European Decision on Microsoft

[Radical Edward]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3432735.stm

 

It looks like Europe is going to fine Microsoft alot of money (no doubt because the European economy needs it, and all that money would be much appreciated by them freeloading french farmers, but hey.. I'm a cynic)

 

The thing I wonder though, is that they comment on competition from people like apple and Real Networks... but hld on, who the hell actually wants RealPlayer? I am no big fan of mocrosoft at the best of times, but RealPlayer is EVIL.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

DEFINITELY! I hate real player... and Macs.... and lots of other comuter related items.

[JaKiri]

It's an idiotic ruling.

[LuTze]

Care to elaborate?

[JaKiri]

LuTze said in post # :

Care to elaborate?

 

WMP is free. It's also superior to the pay products Quicktime and RealPlayer.

 

We had another version of this a while ago when people were complaining that iTunes were anticompetitive.

[LuTze]

Both Quicktime and Realplayer are free....

 

The problem is MS bundled WMP with windows, in an attempt to wipe out the competition. Had they not done this, and just had it as a free download there wouldn't have been a problem.

[Cheetah]

Correct. I for one would love more diversity among media players, which would probably lead to more intercompatibility among the different players and their formats.

[Sayonara]

Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it.

 

It's not really the same as their "explorer is integral" claims.

[JaKiri]

LuTze said in post # :

Both Quicktime and Realplayer are free....

 

They try really really hard to stop you finding the free one on the RP site.

 

I gave up and downloaded a .rm codec for WMP.

 

Furthermore, assuming you're correct (which you're not) in your statement that they're all free, how is supplying one free MP, thereby dissauding people from downloading another free MP anticompetetive? It's not like anyone's making any money out of it.

 

Oh, and it doesn't really address the problem that people generally don't use QT or RP because they're rubbish

[JaKiri]

Cheetah said in post # :

Correct. I for one would love more diversity among media players, which would probably lead to more intercompatibility among the different players and their formats.

 

You can get codecs for everything to run on WMP, and things like PowerDVD run most things anyway.

 

And I don't see how there's a problem with intercompatability; the only vaguely nonuniversal (anything that can be run using winamp v2 (2.91 to be precise) isn't counted as restricted) video media are Quicktime and Realplayer formats.

[LuTze]

MrL_JaKiri said in post # :

assuming you're correct (which you're not) in your statement that they're all free

Yes, I am.

 

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/

 

http://www.real.com/player/index.html?src=downloadr (Free RealPlayer link in the top right of the page)

 

It's more to do with the formats than the players themselves. Microsoft wants it's WMP codecs to be the defacto standard, and they're using thier monopoly on desktop systems to achive that.

 

 

Sayonara³ said:

It's not really the same as their "explorer is integral" claims.

It's exactly the same as the IE thing. They also claimed WMP is 'integral'. They're using a monopoly to get rid of the competition.

[Sayonara]

The IE thing was not obviously a lie though, was it.

[LuTze]

MrL_JaKiri said in post # :

the only vaguely nonuniversal (anything that can be run using winamp v2 (2.91 to be precise) isn't counted as restricted) video media are Quicktime and Realplayer formats.

WMP Codecs are Microsoft proprietory, just like Quicktime is Apple and Real is, uh, Real. WMP 9 includes DRM componants - so if you buy music from one of the new WMP online stores, or rip a CD and don't change the defaults you'll have difficulty playing it in another player, never mind another machine.

[LuTze]

Sayonara³ said in post # :

The IE thing was not obviously a lie though, was it.

Yes. During the trial they had some dude come in, rip every part of IE out of Windows 95 and demonstrate it runs perfectly.

[Sayonara]

I really meant "up to that point".

 

As if Win is going to collapse without WMP.

[JaKiri]

LuTze said in post # :

WMP 9 includes DRM componants - so if you buy music from one of the new WMP online stores, or rip a CD and don't change the defaults you'll have difficulty playing it in another player, never mind another machine.

 

That's not really a criticism of WMP though, is it. It's a criticism of the antipiracy software.

[LuTze]

It's a criticism of WMP, since it makes it "vaguely nonuniversal".

[JaKiri]

LuTze said in post # :

It's a criticism of WMP, since it makes it "vaguely nonuniversal".

 

It doesn't affect competition, though, because you can't use it on other editions of WMP either

 

In fact, it encourages people to use programs like MusicMatch.

 

[edit]

 

And the quote in your sig is incorrect; it's from 'overseas', not 'abroad', which makes sense, because quite a lot of imports will come into the US over land, from Mexico and Canada.