Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Microsoft behind $12 million payment to Opera
CNET News ^ | May 24, 2004, | Evan Hansen

Posted on 05/25/2004 7:10:09 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat

Microsoft agreed to pay Norway's Opera Software $12.75 million to head off a threatened lawsuit over code that made some Web pages on MSN look bad in certain versions of Opera's Web browser, CNET News.com has learned.

Opera disclosed the payment last week in a terse press release that omitted other details, including the name of the settling party and the nature of the dispute.

But a source indicated that the payment came from Microsoft in order to close the books on a clash over obscure interoperability problems. On at least three separate occasions, Opera has accused Microsoft of deliberately breaking interoperability between its MSN Web portal and various versions of the Opera browser--charges that the software giant has repeatedly denied.

A Microsoft representative said the company does not comment on rumors.

Reached by phone, Opera executives refused to name the company involved in the settlement or describe the nature of the legal claims, citing a confidentiality agreement.

"We forwarded a few facts to a big international corporation and settled before we took legal action," Opera Chief Technology Officer Hakon Lie said Tuesday. "This resolves an issue very close to my heart."

The deal marks the latest in a string of settlements from Microsoft, which is seeking to simplify its business by clearing up potentially damaging legal claims. In the past year, the company has agreed to pay billions of dollars to wrap up litigation with Sun Microsystems, digital rights management developer InterTrust and Time Warner's Netscape Communications division, among others.

While the Opera payment is relatively tiny, it underscores ongoing ripple effects in the browser market that stem from the overwhelming dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Having used its desktop operating system monopoly to help trounce its primary rival Netscape, Microsoft has effectively abandoned significant browser development efforts. That's left companies with negligible market share such as Opera and Netscape's Mozilla open-source project to lead innovation in the field.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: antitrust; browswer; microsoft; msn; opera
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-118 next last
To: Golden Eagle
Yes, by default you can set things to open in a new window or a tab (most calls make target-new so they will behave that way.. To open a link in a new tab you either have to set the keystroke or just right click and hit 'open in new tab'

usually I use tabs withing sites, and different windows in other places (on FR I use tabs withing threads when replying so I keep my place)

61 posted on 05/25/2004 3:11:11 PM PDT by N3WBI3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: 1L
Since MS owned the web site that did that, what legal duty did they breach?

Could apple set their site to erase the harddrives of windows boxes??

62 posted on 05/25/2004 3:12:18 PM PDT by N3WBI3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: N3WBI3
So I guess you're admitting that OSS 'stealing ideas' is nothing new MS perfected it years ago.. Every time an OSS application (or in Opera's case a non-OSS system) builds in some functionality ms schrills scream about how OSS does not innovate, yet MS does the same thing its blown off as unimportant..

Leave it to you to twist my words and run off into never never land. I've always said MS copied Apple and I wasn't happy about it, I think Apple should have won something in their lawsuit but it was pretty poorly organized and late. But these were two US businesses fighting it out in the marketplace, not a bunch of apparent socialists such as from Finland trying to disrupt the US software industry completely by making everything free.

I hope thats true I would pay 200$ to run OSX on my PC but I wont pay for the hardware Apple sells (It is far better than the i86 stuff but I dont need it).

Actually it will suck big time because not only will we have reduced a former icon to it's dying breath but the US needs to maintain our industrial base as it's almost all gone already.

63 posted on 05/25/2004 3:15:02 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: 1L

Exactly my point. It's not as if Microsoft set out to destroy Opera browsers all over the world. They simply kept a competitor from viewing their sites.


64 posted on 05/25/2004 6:07:00 PM PDT by LanPB01
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: LanPB01
Exactly my point. It's not as if Microsoft set out to destroy Opera browsers all over the world. They simply kept a competitor from viewing their sites.

Which may or may not be ethical, depending upon how they went about doing it.

65 posted on 05/25/2004 6:12:32 PM PDT by tacticalogic (I Controlled application of force is the sincerest form of communication.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: LanPB01

And if ford paird the top five oil companies to put something in gasoline that would prevent it from working with fords competitors would that be ok??


66 posted on 05/25/2004 6:24:01 PM PDT by N3WBI3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: N3WBI3

As a matter of fact, it WOULD be OK, if America's oil policy was indeed a free market. There would be a quick and loud outcry from consumers, Ford would suffer dire consequences, and the market would correct itself. Unfortunately for the Microsoft competitors, their only source of reprieve seems to be whining to the government, and demand the Microsoft monopoly be smashed.


67 posted on 05/25/2004 6:28:04 PM PDT by LanPB01
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 66 | View Replies]

To: 1L
Since MS owned the web site that did that, what legal duty did they breach? They don't have the duty to make sure Opera's software runs right

Because it clearly showed an attempt by the monopoly holder to wrongly discredit a minority marketshare holder by making a site visited by millions purposely not work for the competition. Basically, they got caught at their FUD game again.

68 posted on 05/25/2004 7:38:25 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: FrankR
this sounds like Ronco sueing the Ford Motor Company because their latest cup holder doesn't fit correctly.

Not a good analogy.

And, logic says, why would Microsoft go and try to slam dunk Opera,

Netscape was already marginalized, and Opera was an upstart that was getting very popular quite quickly. Better to nip these things in the bud.

69 posted on 05/25/2004 7:44:04 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Golden Eagle
I wasn't convinced, it all looked subjective to me.

It was all factual. It is not standards compliant, can't render CSS even close to properly, often sees security updates, computer newbies can easily find their home page changed and system infected with spyware. It's so bad that until recently I could crash any IE instance with a simple bad form tag or eject all your CD-ROM drives with a bit of JavaScript (fixes are now out though). It also has fewer features than the competition.

Interesting. So they directly copied an IE feature, down to the exact keystroke?

Yep. I think they also use Alt-F4 to close the application, too. Those thieving bastards!

I run full screen, don't like tabbed browsing.

And I like tabs and hate full screen. But the feature is there for all who like it, and I guess MS likes it because they're copying it. BTW, it's great for FR because you can go down the list and middle-click all the topics you want to read real quick, and they all load in background tabs, never taking you away from the main page.

Security has never been a problem for me with IE.

For you. Go back and look at all the security patches for IE since XP.

Again no problem, I block them all except where I register, especially the "third party cookies" meaning spyware can't install either.

A very cumbersome way of doing it. You can set Mozilla to work that way too, but then you're stuck enabling them all the time when you need them. In Mozilla you can block third party ones, then also go through the cookie list and delete all the site cookies you don't want -- and specify that those sites can no longer do so.

. I HATE third party download utils, I like one consistent interface

And others hate full screen or having multiple windows open. It's still a popular feature, although one I don't use either. IIRC, IE will get this too.

Caching of passwords is actually a security issue.

IE does it too, but Mozilla has a good feature to manage those saved passwords and form information. Getting to that feature can require you first enter a master password.

I usually run through the annonymizer.com proxy that blocks ALL that crap

What were you saying about not having to use third-party stuff? It's all built into Mozilla, even the way things can pop up, plus you can see any popups if you want. In the popup controls, you can also specify to allow popups in certain sites that require them.

You can configure what Java functions run in IE

Not to this level and definitely not this easily.

Notice you passed over the faster, smaller part. I know the concept is alien in a Microsoft world, so it might take a while for it to settle in.

70 posted on 05/25/2004 8:11:29 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: antiRepublicrat

Anonymizer is a fairly unique service. The rest of your features I don't really need. You'd think if it's superior and free as you say, there'd be a few more people using these other browsers on windows. Guess not.


71 posted on 05/25/2004 8:37:08 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 70 | View Replies]

To: Golden Eagle
The rest of your features I don't really need.

If you don't want them or proper CSS rendering, no problem for me, well, unless you're using Outlook, which by use of IE libraries likes to propagate worms to my inbox.

You'd think if it's superior and free as you say, there'd be a few more people using these other browsers on windows.

By that logic, you'd think that McDonald's serves the best, most nutritious food in the world since they have the highest volume. The only reason IE is so popular is because it is included in the majority operating system. Millions out there think that IE is the way you access that Web thing and don't know any better.

72 posted on 05/25/2004 8:55:11 PM PDT by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]

To: antiRepublicrat
Whether you and other bigots like it, IE is the interoperability standard by which other browsers are measured.
73 posted on 05/25/2004 9:51:17 PM PDT by Bush2000
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: antiRepublicrat

I don't understand your analogy, McDonald's is free in your neighborhood, yet they're still "outsold"?


74 posted on 05/26/2004 5:52:27 AM PDT by Golden Eagle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: Bush2000
Whether you and other bigots like it, IE is the interoperability standard by which other browsers are measured.

Uh, no. XHTML, HTML, HTTP, HTTPS, CSS and others are the set standards and, yes, Microsoft had a hand in developing some of these standards. People like you may think IE is the standard because that's what you see all day, but that's just because you don't know any better or are loyal Microserfs.

Some standards Microsoft must adhere to just to be functional, such as HTTP. Others they can disregard, but that makes their browser broken. If IE weren't included in Windows it would likely have almost no marketshare.

75 posted on 05/26/2004 6:57:18 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: Golden Eagle
I don't understand your analogy, McDonald's is free in your neighborhood, yet they're still "outsold"?

Betamax rocked over VHS, but VHS won. McDonald's sells billions of burgers each year worldwide, far more than Hardees, but their burgers suck in comparison. Windows was always the technically worst operating system of its day, yet it owns the low-end market, and it's not even the least expensive.

The analogy is that the best doesn't always win in the marketplace.

And quit trying to compare intellectual property with real property. Without a major source of donated funding, it's impossible to distribute millions of physical widgets for other people to use or eat, such as to compete with McDonald's. You need design, manufacturing, packing, shipping, etc. And with each widget shipped, costs go up. With software, once it's created by volunteers (or companies that think they can make some money off it), distribution of millions of copies can cost almost nothing.

76 posted on 05/26/2004 7:06:48 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

To: Golden Eagle
I must have been really out of it yesterday... I meant (CTRL-Tab) and (ALT-Tab), as you pointed out. I actually don't have the tabs displayed, myself (you can shut them off), but I can still navigate between them with (CTRL-Tab) or by using the menus with the mouse.

As you may have been able to deduce, I prefer to use a keyboard shortcut whenever possible because I don't like having to remove a hand from the keyboard to move the mouse once I get going... :)

77 posted on 05/26/2004 9:01:46 AM PDT by kevkrom (The John Kerry Songbook: www.imakrom.com/kerrysongs)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies]

To: N3WBI3
Could apple set their site to erase the harddrives of windows boxes??

I don't know whether they COULD or not. Since this isn't the least bit relevant, what's your point?

78 posted on 05/26/2004 9:24:57 AM PDT by 1L
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: 1L
Sabotaging the competition is wrong. This is not a case of the site did not work with opera, this is a case where MS made the site intentionally not work with opera. Thats a point most MS schrills dont get..
79 posted on 05/26/2004 9:28:44 AM PDT by N3WBI3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 78 | View Replies]

To: Golden Eagle

Yea because its not like they have used used a monopoly on the OS market to push their browser, I mean that would lead to a lawsuit or something /sarcasm


80 posted on 05/26/2004 9:35:38 AM PDT by N3WBI3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 71 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-118 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson