“Not long ago, I went to Washington for a dinner given by a friend. She wanted to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the end of the Microsoft antitrust trial, which she had covered for a news agency and I had covered for Fortune magazine,” Joseph Nocera writes for The New York Times.
“The trial… woke Microsoft up to the fact that it was truly hated in Silicon Valley. It’s been trying to make nice ever since. It has settled a series of private antitrust suits – for some $3.5 billion – brought by rivals like Sun Microsystems. And it has worked assiduously to turn former enemies into allies. (Sun, which now holds joint news conferences with Microsoft, is a prime example.) At Microsoft, there is a lot less ‘my way or the highway’ than there used to be,” Nocera writes. “This is not an insignificant change – but it’s not what the antitrust trial was really about. The central issue was whether the company had an inalienable right to bundle new software products – a browser, a media player, antivirus software, a ‘ham sandwich,’ as Microsoft once put it – into its operating system. Whenever it does so, of course, it gives itself a huge home-court advantage: its software is suddenly available on over 90 percent of the world’s PC’s, and is usually the ‘default’ product as well.”
Nocera writes, “During the trial, Microsoft argued that when it added features to Windows it was helping consumers. To the company, its right to ‘innovate’ – as it invariably called the practice – was sacrosanct. The government argued that folding its version of a competitor’s product into its monopoly operating system was a deeply anticompetitive act. And here’s something that might surprise you: The Microsoft trial did not settle this critical question.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: That journalists hold parties to commemorate the anniversaries of trials they’ve covered is fairly scary in and of itself. Back to thrust of the article: Nocera questions whether Microsoft’s Windows monopoly can do to Google what they did to Netscape, if Microsoft decides to include Internet search in Windows Longhorn. Nocera writes, “Microsoft has Windows. That’s the main thing that hasn’t changed in the wake of the antitrust trial. That used to be enough. We’re going to find out if it still is.”
Can you rename the Taskbar in Windows (or disable it) and still having a working Windows OS ?
No need to answer.
http://www.sideburn.com/dockblock/demo.html
I love Apple products and software (i.e. iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD, etc.), but isn’t Apple doing the same thing that Microsoft does with Media Player, or the like? Can somebody please explain this? I’m no MS fanboy, but what is Microsoft supposed to do? Not bundle Windows with a browser? Not include software for playing/ripping a CD?
I’m not trying to sound ignorant, but doesn’t Apple do the same thing? By bundling iLife, etc., aren’t they shutting out competitors also? Is it some sort of abuse of monopoly on Microsoft’s part? I must’ve been out for a drink of water when the teach was explaining this one. Insight, anyone?
Boys, boys, I dislike Microsoft as much as the next fanboy but there is no way that you can say they have a monopoly or engage in monopolistic practices. Only the Law can create a monopoly – that’s what’s so funny about seeing antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft – it’s just the competition trying to get the Law to weaken the big dog. And the Law happily complies because that’s how they feather their own nests. And if you make it legitimate for the Law to interfere with one business, you’ll soon find it biting at YOUR ass.
Now, my cable company is a monopoly – the local Law makes it so.
Thanks for the link iPodder. I already use DockBlocker these days – a simple one-click launch and quit of the Dock from the Menubar!
Other useful links are:
http://www.petermaurer.de/nasi.php?thema=butler&sprache=english&kopf=labor
An piece of shareware called Bulter – use the empty space in the right-hand side of your Menubar by placing a row of Alias icons for your favourite Applications there – all launchable and drag&droppable; (smart, straightforward and OUT OF THE WAY)
http://www.unsanity.com/haxies/wsx/
WindowShade – brings back collapsible windows
http://www.kanzu.com/
(+ many others) – puts a (static) Trash can back on your desktop
Multiplan became a discontinued application 2 years before Excel. Visicalc was the first with plotting – VisiPlot and SuperCalc was the first with macros. Lotus 1-2-3 did not introduce any new features that were not available in competition. They did claim to invent the spreadsheet which was a blatant lie as the spreadsheet was with us before PC’s were. I used one on the Pick operating system before Visicalc and had one running on a Cyber mainframe before that.
Monopoly is not just a concept made up by law. The word was first used in English in the 16th Century and was derived from the latin monopolion which in turn was derived from ancient Greek mono meaning single and polein meaning sell. The original Greek meaning was single source of sale which is still a fair description. We now extend it to include control not just sale.
Oh, Heck – I’ll join the fray…
There are CRUCIAl differences, as stated above, between what MS does and what Apple does as far as bundling apps goes. If you doubt my word, it can easily be demonstrated: Delete Safari. Delete iTune. Delete Quicktime Player. Delete Mail, iPhoto, iMovie, Appleworks, Pages, and just to be safe, delete Disk Utility from your hard drive. Now restart your Mac. See any difference? Did it crash on startup?
Now move to your Windows Box, and attempt to delete a similar selection of Microsoft application. After a few hours, you should be able to get there. Make sure that you are deleting the actual application files, not just the shortcut!
Restart.
Hmmm. Guess now you’lll have to reinstall Windows.
Meanwhile if your Mac has issues later, use FSCk from in Single User startup mode, or better, install Applejack that provides a nice interface to System repair utilities…