<OT> A bad day in Redmond

[Joel Hammer]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 07:56:08PM -0400, Jerry McBride wrote:
> On Monday 17 September 2007 07:06:52 pm Joel Hammer wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 09:04:16AM -0700, Tony Alfrey wrote:
> > > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/technology/17cnd-soft.html
> > >
> > > Seems the Europeans are not happy with Friends of Bill (no, not the guy
> > > from Arkansas).
> >

If you read the news stories, both in the Wall Street
Journal and the NY Times, this decision is not really
welcome news for a number of big companies who have built
up dominant positions in their industries, including Apple
(left for dead a few years ago), Intel, and Qualcomm.

MS got whacked in part for bundling its media player with
its operating system. Nobody would buy the OS version
without the media player, however, which was free. 

How the EU thinks forcing consumers to pay for and install
a separate media player on their computer helps consumers
is beyond me.

This reminds me of a lawsuit brought by installers of
car radios in the after market. GM starting making nice
stereo systems standard on some cars (or all cars?) They
got sued for limitation of competition, or something. I
forget how the suit turned out. GM didn't control 95%
of the auto market. I never could figure why anybody
thought a car stereo system was not as intrinsic a part
of a car as the seat or floor coverings or seat cushions,
or anything else not absolutely necessary to make the car
move and stop. How about all those after market installers
of car air conditioners?

Oh well, I guess the Europeans have a lot to teach the
world about competition. Meanwhile, the EU divides up the
2 billion dollar fine among its members. Nice payday for
the EU.

Actually, as someone who hasn't given MS a penny since
I bought my wife a windows laptop about 5 years ago, and
only uses Linux computers unless forced to use windows at
work, I think MS got a bad deal. The stockholders of MS
will actually be transferring 2 billion of their assets
to the EU. Bill Gates won't notice.

Joel