Windows: Reduced to Tears

In the wake of the EU rulings against Microsoft, in which the company has been ordered to remove from the windows operating system superfluous features that by their mere existence prohibit competitive products from flourishing, I believe that it is now crucial that all employees of the company take the time and effort to re-examine our current product offerings and purge them of any and all components that may be deemed anti-competitive toward fledgling markets.  After all, who wants to be caught off guard like that again?  We're not out to be the bad-guys here.  We want to do the right thing.  Don't we?

Yet, there are still products and components out there today, packaged and bundled inside shrink-wrapped boxes, that are being forced upon the consumers without regard to their personal preferences, software packages which by themselves are little more than variants on a particular theme, where by markets might one day exist for the potential alternatives, but are hamstrung now by our predatory behaviors.

Not so, you say?  Would not the courts and judges, prosecutors and plaintiffs have already uncovered all the dirty little secrets of our untidy bundle of bits?  Of course not.  For they have missed the very one which I will reveal to you.  One that is so superfluous and yet so integral to our offerings that by merely mentioning it I am bound to raise the eyebrows and hackles of many. 

The item of which I speak is a fundamental portion of many an operating system,  It defines a platform for development of applications and once a variation has been adopted, it rarely is abandoned, resulting in consumer lock-in.  Of the variants, many of which are used interchangeably on systems such as Unix and Linux, only one is available with Windows, a propriety version that is incompatible with all others.  Its ubiquity due to bundling has cut off the air-supply of all potential challengers.  The variant products exist for Windows, but are rarely used.  General consumers don't care.  They use whatever is most convenient, and tedious downloading and extensive re-education is simply beyond reason.

This is why Microsoft should offer a version of Windows free of its anti-competitive command line interpreter, or 'DOS box' if you will.  It's mere existence is anathema to a free market that would infuse widespread adoption of the C and Bourne shell, not to mention Rexx and others.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  What's this notepad stuff, or WordPad for that matter?  They are just the latest rendition of a market stifling practice that started long ago with EDLIN.  Has their existence shut out a huge potential market for vi or emacs? 

I would have to say that they have.

But I digress. ;-)

Matt

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 02, 2005
  Yes, you digress. And you also don't get it.
• Anonymous
  February 02, 2005
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• Anonymous
  February 02, 2005
  
  Hey Bob I'll tell you what I get. Europe is filled with idiots. I almost (and I should stress the word almost) feel sorry for them, because their future is especially bleak. Imagine what it would be like to grow up as a kid in Europe. What values do their parents teach them? Any at all?
  
  Certainly not honor. Cetainly no one has ever told them to dream big or strive to win. What a depressing place it must be.
  
  But the main reason I don't feel sorry for them is because godammit they should be smart enough to know the consequences of their actions! To persercute good for being good! This is not just ignorance, this is delibrate and pathetic wallowing. I know that no European will agree with me here, but its evil to persercute people for being good.
  
  Anyway, all of you Microsoft employees shouldn't feel down or resentful. If it makes you feel better, Europe will reap what it sows.
  
  
  
  
• Anonymous
  February 02, 2005
  Nobody's going to win by this decision, but that doesn't mean your crocodile tears aren't ludicrous. Geeze, it'd be funny if it wasn't sad.
• Anonymous
  February 02, 2005
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• Anonymous
  February 02, 2005
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• Anonymous
  February 02, 2005
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• Anonymous
  February 03, 2005
  I don't understand why Microsoft always get sued like this. This is not the first time and I am sure this is not the last one either unless there is another giant happened bigger than Microsoft. Microsoft is just too big and too strong on many area but it has its threaten as well. In this example, it hardly could beat quick time from Apple and real player because they have their own technology and advantage that Microsoft hardly to get in. I believe one day, someone could sue Microsoft because Windows bundles Notepad/WordPad or even desktop because it happens there are someone who want to get into this area.
  
  I like Microsoft, like their Product and the way they make the software, thinking about the user, the customer and the consumer all the time but don't blame on how greedy they are to try make as much money as possible. Sorry, this is the business.
  
  Thanks, Kent
• Anonymous
  February 03, 2005
  "Microsoft used its monopoly in the operating system market (again) to break into new markets, namely the market for media players and online music."
  
  Windows has come packaged with a media player in one form or another for over a decade. This was before there even was a "market".
  
  As for online music, no current Windows OS comes packaged with a media player that supports the MSN Store. That requires WMP 10.
• Anonymous
  February 03, 2005
  When GM started producing cars with radios, no one complained. When they added 8-track, no one complained. Cassette- same. When the radios started including CD players, sadly, nobody tried to stop them.
  
  GM already had squashed the entire industry for after-market car airconditioners... you don't see anybody trying to sell them anymore do you? See... another industry obliterated by big bad GM.
  
  Its now obvious that they're trying to gain a foothold on the mobile entertainment market since now you could have BOTH CD and cassette. This blatent attempt at stifling the market should have been stopped here, but it wasn't.
  
  Now its even worse! Now GM produces cars with radios with CD players, DVD players, and low and behold- OnStar... built in GPS and cellphone!!!! This must be significantly hindering competition in these markets.
  
  GM should be just that- GENERAL MOTORS. They should not attempt to enter markets other than motors by flagrantly bundling such varied technology with their product.
  
  I would strongly urge the likes of Qualcomm, Garmin, Pioneer, Sony, etal to use this new EU ruling as a precedent to go after GM with all the legal firepower at their disposal.
  
  Then hopefully we can go back to buying a simple car with just an empty dashboard.
  
  (many many apologies to GM for this rant)
• Anonymous
  February 03, 2005
  Gabe, about the following:
  
  "Certainly not honor. Cetainly no one has ever told them to dream big or strive to win. What a depressing place it must be."
  
  Please do not take such a general point of view, you insult a lot of Europeans who DO get raised with good values.
  
  And I'm pretty sure there are plenty of American families that raise their children without those values as well. It's just life, some people get good values, some others get other values, independent from where they live.
  
  It's really useless to go anti-Europe because of this, if you want, go anti-politics, but not anti-Europeans. For example, Rijndael originates from Europeans! :)
• Anonymous
  February 03, 2005
  The logic works like this:
  
  If you build a product that is extensible in any way (even if unintended) then a market may rise some day to offer features on top of your system.
  
  If you also offer features in your product that a 3rd party might be able to reproduce using the extension mechanism then you are competing against that potential market by offering that feature.
  
  If your product now becomes ubiquitious, then you should be forced to stop offering all features that could potentially be reproduced by someone else, possibly leaving you with only the extension mechanism itself as a product.
  
  With logic like this, you may be left to conclude that the only thing Microsoft should be allowed to sell is possibly the boot loader on the disk.
  
  Software is inherently extensible. Even products not designed as platforms can be added on to.
  
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  February 04, 2005
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