Posts tagged with "antitrust"
Wednesday, 4. November 2009, 11:00:00
ec, antitrust, eu, bill gates
...
Note/update: For those too lazy to read the whole thing, this is about Microsoft's history. It shows their history of consciously anti-competitive behavior. It is aimed at those who have little knowledge of Microsoft's history. To learn more, read this document by ECIS:
A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer HarmIt seems that some people are still doubting that Microsoft has consciously sought to undermine competition by abusing their position in the market. In fact, some are outright denying any wrongdoing on Microsoft's part, and if there was any wrongdoing then it was surely unintentional.
Sadly, such history revisionists are creating confusion about what actually happened, but this quote from a
Bill Gates memo to the Office product group in December 1998 sums up Microsoft's attitude:
One thing we have got to change in our strategy - allowing Office documents to be rendered very well by other peoples browsers is one of the most destructive things we could do to the company.
We have to stop putting any effort into this and make sure that Office documents very well depends on PROPRIETARY IE capabilities.
So as you can see, Microsoft has a
history of anti-competitive behaviour. You can agree or disagree that it is necessary to get the Government involved to deal with antitrust cases (Microsoft itself certainly thinks so, and they have filed their own antitrust complaints, e.g., against Google), but what you cannot deny is Microsoft's attitude and behaviour through the years.
And yes, this has continued even in
recent years.
Wednesday, 12. August 2009, 13:13:23
antitrust, opera, chrome, office
...
It doesn't look like Microsoft is learning from its past mistakes.
Microsoft's "Office Web Apps" will only support IE, Firefox and Safari. This means that they are
leaving out support for Opera and Chrome. This is quite strange considering the antitrust troubles Microsoft has gotten itself into by breaking antitrust laws.
Microsoft is also aiming for using Silverlight, yet another proprietary technology controlled by them.
One would think that Microsoft would be eager to show that they are no longer going to abuse their dominant position in one market to affect a different market, but even with antitrust authorities breathing down their necks, their priorities seem to be a bit off.
These priorities seem to be based on the browser situation in the United States. Europe is quite different, however. While Opera's global market share seems to be around 3%, it could be
approaching 10% in Europe, which is more than Safari and Chrome combined if one is to believe these statistics.
Perhaps if other browser vendors weren't forced to spend so much time on compatibility issues due to IE's dominance, standards support could be taken to a new level. But designing for browsers rather than standards still seems to be the norm. Even though Microsoft in particular should know better.
Do we need another
Opera Bork Edition (and a Chrome Bork Edition while we are at it)?
Thursday, 23. July 2009, 10:02:22
ec, web, plugins, browsers
...
One of the comments on the antitrust complaint against Microsoft I see a lot is: "So what if most people are using IE and aren't aware that there are choices? I'm using Opera/Firefox/Chrome just fine."
Sometimes we may feel that something doesn't really affect us. But does IE's dominance on the Web affect us even though it might not feel that way?
The answer is: Yes, definitely. But the problems with a monoculture on the Web extends beyond browsers! A single point of failure is a bad thing no matter what.
Browser monocultureThe recent
ActiveX security flaws in IE once again show us that a browser monoculture is a bad thing because those looking to infect people's computers will have a single target with a very nice return of investment. And those millions of compromised computers can be used for things like sending spam to the rest of us.
But it goes much further than just IE. One could argue that just about any kind of dominance of the Web is a bad thing.
Read more...
Wednesday, 17. June 2009, 10:10:57
antitrust, crying about poor microsoft, eu, bundling
...
One of the most frequent questions I see about the Microsoft antitrust case in the EU is why Microsoft should have to include competing products in Windows. Is poor Microsoft being hunted by the evil EU with its silly laws that ensure competition in a free market?
Read more...
Monday, 15. June 2009, 19:02:16
antitrust, eu, mississippi, microsoft
One of the most puzzling comments I see out there when reading about the EU antitrust case is when someone claims that there is some sinister conspiracy behind the whole thing. They are saying that Microsoft is actually innocent, and that Opera and the EU got together to squeeze some money out of Microsoft. They are of course forgetting about the other companies that are part of the trial, such as Google and Mozilla, and they are forgetting about Microsoft's previous convictions both in the US and Korea.
Read more...
Sunday, 14. June 2009, 18:59:00
antitrust, eu, microsoft
Wow, I have clearly missed a lot while on vacation for a couple of weeks! Not only did we lauch the beta of Opera 10 and Opera Mobile 9.7, but there are other developmens such as Opera reinventing the Web, and of course Microsoft is up to its regular tricks.
Read more...
Friday, 22. May 2009, 14:56:59
ec, antitrust, eu, microsoft
Microsoft has decided to
cancel a hearing it requested in the current EU antitrust case. According to Microsoft's Dave Heiner, this is because the dates of the hearing coincided with the "International Competition Network" competition law meeting, meaning that "many of the most influential Commission and national competition officials with the greatest interest in our case will be in Zurich and so unable to attend [their] hearing in Brussels".
Microsoft is concerned that this will deny them their right to be heard, and their "rights of defense", despite their admission that the hearing has no legal weight as such.
Read more...
Thursday, 16. April 2009, 12:19:49
ecis, ec, antitrust, eu
...
The
European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), has
joined Opera's antitrust complaint against Microsoft. ECIS members include IBM, Sun, Nokia, Adobe, Oracle, and others. Opera is also a member of ECIS
Read more...
Saturday, 28. February 2009, 13:46:15
antitrust, opera, eu, mozilla
...
According to the
New York Times:
Accusing Microsoft of unfairly sidelining competitors, Google said on Tuesday that it would apply to join a European Union antitrust case against Microsoft over the company’s Web browser.
A couple of weeks ago,
Mozilla joined as well.
Wednesday, 18. February 2009, 13:29:27
antitrust, opera, standards, microsoft
About a year ago, I wrote about how Opera helped in forcing Microsoft to
default to standards mode with IE8. Apparently, it is not that simple. Through
Molly's blog, I found an article about how
IE8 will require opt-in for many sites after all. I'm not sure what to make of this, but it does sound like bad news.
And yes,
Molly Holzschlag has joined Opera! Most of you no doubt know about her and her work in the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the
Web Standards Project (WaSP), and so on, so an introduction probably isn't needed. It's great to get more people on board who can spend time promoting and pushing for open standards.
Wednesday, 11. February 2009, 12:03:35
mozilla, microsoft, opera, antitrust
A few days ago, Mozilla's Mitchell Baker announced that Mozilla
supports the EU antitrust investigation of Microsoft which is based on a complaint from Opera. The reason why couldn't be clearer.
Read more...
Thursday, 29. January 2009, 15:33:19
antitrust, eu, korea, microsoft
Back when the antitrust complaint was first filed, our Open the Web guy David Storey
commented that "Korea is a perfect example of a country that almost solely designs for IE bugs and Active-X".
Read more...
Monday, 19. January 2009, 11:19:27
antitrust, eu, microsoft
Most people are focusing solely on the bundling of IE, while the EC has actually considered another important part of Opera's complaint, namely
Microsoft undermining standards:
In addition, the Commission is concerned that the ubiquity of Internet Explorer creates artificial incentives for content providers and software developers to design websites or software primarily for Internet Explorer which ultimately risks undermining competition and innovation in the provision of services to consumers.
Remember,
Opera forced Microsoft to default to standards mode in IE8, so it is too bad that most people seem to ignore the standards aspect.
Then again, perhaps forcing Microsoft to adhere to standards is less controversial than unbundling IE?
What people need to keep in mind is that Microsoft has abused its monopoly, and as a monopolist one has to follow certain rules that other companies don't have to follow. Microsoft did not follow those rules, and by not doing so, they broke the law.
Opera Software did not sue Microsoft. Opera Software reported to the EC that Microsoft seemed to be breaking the law, and the EC agreed.
Breaking the law has consequences whether you agree with the law or not.
Saturday, 17. January 2009, 21:49:51
antitrust, microsoft, eu
I notice that a lot of people people are wondering how they are going to be able to install a browser if IE is removed from Windows by default. This is a good question, but the answer is fairly straightforward.
If I am not mistaken, most Windows installations are not direct Windows purchases, but rather OEM versions preinstalled on new computers. In other words, the vast majority of Windows installations will come with the OEM's browser of choice, rather than Microsoft forcing all OEMs to stick with IE as they have been doing.
Then there's perhaps a smaller group which will install Windows manually. There are several possible solutions for this group, such as offering a way to download any browser through some kind of portal the first time you connect to the internet (most Linux distributions have package managers, so why not Windows?), supplying separate disks containing the browser(s), and so on.
For the vast majority of people, I don't see that this will become a problem since they will simply use the browser the OEM decided to bundle. And with antitrust regulators breathing down Microsoft's neck they won't be able to force OEMs to bundle IE anymore.
Saturday, 17. January 2009, 11:23:45
microsoft, eu, antitrust
CNN:European antitrust regulators have told Microsoft Corp. that the company's practice of including its Internet browser with its popular Windows operating system violates European competition law
The EC:In the SO, the Commission sets out evidence and outlines its preliminary conclusion that Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.
It's been more than a year since Opera Software's antitrust complaint to the European Commission:
These articles answered a few questions and made the case for unbundling IE, which is exactly what the EU might be considering.
While the browser market is heating up, IE is still holding everyone back, and we have to spend far too much time creating workarounds for IE's bugs and non-standard behaviour.
Last year, Opera's antitrust complaint
forced Microsoft to default to standards mode in IE8.
Tuesday, 4. March 2008, 19:39:54
microsoft, opera, antitrust, eu
This is a
great day for open standards. Microsoft has changed its mind regarding the default mode in IE8.
And while this is a huge win for the internet community, it is also a vindication for an small browser company in Norway, which, at times, faced harsh criticism for
getting the authorities involved in order to enforce open Web standards.
Read more...
Tuesday, 4. March 2008, 13:07:54
antitrust, ie8, standards
It looks like Microsoft has changed its mind regarding
standards in IE8:
We've decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we've posted previously.
This clearly shows how important it is to
keep up the pressure on Microsoft to finally deliver on its promises.
Some may be wondering if this changes anything about Opera's antitrust complaint, but the bottom line is that the massive focus on open standards lately might be bearing fruit. If Microsoft does deliver a browser which is standards compliant by default, this is great news indeed! And at least now, we will have the EU keeping an eye on Microsoft, and giving it real incentive to follow up its promises for once.
Monday, 25. February 2008, 09:41:17
browsers, microsoft, standards, ie8
...
Microsoft's mantra for IE8 basically being IE7 (or not using the new standards compliant mode) by default is
"don't break the Web". It is interesting, then, that Microsoft does exactly that with the
new useragent string for IE8.
Read more...
Wednesday, 23. January 2008, 20:32:49
antitrust, zeldman, opera, standards
...
In his blog, Jeffrey Zeldman
defends version targeting. As most people probably know by now, there is a proposal out there which involves IE8 basically requiring that you opt-in to its standards compliance. Needless to say, most people think this is
a really,
really bad idea. Apart from Zeldman's attempt at dismissing criticism as "ingrained dislike of Microsoft", something else really caught my eye.
Read more...
Wednesday, 23. January 2008, 14:25:40
antitrust, glazman, opera, standards
...
"
Hilarious", meet "
reality". Bork bork bork
indeed.
1 2 Next »
Showing posts 1 -
20 of 24.
WIDGETIZE