Brian GarnerMicrosoft's offer to give consumers a choice of browsers to comply with antitrust claims by the European Union has undergone several changes in response to concerns raised by competing browser developers.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the modified agreement offers Windows users a "ballot screen" that will randomly list the five top web browsers. Users would be given the option to select a browser that will then be downloaded from the Internet.
Concerns were raised by Opera, Google, and Mozilla over the planned ballot concept when it was first announced due to plans to have the browsers listed in alphabetical order. This would have placed Apple's Safari browser first. "More competition in the browser space will mean greater innovation on the Web and a better user experience for people everywhere," Google spokesman Bill Echikson reportedly said.
The European Union's antitrust claim against Microsoft stemmed from its belief that the inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows was an abuse of Microsoft's stance in the market. The EU claimed that the widespread use of Internet Explorer forced outside developers and programmers to work towards optimizing their products exclusively for the Microsoft browser, therefore limiting the features available to potential users.
According to November numbers by Net Applications, Internet explorer has fallen in total market share to capture 63.62 percent of the market, followed by Firefox with 24.72 and Safari with 4.36 percent.
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64 Comments
This law suit is total BS, cause europe always had more people using firefox or opera then the US for example. Some countries (Germany I think) Had something like 50% Firefox users, so this law suit against MS is BS. At any rate at this point microsoft is becoming an underdog in just about everything except their OS and MS Office. I would say google should be the target of the next antitrust hearings, especially since they are buying up more and more ad services and dominating the market.
It isn't BS. Unlike in the US, in Europe the governments actually tend to be less influenced by lobbyists.
Further, Microsoft undoubtedly was found guilty of abusing it Windows' operating system Monopoly to gain an advantage with it's web browser. It never would have the lead with web browsers if it didn't twist hardware manufacturers arms to install Explorer at the expense of Netscape. THe EU now wants Microsoft to level the field based on it's abusive history and let users choose what browser to have installed by default.
This law suit is total BS, cause europe always had more people using firefox or opera then the US for example. Some countries (Germany I think) Had something like 50% Firefox users, so this law suit against MS is BS. At any rate at this point microsoft is becoming an underdog in just about everything except their OS and MS Office. I would say google should be the target of the next antitrust hearings, especially since they are buying up more and more ad services and dominating the market.
This is a good thing.
Instead of people being like trained monkeys and clicking the blue "E" for internet. They get to use different browsers and learn different ways of achieving the same result.
Instead of web operators making their sites Windows IE only, like a lot of real estate software is set up, they will be forced to adhere to WWW3 standards.
Same should go for Office type software, instead of Microsoft Office all the time, perhaps they will now learn how to use OpenOffice or other brands to achieve the same results.
Files will become more inter-compatible with other softwares, a OpenOffice user can open a Office file and vice versa. This diversification will also reduce malware, people learn that if one browser doesn't work well they can use another quite easily. Right now the way it is people are scared not to use Internet Explorer or their computer won't work. It stems from the fact that IE was used in XP to upgrade the OS.
This is good for Mac's because people learn and say "hey!, if I can use another browser, I can use another operating system!" and the ball just keeps on rolling.Now what Apple needs is a demo version of OS X that will run in a custom virtual machine for Windows. A Windows user can boot the OS X demo app and it will run OS X in a window and they can get used to that, even run a few programs to get used to the Mac operating system. Make it easy to switch.
This law suit is total BS, cause europe always had more people using firefox or opera then the US for example. Some countries (Germany I think) Had something like 50% Firefox users, so this law suit against MS is BS. At any rate at this point microsoft is becoming an underdog in just about everything except their OS and MS Office. I would say google should be the target of the next antitrust hearings, especially since they are buying up more and more ad services and dominating the market.
I agree with you. At this point, if someone can't get their act together enough to figure out "I want Firefox (or insert favorite browser here) so I am going to log on IE, download, install Firefox and set it as my default browser" they deserve whatever MSFT is giving them.
These regulators should move along already......
PS: I am not a fan on MSFT, by any stretch.
At any rate at this point microsoft is becoming an underdog in just about everything except their OS and MS Office. I would say google should be the target of the next antitrust hearings, especially since they are buying up more and more ad services and dominating the market.
I think if Microsoft had been broken up 10 years ago, each part would be in a better position than it is now.
I don't mean a Windows company and an Office company - I mean if one company got the latest Office 2003 code and Windows ME, while the other got the latest Windows code and Office 2000/Works. The resulting evolution and competition between each other would have made it harder for other companies.
Ah well, that is life.