by CanadianGuy
I saw that too. It's a harsh world out there. Seems like you get nailed for doing anything these days. Microsoft is too successful so lets nail 'em.

It's got nothing to do with that.

Microsoft were trying to leverage a monopoly in one area to get a monopoly in another.

Read the story :sure:

[morse]

This is literally pocket change to microsoft.

[jsites]

if they don't want to use Windows Media Player, THAN DON'T USE IT!!!! Personally i use iTunes to play music, WinDVD to watch DVD movies, and whatever media player is required for video clips, whether it is Windows Media Player, Quicktime, Real, ECT.

this is the same thing as problems with people complaining about internet explorer. if you don't want to use it, then find an alternative program that does the same thing. i use IE because even though everyone seems to be raving about Mozilla, i've used it, and i'm not impressed. the only good feature i see in Mozilla that makes it worth using is Tabbed browsing, but i can live without that.

all of these goverments are punishing microsoft just because they know that they have the money. it's a shame that because a company is so successful as microsoft that everyone only sees dollar signs and figure they will sue them because of their success.


*end of ranting and raving*

[Maizoon]

If M$ had there way, they would be the only company in existance. I'm sure if they could, they would buy out apple and linux. Any time a company starts to emerge, M$ buys them, steals there code, then disbands the company. By any definition that is monopolizing. So you don't like media player or IE or even windows messenger, why should you even have to deal with them? I run XP and have yet to find a way to un-unistall any of these softwares. I, as the end-user, who purchased there OS...should have the right to take out parts that I don't want or will never use. I mean, there taking up space so why should they be there? You would never buy a car with tv monitors in the trunk. With linux, you get a pretty barebones system when you install it and you get to pick and choose what you want to have installed. Yes you have other options for media delivery and web browsing, but I shouldn't be forced to use theres. Most people don't know there are other options, they buy a computer and plug it in hoping that everything works right. They see windows media player and msn messenger and think thats all there is. Obviously people who use computers on a daily basis like most of us, know there are other options...but the average end-user does not. This, I think, is the biggest anti-trust/monopolizing factor. M$ is not giving there competition enough breathing room.

[λ]

Originally posted by jsites
if they don't want to use Windows Media Player, THAN DON'T USE IT!!!! Personally i use iTunes to play music, WinDVD to watch DVD movies, and whatever media player is required for video clips, whether it is Windows Media Player, Quicktime, Real, ECT.

this is the same thing as problems with people complaining about internet explorer. if you don't want to use it, then find an alternative program that does the same thing. i use IE because even though everyone seems to be raving about Mozilla, i've used it, and i'm not impressed. the only good feature i see in Mozilla that makes it worth using is Tabbed browsing, but i can live without that.

all of these goverments are punishing microsoft just because they know that they have the money. it's a shame that because a company is so successful as microsoft that everyone only sees dollar signs and figure they will sue them because of their success.


*end of ranting and raving*

Oh for the love of god.

Think about it.

If M$ start delivering a media player with windoze that supports pretty much only one format, and only rips to that format, then all the grannies and non-knowledgeable people will start using it.

Gradually, there will be more and more of .wma's, and people won't see any need to get a new media player. Result: Microsoft now have a monopoly on the audio market as well.

If you think I'm spouting a load of B$, take a look at the browser market. Which browser is used by 95% of people, despite the fact there are much better alternatives? :sure:

and if you think IE is great, you've obviously never tried to make a standards-based web page, or tried using online banking securely and safely, and you don't give a da.mn about security.

[kirupa]

This is probably one of the worst rulings ever. Now I see why the UK didn't want to join the EU :)

Seriously, what's wrong with Media Player bundled with XP? It doesn't play real files, it doesn't play quicktime files, etc. If people want to play their precious RealMedia files they will have to download the realPlayer.

It's not as if removing the mediaplayer won't solve any major issue.


If M$ start delivering a media player with windoze that supports pretty much only one format, and only rips to that format, then all the grannies and non-knowledgeable people will start using it.
It's called ease of use. Why should MS be forced to bundle programs from other competitors in its products? And is the Media Player really a bad program? In my opinion no. Apple's iTunes software is bundled with OSX, and iTunes is the most popular online music portal. Isn't it just as evil for Apple to have iTunes come bundled with their OS? It's the same thing MS is doing. Bundling WMP with their versions of Windows.

Also about the 95% market share, if people want to use a better browser, they are free to. It's not as if MS will prevent you from installing Mozilla or Firefox. It's all about choices and consumers have the choice to install various applications. I still use IE not because I dislike Mozilla or Firefox, but I find IE does what it is designed to do - help me to browse the web.

Like someone else mentioned, if you don't like MS products, don't use it. There are 3rd party alternatives out there, and go ahead and use them instead.

This is just another example of a ruling body taking a protectionist measure as opposed to kicking all of the grossly incompetent companies making inferior products in the gut and tell them to either innovate or leave the market :)

The world isn't fair, and capitalism isn't either. But in the end, the superior product wins out. Just because WMP is bundled with Windows does not mean that everybody uses WMP. If they do, it's because they aren't having any major problems with their software.

Microsoft is good at one thing - listening to consumers and giving them what they want. It's simple marketing such as that that has made them one of the best examples of a strong, capitalist company.

If all of the companies decide that fighting innovation and taking a legal route like Netscape/RealNetworks/etc. have taken, they will find themselves out of business in the long run. As the great prophet Agent Smith said, "It is the sound of inevitability."

In summary, to expand on what Bill says, if you can't beat your competitor, find a local protectionist lobbying group to fight on your behalf, and hope that stopping MS will miraculously make people use your products.

Not having WMP in Windows will only cause people to not be able to play media files. It's not as if they will suddenly go, "Oh - I don't have WMP", let me download realPlayer and use that instead ;)

Cheers!
Kirupa :cap:

[ya3]

Isn't it just as evil for Apple to have iTunes come bundled with their OS? It's the same thing MS is doing. Bundling WMP with their versions of Windows.

It's different. WMP only encodes to WMA format, whereas iTunes encodes to MP3.

Also, you can get both programs on both platforms... so why not just have WMP installed to play WMA audio? I personally use WMP 6.4 (old, but quick) and iTunes and that does me fine.

and i mean, if you really wanted to, there are these 'alternative' media player apps like 'Real Player Alternative' etc... search for them on google.

and although i dont really use it, JetAudio plays ALL AUDIO FORMATS (wma, mp3, ra, rm, ram, etc, etc...)

We dont NEED M$, people have just gotten used to it. WHY? one reason: PCs are cheaper; and what OSs can you get for PC? Linux and Windoze.
I really dont see why the world didnt switch to Mac right from the beginning... they're friendly, smart, easy to use and they had a GUI 10x better than Windows3.1 even before M$ released Windows1.0!!!! And did i mention quality? ONE company makes the hardware AND the major software - and its all quality stuff (just look at the bottom panel of a new iMac).
Expensive? not any more. an entry-level eMac costs under US$1000, whereas a top level G5 starts at US$1600.

If i had the available funds, id switch to Mac and be one less person M$ monopolizes.

GIMME MAC!

[kirupa]

Your above post summarizes exactly why only a few people use Macs. It's expensive and one company controls both the hardware and software. Sounds like the old IBM doesn't it? :)

What is so different from MS using WMA and Apple going with MP3? Both are good audio formats, and most music players (w/e iPod - shocking?) play both formats. This ruling is just like the now-defunct Eolas ruling. It serves a few vested interests simply unable to compete based solely on the quality of their products. Sure one is proprietary and one may not be, but if the end result is that both formats play music, the problem is largely a superficial one.

On an unrelated note, is spending almost 2X for a computer that may not support the latest hardware, software, and maybe even games, but get to look at the cool bottom panel worth it? In my opinion no, but that's just me.

This ruling isn't about which OS you prefer, but whether companies are actually allowed to innovate and add newer products within their software packages? The sooner the EU realizes that there is a reason why about 30%+ of the latest Forbes' World's Best 2000 companies are based in the US, they will realize that such protectionist measures don't benefit them economically - either in the past or in the future.

;)

[jsites]

another thing i was thinking about:

what will happen next, Will the EU start telling Microsoft to start removing other applications such as:

Calculator (there are other calculator programs you can download)
Notepad and Wordpad (there are other text editors out there)
Paint (there are other graphic software out there)
Movie Maker (there are other video editing software titles out there)
Games such as solitare
MS Messenger
Windows XP's new ZIP file support (which is by far one of the best improvements to XP, no more using Winzip or WinRAR to compact files or to open compacted files)

now i realize that this might be really going to the extreme, but after a precedent such as having them remove Media Player, what is to stop legal bodies to begin to do this same sort of thing to other embedded windows applications?

[λ]

Originally posted by kirupa
Your above post summarizes exactly why only a few people use Macs. It's expensive and one company controls both the hardware and software. Sounds like the old IBM doesn't it? :)

What is so different from MS using WMA and Apple going with MP3? Both are good audio formats, and most music players (w/e iPod - shocking?) play both formats. This ruling is just like the now-defunct Eolas ruling. It serves a few vested interests simply unable to compete based solely on the quality of their products. Sure one is proprietary and one may not be, but if the end result is that both formats play music, the problem is largely a superficial one.

On an unrelated note, is spending almost 2X for a computer that may not support the latest hardware, software, and maybe even games, but get to look at the cool bottom panel worth it? In my opinion no, but that's just me.

This ruling isn't about which OS you prefer, but whether companies are actually allowed to innovate and add newer products within their software packages? The sooner the EU realizes that there is a reason why about 30%+ of the latest Forbes' World's Best 2000 companies are based in the US, they will realize that such protectionist measures don't benefit them economically - either in the past or in the future.

;)

Open formats are what is different. MP3 = open, look at LAME and other things. I would have thought that iTunes doesn't support wma because you need MS propreitary libraries to support it, and iTunes needs to work on OSX as well. There's no WMA API documentation either.

The ruling also states that Microsoft cannot force PC manufacturers like Dell to bundle one player over the other - in fact, they have to make it advantageous in some way to buy the Windoze without WMP, I believe.

The slashdot post at http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/03/24/139202.shtml?tid=109&tid=123&tid=187&tid=98&tid=99 has some good comments on this topic - there are many people there who are significantly better than me at explaining things there ;)

[kirupa]

Well, in my opinion, it's not for the courts to decide what should or should not go into a product made by a non-government owned company. Most people who know anything about computers probably use other alternative programs that are beyond the default windows ones. If people didn't like WMP, they won't use it - simple as that.

Anyway, it is estimated the appeals process will last until 2009 or so. So it's all good for the free trade types :thumb:

And I always thought that IE was a bigger problem for the EU.

Cheers!
Kirupa :alien2:

[mlkedave]

i agree with kirupa, but i will share my opinion that was not already covered by him.

First off, i know u guys think Steve Jobbs and the rest of Apple are not "greedy" like you believe Microsoft to be, but here is a news flash, THEY ARE. The only thing is if they had the same tactics that MS has they would just fall over and die because well, lets face it, they just aren't as practical. They don't have as much compatible software and hardware. You might say they are more secure but I promise u that if they had as big the portion of computers, there would be just as many hacks. I mean if i was a hacker, i wouldn't want to screw up 2% or whatever small percent. I would want to screw up 95%.

When I said if they had the same tactics I mean this. They can't have the competitive (not greedy) approach that MS has. I agree that at times it might seem unfair, but thats every business dealing. Mac has to go for the "we use the kinda open-source unix with our OS :) " or the whole Steve Jobbs only gets paid 1 dollar!!!! Yes I know you guys realize that is just plain stupid but I know a lot of people that don't feel he is as "greedy" when in actuallity Bill Gates has donated BILLIONs of dollars.

Basically, i am just trying to say that they are just as competitive as Apple, they just have more success and with that a FAR greater size. This limits them at times but competition is basically the only thing that powers innovation. I mean why wouldn't MS bundle its software? Any opinions?

Mike

I mean can't u guys see, Apple markets to the guys who are either willing to substitue quality to fight the coporate powerhouse known as MS or who think the buttons are 'cuter'. Please don't think i bash Apple just to bash it, it just isn't as practival.

[Maizoon]

I mean can't u guys see, Apple markets to the guys who are either willing to substitue quality to fight the coporate powerhouse known as MS or who think the buttons are 'cuter'. Please don't think i bash Apple just to bash it, it just isn't as practival.

I don't know...Apple has always catered to the multimedia department. I've never used one so I really have no basis for argument here...but almost every article I read about music producers or video editors, and even friends of mine who belong in these categories...use Mac's because they deliver results better/faster than the competition.


what will happen next, Will the EU start telling Microsoft to start removing other applications such as:
Calculator (there are other calculator programs you can download)
Notepad and Wordpad (there are other text editors out there)
Paint (there are other graphic software out there)

The problem lies not with the bundled software, but with the format. If M$ bundled a text editor that saved files in a format that could only be open/read by that editor then I think the EU and maybe even the US would have a problem with it. As it stands now the media player is the only target because its the only thing (save a small handful of 3rd party software) that will play .wma or .mwv. Lets say that IE read standard html as well as a new M$ standard MHTML or something. Then there would be a problem. None of M$'s other bundled software, at least to my knowledge, falls within this category.


Most people who know anything about computers probably use other alternative programs that are beyond the default windows ones.

Thats all fine and dandy, but most computer users don't know anything about them. I said in an earlier post, most people buy em, plug em in, and hope they work. They don't know there are any other options. I think this (same with the US anti-trust case) has alot to do with not giving your competition a fair chance. Granted life isn't fair so why should the business world be fair? Answer...because competition breeds innovation. Can you imagine if there were only one automaker or one cell phone manufacturer? The reason we have such nifty products is because of competition. The guy across town making the same type of thing you do...only better and for cheaper. Kind of forces you to make it better and cheaper otherwise you'd go out of business. M$ does not care for competition or they would ship there software with things like browser and media player installation optional (like there games and even outlook already are). I don't hate M$ (3 of my 5 machines here at home run xp pro), I'm just saying that there business tactics are a little sketchy. Kind of like a starbucks on every corner.

[kirupa]

True, but the thing that bugs me is though, if in the new WMP-free Windows, if an average user were to double click on an AVI file, nothing would happen. I am certain that MS isn't going to recommend users to install a 3rd party application. They may as well simply say "download Windows Media Player" and the EU is back where it started from, and MS still gets users who aren't very computer savvy to use the WMP.

I wouldn't mind if MS were to include Real player or other 3rd party apps with XP.

:cap:

[λ]

Originally posted by kirupa
True, but the thing that bugs me is though, if in the new WMP-free Windows, if an average user were to double click on an AVI file, nothing would happen. I am certain that MS isn't going to recommend users to install a 3rd party application. They may as well simply say "download Windows Media Player" and the EU is back where it started from, and MS still gets users who aren't very computer savvy to use the WMP.

I wouldn't mind if MS were to include Real player or other 3rd party apps with XP.

:cap:

It's more up to the companies like Dell. They'll still bundle a media player, but now they're free to choose.

M$ has a history of forcing companies like Dell to use their software - they charge obscene amounts of money for Windoze if the company stops using Microsoft products.

For example, if Dell wanted to use this new WMP-free Windoze in Europe, then they'd just bundle RealPlayer with it(for instance) instead. Microsoft, before this ruling, would then start charging Dell $500 for Windoze, pushing Dell out of the PC market. Now, they have to charge equal prices for both Windows, so its more fair.

[T-O]

This is literally pocket change to microsoft.

yep.. it's a mir 1% of there total

[porpous2]

yep.. it's a mir 1% of there total


Lol, i dont think its even 1% :)

[minimalistik]

too bad

[Lost]

So what about all the other applications that windows runs, that can only view certain extentions? Can I create a company and sue them for that?

Oh! And Im not sure when it happened but did you know a guy named I believe:

Mike Rowsoft (somthing like that)

had a .com ----> www.mikerowsoft.com

microsoft found out and PAID the guy not to use that domain, ROFL.

[minimalistik]

Oh! And Im not sure when it happened but did you know a guy named I believe:

Mike Rowsoft (somthing like that)

had a .com ----> www.mikerowsoft.com

microsoft found out and PAID the guy not to use that domain, ROFL.


we all knew about that a while ago :)

[λ]

So what about all the other applications that windows runs, that can only view certain extentions? Can I create a company and sue them for that?

Oh! And Im not sure when it happened but did you know a guy named I believe:

Mike Rowsoft (somthing like that)

had a .com ----> www.mikerowsoft.com

microsoft found out and PAID the guy not to use that domain, ROFL.

It's more a problem with proprietary formats. WMP use the .wma/.wmv formats, which are pretty hard to decode without the use of API docs (it's not possible to use legally under Linux atm... not that that particulary stopped me tho ;)).

You people that like both microsoft and google just wait to see what methods Microsoft will use in the search engine war to destroy google.. they'll start integrating M$ search into the OS to make 'people's lives easier' and all of a sudden Google will lose a massive amount of business...

[pete]

i did not read all of your comments :)
just read 'til kirupa's opinion, which i can just agree !!
i use wmp not because its the best but it is enough for my needs.
i also use the Quick Time player. once i also had real player but what i really hate is that quick time and real player(the free version for sure) always starts when windows starts and you have to turn it up in msconfig. :(
in the free versions there is also a lot of ads
but 497 million euros is too much for such an ace.
by the way, billy is'nt the richest man in the world :) because of the low dollar.

i nearly forgot that wmp doesnt have an implemented dvd player!!!! you have to buy or to download a free version. wmp just uses then the libraries

[kirupa]

Hey Pete,
I think the Ikea story was refuted by Ikea themselves. Check out my last post on this thread: http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52601&page=3&highlight=ikea

:)