Windows 7 minus IE

[LazyLion]

Well I support their actions.

as is your right, but see where it has ended up. Instead of solving anything it just made life a tad more confusing for millions of people. You are OK, cos you know what you are doing. But the little Granny in Ipswitch who buys a computer to "get the internet", suddenly realizes that this new-fangled computer doesn't come with "the internet".

 

[Happy_Chap]

Browser software (including IE) could come on a driver cd included with the purchase of a new pc. It is therefore up to the consumer to choose. As was mentioned by somone earlier, there are relatively better browsers out there, why not push developers to improve through a bit of competition? The EU does not sue for selfish monetary reasons, but instead discourages monopolistic behaviour (also seen with the EU vs Intel, charged for violating antitrust legislation).

Windows already dominates the global PC market effectively forcing many software companies to produce software for the Windows platform. If Microsoft continues to dominate the OS market, it's only fair to allow software companies a chance to develop their own competitive applications to rival Microsoft's.

 

[PeterCH]

Yeah!

Wordpad - destroys lotus123, open office, and wordperfect!
Notepad - utra edit, notepad2, edit!
MS Games... OMG, they are destorying the games market!
Paint... ish, amazed gimp/photoshop etc etc arent suing either!
And windows explorer ... takes away those file explorers? when last did you see a file explorer other than Window Explorer? see? pushed em out of business sue sue sue!
Desktop themes? that start bar is crushing taskbar makers... OMG, the mouse pointer isn't made by a mouse pointer making company, MS killed them off too!!!

HOLY **** ... just realised that Windows has it's own clock on the taskbar... WTF MS... there goes BILLIONS, Zimbabwe was the major clock makers for OS... this is why the currency collapsed!!!


... what were we talking about again

MS markets IE as a fully featured browser, so people use it. If IE was like MS Paint (compared to PhotoShop), everything would be OK, people would use it to download a real browser.

 

[d0b33]

He doesn't have to. The OEM or someone else will put an icon on his desktop "Install browser" and that will point either to an installer of FF, Opera, Chrome, Safari or IE (or more than one) on his hard drive. MS doesn't bundle AV, DVD burners, Trusted Computing applets, Recovery software, special drivers and control panels for controlling things like your WiFi or BlueTooth; yet these things magically appear in the recovery image and on the installation you get from the shop and are included on additional CDs.

what's stopping them from doing it now? they can still bundle browsers, this EU rule is just silly.

 

[chiskop]

what's stopping them from doing it now? they can still bundle browsers, this EU rule is just silly.

The EU wanted them to bundle browsers - this was Microsoft's solution.

 

[killadoob]

Why are they forcing microsoft to try other alternatives, is that not promoting anti competitiveness

They are doing to microsoft what they are accusing them of doing or am i wrong?

 

[diabolus]

The EU wanted them to bundle browsers - this was Microsoft's solution.

Heh, if you followed all the utter CRAP the EU has thrown at Microsoft the last like 10 years, one anti-trust suit after another then i'd also tell them to go shove it. Geez, why don't the freaking EU write their own OS if they're so clever and bundle all their browsers themselves! Including every browser will most probably cost Microsoft extra money, extra support pains and whatnot...i'd only do it if the EU paid for it. I mean, for crying out loud, who's the EU to dictate what Microsoft puts on their discs, especially if they're suing the living crap out of them for ADDING and BUNDLING stuff? I say the EU deserves exactly this, they want to have their cake AND eat it.

The EU competition commission has certainly not forgotten the Windows N debacle, when they managed to force Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without a media player only to see all OEMs ship the versions with the media player included.

Watch, exactly the same is going to happen. OEM is gonna ship the fancy "free" disc that will come nicely packaged in the same box and happens to contain IE.

Here's an interesting article and i agree with Microsoft's Logic here. :

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/fe...-vs-the-EU-When-Antitrust-is-Anti-Competitive

In this obsolete antitrust war, Microsoft's argument has always been correct, and has in fact been proved in the market. The Microsoft position has been that Windows does not represent a proper monopoly because any user can re-format their PC and install a competitor -- or can simply choose an alternative system, such as an Apple system running Mac OS X. Further, Microsoft has argued, the ease of installing an alternative browser greatly diminishes the advantage of bundling.

Microsoft has claimed that as soon as someone offered a superior OS or a superior browser, Microsoft would lose market share. And this is exactly what has taken place.

As this chart shows, people are choosing Firefox, Safari and Chrome over the bundled IE at ever-increasing rates. Current trends will make IE the number-two browser (after Firefox) in two or three years. More importantly, bundling has not enabled Microsoft to unfairly block competitors from eating its market share. Just like Microsoft said.

 

[chiskop]

Why are they forcing microsoft to try other alternatives, is that not promoting anti competitiveness

They are doing to microsoft what they are accusing them of doing or am i wrong?

Yes, you are wrong.

 

[PeterCH]

why don't the freaking EU write their own OS if they're so clever and bundle all their browsers themselves!

Yeah, MS can pull out of Europe. Why don't they? It's in MS interest to comply, or they can f-off out of Europe and stop peddling their rubbish operating systems in Europe. Linux (in various distros) and Mac OSX will step in.

As for economic losses and costs, the MS monopoly has cost the consumer a lot of money. There is a very detailed report by the EC.
Read it here:
http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf

Exerpt:

"I have decided that we should not publish these [Windows 95 user interface]
extensions. We should wait until we have a way to do a high level of integration
that will be harder for likes of Notes, WordPerfect to achieve, and which will give
Office a real advantage…. We can't compete with Lotus and WordPerfect/Novell
without this.”
—Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and then-CEO"

Oh and BTW MS destroyed a lot of American companies, they primarily destroyed US companies. This isn't a US vs Europe thing.

 

[chiskop]

Heh, if you followed all the utter CRAP the EU has thrown at Microsoft the last like 10 years, one anti-trust suit after another then i'd also tell them to go shove it.

Yes, I have followed it. The reason for the continued anti-trust suits is due to MS's continued anti-competitive behaviour.

Geez, why don't the freaking EU write their own OS if they're so clever and bundle all their browsers themselves!

The EU is not in the business of designing software, but of regulating their market.

Why are they forcing microsoft to try other alternatives, is that not promoting anti competitiveness

They are doing to microsoft what they are accusing them of doing or am i wrong?

Okay, to expand on my previous answer - I'm not sure how including multiple browsers, through whatever mechanism, is uncompetitive?

 

[ponder]

&#@! there are some stupid people on this planet.

The problem with the internet is that it gave every moron a soapbox to propagate their drivel.

 

[chiskop]

&#@! there are some stupid people on this planet.

The problem with the internet is that it gave every moron a soapbox to propagate their drivel.

You'll have to give us some clues as to whether you support the EU or Microsoft.

At the moment, I'm not sure whether to applaud your insight or denounce your fanboi-ism.

 

[ponder]

You'll have to give us some clues as to whether you support the EU or Microsoft.

At the moment, I'm not sure whether to applaud your insight or denounce your fanboi-ism.

I have nothing against windows but Microsofts business ethics over the years have left me cold. Hope that answers your question

 

[killadoob]

I love windows but not a fan of microsoft but still think this is stupid.

 

[Tassidar]

&#@! there are some stupid people on this planet.

The problem with the internet is that it gave every moron a soapbox to propagate their drivel.

QED

 

[Tassidar]

Yup, that's the way you do it in Linux.

That's the reason people use widows over Linux ...

Cr*p. It's actually much easier to install software in linux than windows.

Some clues:
Add / Remove applications in Ubuntu
Synaptic Package Manager
sudo apt-get install firefox

 

[bekdik]

In your effort to defend anti-competitive behaviour you've missed the point. It isn't about the capability of any browser, but rather about choice.

ATM MS doesn't want you to use another browser and makes it difficult for you to do so.

Now you have me confused. By removing IE, the user will have to download a browser. If the user is capable of downloading a browser when none is installed, why can't they download a browser when IE is installed?

Many posters to MBB indicate that they are running multiple browsers on Windows systems, so obviously Microsoft is not doing anything to make it difficult to install any browser capable of running on Windows.

So why do you say

ATM MS doesn't want you to use another browser and makes it difficult for you to do so

 

[LazyLion]

Now you have me confused. By removing IE, the user will have to download a browser. If the user is capable of downloading a browser when none is installed, why can't they download a browser when IE is installed?

Many posters to MBB indicate that they are running multiple browsers on Windows systems, so obviously Microsoft is not doing anything to make it difficult to install any browser capable of running on Windows.

Exactly +1 ... well put. It shows that the whole EU thing was just sour grapes.

They could have ruled that every PC maker in the EU had to set the computer's start page to a website which offered every other browser under the sun.

 

[apogeeza]

You probably find someone's eventually going to bitch that Microsoft bundles MS Word with its own spell checker.

Ever wondered why MS say Google is their biggest competitor? (this is years back, remmeber.)

Because browsers are middleware. Spellcheckers aren't. MS are incredbily threatened by middleware producers that it can't control ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleware )

MS years back recognised the threat Netscape posed to it's aim to dominate the business market (at the time MS was transitioning from home-user into business) and because Netscape would not play ball and let MS dictate to them what they can and cannot do with their own software... MS retalliated by re-inventing the "embrace, extend, extinguish" model to monopolise the browser.

MS have always been a late-starter. They buy their market, and what can't be bought is bullied, what can't be bought or bullied is squashed (R.I.P. Netscape)

It's too little too late. The damage MS have wreaked can't be erradicated with a simple gesture to remove IE from Win7.

Like all things, they have multiple back-up strategies:

- I can see them placing the install_ie8.exe on the desktop

- If they're not allowed to do that, I see them putting install_ie8.exe on a CD that comes with the PC and a document on the desktop "How do I connect to the Internet?.rtf" and inside it says put that CD in, it will auto-run...<snip>

- if that not be allowed either, then inside the doc on the desktop it says something like: "Click Start>run type: cmd hit <enter> then download IE8 by entering this line of code ... " <snip>

MS will not make it easy for one of the most important bits of middleware the PC has ever known to slip from it's grasp. They will continue to put pressure on Dell and HP and others to NOT add the installs to other browsers in their OEM packs. They will do their level best to get IE8 installed as the first browser ... and we all know: most users once they have a browser, who needs another, or a better, because necessity is out the window so choice at that point is of little relevance.

I hope your little spell-checker can revolutionise the planet the way the browser has.

 

[PeterCH]

Exactly +1 ... well put. It shows that the whole EU thing was just sour grapes.

They could have ruled that every PC maker in the EU had to set the computer's start page to a website which offered every other browser under the sun.

It's human psychology. Most people are happy with the run of the mill standard item they're supplied with. Hence if they already have a browser, "WHY bother to get a second one? Won't it be confusing? Won't the fight over which one must start? Won't it destroy their PC? Won't it take up too much space?"

The EC originally wanted MS to allow multiple browser installs. I know it's not the best solution, but it's better than letting MS get away with what it was doing, short of breaking MS up or kicking them out of the EU. EC's action against MS is proceeding and possibly MS will be forced to allow for a multi browser install wizard OR may have to donate money to OEMs to allow them to create such code for users' PCs.