EU-version of Windows 7 will come without browser
 

In the EU, Microsoft will release Windows 7 without any integrated web browser. Neither Explorer nor any other browser will be part of the package.

This is a reaction to the ongoing dispute between Microsoft and the EU over the claim that Microsoft is abusing a monopolistic position to keep rivals out of - or small in - the business. The argument that only Explorer is part of Windows, but neither Opera nor Mozilla are included by default, is part of that dispute.

In parts, in the past I supported the EU proposal. However, now that that Microsoft has radically changed it's strategy (to avoid certain legal consequences at the last minute) and now will not include ANY browser in windows 7 for the EU market, again the EU criticises them. They insist on that Microsoft should instead offer a diverse collection of browsers - that are in direct competition to Microsoft'S Explorer.

In other words - and this is where I have a problem with the EU demand - they want Microsoft to promote and distribute the products of their rivalling competitors.

I always argued against a totally liberal capitalistic market. I also always argued that some regulations of the market are needed in order to turn predatory capitalism, that functions at the cost of too many people only, into what in Europe is called "social market economy" that tries to acchieve a balance between the interest of the one and the social responsibility to protect basic interests of the many. As much regulation as needed - but as little as possible.

To prevent a company abusing a de facto monopole is one thing, and is okay for the sake of the superior common interest. But wanting to order a company that it should actively distribute the competing products of it's rivals, is absurd, and a serious distortion of the basic principle of market economy: the principle of competition.

I think the EU is overstretching its demands. On this detail it needs to step back.

Heh sounds like they are just protecting their citizen's computers from viruses.

So this is the safe mode of windows????:06:

Microsoft clearly has an anti-competitive clout in the marketplace.

Shipping the OS with IE and WMP was a little like a supermarket giving every
shopper a free mobile phone. It's good for the supermarket because they sell
more phone credit and get their brand logo out more, but it is bad for the
other mobile phone companies because they can't possibly compete. Even if
they gave out free phones they couldn't possibly hope to reach the vast
number of people that pass through the doors of a supermarket.

It would be daft to ship a OS with no browser, so forcing MS to offer
alternatives is the only workable solution.

SB: You have the same all or nothing attitude to the marketplace as you do
to warfare and morality.

Sooo, if the OS ships without a browser, how does a user download one? :doh:

yea... you got a point... (maby you have to buy one in a store.):hmmm:

well, I aint gotta worry about it. lol, I dont live in the European Union. lol

download the a browser, put it on a disc, instal after you put new OS on yer pc.

My understanding is that either you will select the browser you want when
you buy the OS or you will be presented wit an option to download the one
you want once you have internet connectivity.

You install Windows, and then download and install the browser of your choice. Which probably is the most healthy, fair and unmanipulative solution anyway.

Microsoft was wrong when claiming that Explorer was integral part of Windows that could not be extracted and kept separate. Obviously they can extract it. ;) It was a decision to make that argument in an attempt to establish Explorer in a dominant market position. But that argument never had any substance. It was aiming to make benefit from psychologic effects: that people would not care for other browsers if Windows comes with a browser already.

Letum, you do not know the market functionality if you find it okay to expect one competitor to actively distribute and spread those products of his direct rivals that are in direct competition to his own products, nd to do so without compoensation and to his own disadvantage.

Rivals shall not use unfair cheats to limit market access for other competitors. But they also must not actively assist the other to distribute his own stuff. Demanding that makes mockery of markets' functionality.

Preventing Microsoft to manipulate market access for compoetitors and abusing its monopole, is one thing, and the EU was right to break that. Monopoloes should not be allowed, never. Demanding Microsoft to actively assist competitors to bring their stuff amongst people, is something very different - and here the EU stepped over the line, and now is riding on a moral crusade - and towards the direction of state-governed enterprise.

You could as well demand Mercedes to sell Toyotas in their own shops.

I know the market well enough.

I see no better solution than requiring MS to promote and distribute it's
competitor's products.

The company I work for follows similar rules to encourage competitiveness.
We are obliged to offer parts of our service to our competitors at a reduced
rate so that they can sell them on.

A competitive market is not an ends in it's self.
The only purpose of the competitive market is to provide benefit to the
consumer. When monopolies abuse their position in such a way that this no
longer happens it is right and proper that any rules necessary should be
enforced to ensure that a competitive marketplace is maintained.


The closest car analogy I can come up with is:
(if it is tenuous that is only because cars are very unlike browsers)

Lets say it is the year 2050 and car production is so efficient that each car
is practically free. The only money to be made is from selling car batteries.

Mercedes is now almost the only company in the world that sells houses.
With each house they sell, they give away a free Mercedes car. This is
good for Merc. because they sell more batteries and get their logo out
more.

In this market Toyota can't possibly compete. Even tho they also give out
Toyotas for free, fewer people will take them, even if they are slightly
better, because everyone already has the free Merc. they got with their
house.

The only way to bring back competition is either to stop Mercedes sending
out any free cars with each house or to require them to distribute and
promote other manufacture's free cars with each house. The latter option
being far more practical for the consumer.

As I said, breaking and preventing monopoles, is okay, since monopoles prevent competition and allow the monopolist to abuse his dominant position to dictate porices and conditions that are no longer dynamically settled by competition, then.

But demanding one company to get engaged in assisting it's rival in selling his products, by that damaging it's own competitiveness - that is something very different.

Why is that a bad thing?

The alternative is to ship the OS with no browser and no way to get a
browser other than through buying a CD with one one. That would be no good
for anyone, least of all MS.

Nonsens.

You can download the browser of your choice freely from the web. Choose Firebird, if you want. Or Explorer, if you prefer. Or Chrome, if you do not care for privacy. All that is okay with me.

Just that Microsoft is expected to help distributing competing Chrome and Firebird, that is what finds my rejection, since it seems to establiosh a dangerous, unwanted precedent.

I expect supervising authorities to prevent companies establishing monopoles. I do not expect companies to damage themseolves by selling/distributing the products of their rivals.

Well, you can, but most people just stick with whatever the first browser to
come along with. Microsoft abuse their position as a software distributor by
guaranteeing that that browser is IE.

I expect companies to do what ever is good for competition and thus good for
the consumer.

I guess the thing I find odd is that now Microsoft will continue to be the villian even though the EU anti-trust system manufactured the issue and now doesn't like the outcome. Didn't they see this coming or did they think it would never happen? Boggles the mind.

Another example of mis-management by crisis. The EU regulators seem to be as good as US regulators.

Yes, and the EU was right to end that. Now, Microsoft leaves the choice of browsers to the user of windows, since they must download one anyway.

Or do we now expect Microsoft to bundle Windows with Linux...?


Me too, but in capitalistic thinking, competition is not really wanted, while having a monopoly is the ideal. Consumers and producers are natural enemies over this point.

However, it is unreasonable to expect one competitor to assist his direct rival. That's like one runner helping his rival over the hurdles. We can demand him to not hinder the others, and not to use bad tricks, and by creating fair market access for all (in ideal situation: equal market access for all). But while we should make sure that all horses find the way to the water, I doubt that we should try to make them drink. That'S something each horse has to do all by itself. And if it doesn't - that's its own problem.

They are only assisting to the point of giving fair, assessable and informed
choice.

The objective of the corporate 100m hurdles is not for the best company to
win, but for several companies to compete against each other as best they
can so that no one can afford to slacken the pace.
If one competitor is running the 100m hurdles in the rally car of universal
software distribution, then it is quite right that the competition should be
maintained by removing that advantage by any means necessary.

The coice is there for customers already, and with Explorer no longer be part of Windows, the comfort-argument that people would stay with explorer for reasons of laziness, does not work anymore.

No need why one company should actively assist the other company at its own cost. That is not what market competition is about. microsoft offers Explorer as a separate download. Mozilla offers firebird as a separate download. and so on. Issue solved. No need for the state to overgovern things over nothing.

I see you are determined to push this up to the realms of absurdity again. So I leave here.

That kind of thinking is the fastest road to monopoly and oligopoly you can take besides simply nationalizing an industry.

While it sounds rational enough on the surface, the reality is that instead of barring companies from the power to create a monopoly, you just opened the door for them. Business' single favorite method of creating a monopoly is to use the power of the state to do it.
In the most common cases, businesses help legislatures to establish strict sets of regulatory, licensure, and legal standards for their own industry, shutting out a good deal of would-be entrepeneurs who cannot compete for lack of capital. Even when these entrepeneurs secure enough investors to get started, the state punishes them heavily by exacerbating their overhead costs through taxation.
Is it any wonder so many new companies fail so quickly? Of course, big business with a place secured by the state is always there to pick up the pieces afterwards if there is anything of value.

Another common usage of the state is for subsidization and penalization of the competition. Especially international competition. Who is always at the forefront of efforts to 'protect' national interests and jobs? All they really want to do is gain an unfair advantage over competitors. The same company that lobbies heavily to protect jobs through subsidization or tariffs will gladly cut or export ten thousand jobs the next year if that is deemed necessary to maintain healthy profitability.

Of course, there are thousands of other ways that business takes advantage of the state at the expense of the consumer and the taxpayer every year, not just these, but the point is that once you give government anything other than very strictly limited power over business in any capacity, you give business power over the state, especially in a democractic government and doubly so in multinational legislatures. The desire to guide the actions of the free market is a pandora's box that is not easily shut once it has been opened.
It is best to limit the state's power over business to the judicial realm, punishing fraud, theft, breach of contract, false advertising, harmful products, workplace abuses, and the like (only after they have been committed). While that still leaves a crack for business to exploit, it is a very small one. The threshold that must not be crossed is proactive government interference in the market.

In this particular case, Microsoft's most likely response will be to simply make their OS more expensive for consumers in the short term. In the long term, I have no idea what machinations they may put in place, but I assure you that they will totally sidestep the intent of this legislation.
Like bureacrats and politicians, the sole reason for my professional exsistence is not to evaluate potential market strategies for Microsoft.
However, the best thing to do imo, is to simply let Microsoft's natural monopoly run its' course, and give it no cause to intervene in state affairs. If people begin crying out for an alternative where none is to be found due to lack of competition, the state can always fall back on punitive trust-busting measures.

Perhaps you still see things differently, but I invite you to consider the wisdom of letting an entity that is almost universally detested for being incompetent, slow, corrupt, and inefficient, match wits with the best and brightest that private industry has to offer. I can assure you that business will beat the state every time and establish a shadow (and sometimes, overt) plutocracy, unless the state steps in and runs business entirely, which is tantamount to national fiscal suicide.

That's more than a bit of an overstatement, don't you think?

Not particularly. The U.S. Federal Reserve is a sterling example. Although it was abolished (or rather, did not have its' charter renewed) by President Andrew Jackson's administration in the 1820's, it resurfaced in the early 20th century and is now the determining factor in Global Economic policy. Despite what it may sound like, and despite the fact that the Federal Reserve does have a state-appointed board of trustees (sort of), it is still very much a private entity.
Other examples include the rail Baronies of the late 19th century, which experienced their heydey after the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission in the late 1880's. Despite the fact that the rail Baronies were 'broken up' and consumers were 'protected' by the activities of the ICC( which became the surface transportation board in the 90's under Clinton, and a Republican Congress, with even more power), it did nothing to change the fact that within 50 years, the U.S. rail industry was reduced to only 5 Class-1 railroads(down from almost a dozen), and within 100 years to only 3, the two largest of which are practically the same company, so cemented are the policies by which they conduct their trade.
To this day the major rail companies routinely deliver goods late and at inflated prices because they are so protected. There only competition is the horribly inefficient trucking industry, which has become non competitive due to rising fuel prices, which have been exacerbated by (guess what!?) higher fuel taxes, which the freight rail industry lobbied for in the guise of promoting public transportation, which they provide 0% of.

There are many, many, more examples here in the U.S that I can name off the top of my head; the aluminum industry, the agricultural industry, the steel industry, the lumber industry, the automotive industry, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I'm not particularly familiar with European state intitiatives but judging by what I have seen of the budget outlays(not to mention the insane taxes you pay and the insane prices for goods, and the lower standard of living) for Germany and the U.K. alone, I suspect that I'd have no trouble at all locating a wealth of plutocratic state-industrial combines controlling many sectors of E.U. industry.

So again, I do not think it is an overstatement at all, especially not in the context of Europe, a continent which has largely been fiscally re-invented since the end of the Second World War. It took the U.S. over a century, to really get started on the path to fiscal liberalism and plutocracy, and still another half-century before it really began to manifest itself. Europe launched into the fallacy of "Social Democractic" economics after barely a decade, less in some cases, and if GDP per Capita and PPP per capita are any kind of indicators, is hell-bent on becoming a plutocracy with a vast wealth gap and a massvie international defecit as soon as possible.

I think that the U.K., and the rest of the E.U. nations have placed far too much faith in the judgement of their elected representatives, especially those within the E.U. legislature. Only time will tell, but if history has anything to say about it, plutocracy it will be.