Posted on 02/26/2009 11:49:29 AM PST by george76
In late 2007, Norwegian browser maker Opera filed an anti-trust suit with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of unfair practices by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows...
Google’s VP of product management Sundar Pichai announced that his company would be participating as a third-party ...
Google no doubt thinks this is a smart strategic move, both because it adds extra muscle to a smackdown of its chief competitor — and, in the process, sucks up to the always dangerous European Commission. But I predict that Google will come to regret this move.
Why? Because for the last three years, on my visits to Europe, particularly the UK, Microsoft is never brought up in conversation. The EU may still be obsessed with Redmond, but the business community and the media long ago moved. Instead, care to guess which company the cognoscenti now consider to be the greatest high tech hegemonic threat to the European economy?
You guessed it: Google.
I remember sitting in a room with a the editor of the UK Guardian being told just dangerous Google had become . . .and how it needed to be stopped. In other words, exactly the conversation I had about Microsoft a decade before.
Google may think it is buying itself some credit with the European Commission by piling on against Microsoft. But I don’t believe the EC sees it the same way. On the contrary, the Commission, the European tech industry and the media may, perversely, see this as just another example of Google enjoying too much power and influence in the European market.
Karma, as they say, can be a bitch.
And in joining the Europeans in their assault on Microsoft, Google may soon learn that lesson first-hand.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
” Will Red Hat get sued because they also bundle a browser in their OS?
What about Nintendo?
They force you to use Opera to get online with the Wii, so where’s the lawsuit about that? “
ht comments
Yeah. Once the EU bleeds MSFT dry, they will come after GOOG with both barrels. I guess Google is hoping they will be eaten last.
If MS did not include a browser with its OS, Joe Sixpack would boot up his new computer and have no way of accessing the Internet because there would be no software loaded on to the machine.
This whole argument is ridiculous - and this is coming from someone who rarely uses Internet Exploder...
This whole argument is ridiculous - and this is coming from someone who rarely uses Internet Exploder...DITTO.
good thing I read the comments first. My post would have been like yours.
Agreed.
May they eat each other up, disappear and let someone else without a political agenda in - I want to fire them all!
There was a reason way back when all this started. No browsers came with operating systems at the time, but Microsoft started including a browser for free with Windows with the express purpose to “cut off Netscape’s air supply” as a Microsoft VP stated.
The problem is now everybody includes a browser, so any remedies today have no practical relation to the actual anticompetitive offense of 13 years ago.
It is certainly a tremendous advantage for company that has a monopoly on Windows to bundle its own browser.
Google IS dangerous, and with their US Gov’t alliances, even more so.
Redhat Fedora distribution includes a web browser, for sure, but it’s not an intrinsic part of their operating system. It can be removed and you will lose no functionality in the operating system at all.
I don’t support suing MS for their OS and/or it’s coded in applications. I think the market should decide. Not an f’n bureaucrat.
Ridiculous. If Microsoft discontinued IE tomorrow, computers would not stop shipping with a browser. OEMs would simply bundle Firefox, Opera, or even Safari for Windows (not likely, but then again, neither is IE being discontinued). That is not and was not the reason for IE coming into existence. Microsoft threw IE together for one and only one reason: to kill Netscape. Then as now and always, Microsoft cannot stand to see other people making a profit in technology. Their killer instinct goes well beyond any sort of survival instinct. They have a severe case of NIH Syndrome. That is one of the reasons they keep so many product lines that lose money.
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