I am so sick of hearing about this antitrust crap.
I'm sick of antitrust behaviour, myself.
MS can't make anybody use the damned thing if they don't want
to, who cares if it is installed.
Like Conrad Lorenz's goslings, new users will bond with the first
thing they see and typically can't be budged from that thereafter,
until they have progressed far from newbie-hood. That can take a week
or few for tech-orientated types to a lifetime for some. Average that
to, say, a year, and that's a year of market denied to competitors.
And MS definitely leverages thier applets of choice into your face:
- read-only icons on desktop, QuickLaunch etc.
- grabbing of file associations
- re-inflicting the above when installing the larger patches
The last is ironic, as basically they are leveraging the product
defects that required you to patch in order to push for market share
all over agian. Example; you have to upgrade IE using the "full"
option to be sure all defects are fixed. You have deleted all
in-your-face icons to WMP and OE, and use Eudora and Winamp instead.
Does the installer:
1) Notice your choices, so does not re-create the icons you deleted?
2) Repopulate the UI with those in-your-face icons again?
And what happens if the user clicks one of the icons? The appliet
immediately goes about making itself the default app, importing mail,
etc. Not all users are aware that mail imported into OE is still
there in their old app, or that they can still use their old app. A
couple of mail gulps later, and all the mail is in OE while only some
of the mail is in the other app. Not so easy to go back.
If the user knows he doesn't want to switch, he may want to delete
those extra in-your-face icons. When he tries to do so, he'll be hit
with intimidating "read-only file' messages.
Imagine if every program you installed plonked icons on the desktop
without asking first - what would your desktop end up looking like?
And if it's not OK for all apps to do this, why is it OK for MS?
Other necessary applets don't get this star treatment; sometimes they
aren't even installed. Why would a home user need a backup program?
MS is also very selective about what they allow OEMs to rip out of the
OS. Just a license, with no installation CD? That's fine. An
"instant recovery CD" that denies the user the right to custom-install
the OS? Why not; hey, maybe it will cut piracy. Integrate Netscape,
Eudora, Winamp instead of IE, OE, WMP? Hold it right there, pal.
Let the so-called competition write their own OS
Why should they? They are application vendors, not OS programmers,
and there is (or should be) a difference. Should every manufacturer
of consumer electronics be compelled to enter the utility business, so
that they can make the electricity to power their goods?
Should software only be created by large corporations with massive
resources? We'd still be begging time on mainframes if that were the
case. Several classes of software owe their existence to visionary
startups; once upon a time, MS were one of those.
Another thing I hear the EU wants is for MS to release technical
information allowing other software writers to interface better with
Windows.
But really, does a company have to release information like that?
Well, yes; it does, if it's an OS company - and nomally, market
dynamics would encourage that.
What is an OS? A platform for running programs.
What helps an OS grow into a great platform? Lots of vendors writing
software for it.
What makes great applications? Application programmers with a strong
working knowledge of the OS.
How does an OS vendor attract developers to write swaere for it? By
providing good documentation.
Why would an OS vendor want to do that? To grow market share against
OS competitors.
See the problem? Because MS is an OS monopolist that also wears the
"application vendor" hat, the normal market forces are subverted.
Instead of being written primarily to support a wide range of
application software equally, it becomes floorboards for Office.
Well, think about that. Punishments are imposed to modify the
offender's behaviour. If the offender's behaviour remains unmodified,
then harsher punishments are required.
Current MS behaviour regarding WMP (and IE, and OE) is pretty much
unmodified since the DoJ conviced MS over the IE bundling thing.
What I'd want to know is; who gets the money?
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The most accurate diagnostic instrument
in medicine is the Retrospectoscope
