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Microsoft’s resounding defeat in a European antitrust case establishes welcome principles that should be adopted in the United States as guideposts for the future development of the information economy.
The court agreed with European regulators that Microsoft had abused its operating system monopoly by incorporating its Media Player, which plays music and films, into Windows. That shut out rivals, like RealPlayer. The decision sets a sound precedent that companies may not leverage their dominance in one market (the operating system) to extend it into new ones (the player).
The court also agreed that Microsoft should provide rival software companies the information they need to make their products work with Microsoft’s server software. That establishes the welcome principle of interoperability, which should spur innovation in the future.
Microsoft’s near-monopoly can hurt consumers in two big ways: allowing the company to charge more for its software and potentially stifling innovation by rivals, who might stay out of a market from fear of being demolished by the dominant player. Microsoft should not be allowed to use the bundling of its products to bury RealPlayer and other companies, just as it was convicted of doing to Netscape’s Navigator.
In applying these principles, of course, regulators must be careful not to stifle innovation — including innovation by market-dominating forces like Microsoft. The principles contained in the European court decision should not be used to hamstring Microsoft and other big technology firms from simply adding features to their software, because that would harm consumers, too.
The court’s decision is likely to have a profound impact on technology industries, emboldening European regulators in antitrust fights against other companies, including Apple, over its dominance of the music download market, and Intel, over its virtual control over the microchip industry. Continue At Source
I wonder if it's possible for the NY Times to write an article that isn't supportive of communist and socialist economics...
Nope, not possible. The NY Times has definitely showed its true colors (and by true colors I mean political alignment as opposed to journalistic integrity) as of late.
Regardless, I hope the EU decision results in increased competition and ingenuity all around...
So why doesn't the EU go after Apple for including QuickTime with their own OS?
Gisabun, couldn't agree more. Why couldn't MSFT include a PDF reader in Vista and Office by default when Apple can. If they go after MSFT they then have to go after all the other companies with the same force.
Simply because OSX doesn't have a 92% market share ;)
Yup. Market share. The point of monopoly regulation is to ... regulate monopolies, not the small players like Apple. If Apple ever were to gain a much larger chunk of the market, they would certainly have to change their ways. Otherwise they'd be a bigger abuse of monopolistic power than MSFT has ever been.
If other players can acheive shell integration, preferably with a smaller footprint, great.
But RealPlayer has a nasty history of user tracking. So they don't make my top 10, either.
I read these comments with hopes that someone would state exactly what you all have stated - why MSFT? A world-leading contributor not only to software and (dare I say it) hardware development but to the earth and society in general (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).
I say be consistant and fair, or else MSFT should pull out of EU and then watch the EU "Regulators" cry when they have no more Windows.
All I can say is Thank God they destroyed RealPlayer.
But really, how far is this regulation going to go. Are they doing to go after Microsoft because "Disk Manager" does some of the things that PartitionMagic can do. Maybe Texas-Instrument's will beo pissed off because windows comes with calc.exe and that's cutting into their TI-83 sales.
Enough regulation already, at this point their essentially saying that Microsoft Windows has to be a plane OS with NOTHING included. So much for improvement and innovation, wouldn't want to step on someone else's toes.
The EU has obviously found a goldmine in Microsoft. Such a BS decision. RealPlayer shut itself out by making such intrusive crapware. I think it would just hilarious to see MS pull out of EU altogether.