Microsoft fined by European Commission over web browser

[lehnerus2000]

Indeed

Lehenrus, the average man is below average.

One or two geniuses "screw it up" for the rest of us.

 

[Layback Bear]

I must be one of those geniuses because I installed and use FF without any help from the Government. Please don't take me to court.

 

[Layback Bear]

Should have banned all Microsoft products for a number of years!

And replace Microsoft products with what? The free products that have been out there for years. People, companies and industry have already chose to pay for Microsoft product rather than use the free products. If the free products are so great why do companies and people pay for Microsoft products?
The answer is simple; Microsoft products meet their needs better than the free products.

If someone or a company finds a free product or another branded product that cost money that they like better by all means use the product of choice.

 

[jimbo45]

HI there
Just do what FRANCE always does -- France ignores almost anything coming out of the EU unless it benefits FRANCE. For instance Butchers shops are supposed to show all meat in refrigerated counters -- in France the local butchers still often display their meat in the "Old way" -- they don't give two tosses about EU regs. In fact good for the French here -- at least if you display meat like this you know it has to be FRESH and locally sourced unlike what you might get at a huge impersonal super or hyper market.

If Ms just pointed the proverbial two fingers up at the EU what would they do -- Send the Bailiff's around to all Ms's premises and arrest all the staff.

Also I can't understand a lot of the venom against Ms on these Forums -- Ms has HUGE numbers of jobs around the world and Bill Gates created a foundation that gives more to charity than almost anyone else including even rich countries.

(And really are people too stupid or lazy to install whatever browser they like -- surely the EU should have better things to do like try and get the economy moving again in those countries its responsible for).

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Layback Bear]

(And really are people too stupid or lazy to install whatever browser they like -- surely the EU should have better things to do like try and get the economy moving again in those countries its responsible for).

Very well put jimbo.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Google

(And really are people too stupid or lazy to install whatever browser they like -- surely the EU should have better things to do like try and get the economy moving again in those countries its responsible for).

Very well put jimbo.

You're ignoring the fact that Opera (backed/encouraged by Google) complained to the EU, which led to the "investigation".
Other browser companies also joined in.

Do you really think that politicians know what a web browser is?

The result of the investigation was inevitable.
It's similar to when US companies complain to the US Government, that China is dumping products onto the US market.
I don't think you'd be happy if the Government's response was, "Suck it up losers."

Aside:
I wonder if Google "encouraged" Opera to move to WebKit.

 

[whs]

They could fund some of the Linux distro developers.

The EU does give money to the Linux foundations.

 

[lehnerus2000]

More?

They could fund some of the Linux distro developers.

The EU does give money to the Linux foundations.

Maybe they need to give them more.

 

[kado897]

It's nothing new the American government nearly destroyed IBM for bundling the OS with it's hardware in 1969.

 

[whs]

It's nothing new the American government nearly destroyed IBM for bundling the OS with it's hardware in 1969.

Yeah, that was a tough one. I spent nearly half of my professional life on that including the seperate software pricing that followed the agreement with the goverment.

 

[kado897]

I don't think it did any of IBM's competitors any good either Wolfgang. On the whole it was a pointless exercise.

 

[whs]

Well, it was good for IBM because the priced software turned out to be a cash cow. Look at the IBM P&L today - software is one of the major revenue contributers. When I was managing the software business for IBM Europe in the late 80s, the revenue was already over 3 Billion Dollars/year - just in Europe (actually EMEA which was Europe, Middle East and Africa).

 

[kado897]

I guess it had the opposite effect that the legislators wanted then and as usual the customer lost out. I was working with IBM mainframes then. IBM had just about got its act together on software quality in the late 80's.

 

[whs]

Right, quality was a big problem - especially with Vtam. We spent a lot of time to get our arms around quality control. Motorola was one of the leading companies in quality control at the time. many people copied their approach and they were very generous sharing it.

 

[kado897]

It wasn't too good on VSE or PL1 either. The only quality IBM software I used was VM and if I remember correctly IBM didn't really want to sell it originally.

 

[whs]

It wasn't too good on VSE or PL1 either. The only quality IBM software I used was VM and if I remember correctly IBM didn't really want to sell it originally.

Oh ya, we wanted to sell it. But when I was VSE system manager in 85 thru 87, I always had to fight the hardware guys because they wanted the lowest price possible so that they did not have an inhibitor for their hardware sales. That's when I invented the VSE-ES (entry system) which was a shrunk version with less function and a lower price. A stupid exercise, but it had to be done. Maybe you remember that version.

 

[Gary]

The EU is going to Fail.

 

[kado897]

It wasn't too good on VSE or PL1 either. The only quality IBM software I used was VM and if I remember correctly IBM didn't really want to sell it originally.

Oh ya, we wanted to sell it. But when I was VSE system manager in 85 thru 87, I always had to fight the hardware guys because they wanted the lowest price possible so that they did not have an inhibitor for their hardware sales. That's when I invented the VSE-ES (entry system) which was a shrunk version with less function and a lower price. A stupid exercise, but it had to be done. Maybe you remember that version.

No we were using VSE, I think ESA runing under VM at the time. If I remember correctly it was during that period that VSE began to share the same code base as MVS.

 

[whs]

The EU is going to Fail.

What is that supposed to mean.

 

[Night Hawk]

Here we go again.

We fought 2 World Wars in order to remove dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini, but the EU (Merkel, van Rompuy, et al) are no better. Surely there is something more important to do than to continually attack MS over this issue?

It won't get anywhere anyways! MS has been under folly with the EU and other sources a good number of times through the years but is simply "too big" to snuff out! Media Player as well as IE both being bundled in Windows has been a pair of grievances leveled against MS by the EU. EU hands down record $1.35 billion fine against Microsoft