GOOGLE PILES ON AGAINST MICROSOFT by Michael S. Malone
A decade ago, when I visited Europe to give a speech or attend a conference on high tech, the conversation inevitably came around to Microsoft — in particular, its growing hegemony in the world of personal computing.
Europeans typically like monopolies . . .but only if they aren’t American. And so, Microsoft’s success was seen by Europeans as not just a business threat, but a cultural — even an existential — threat. And so, the conversation inevitably came down: How can we stop them?
American competitors were asking the same thing. And even they weren’t adverse (to their later embarassment) to run off to Washington to beg for help from the Justice Department. But that faded pretty quickly, especially after the dot.com bubble burst in 2000.
But the Europeans, especially now the EU, has never forgotten. Nor has it ever abandoned its bureaucratic and legal efforts to deny Microsoft the ability to compete in that market. Even now, when, as Bill Gates predicted a decade ago, Microsoft has become a sleepy old corporate giant content to protect its empire rather than expand, the EU still remains in hot pursuit.
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. The complaint was an old story in the U.S., but apparently still alive in Europe, and the EC agreed to investigate.
I fail to see how Microsoft could be ‘predatory’ or holding a monopoly over web browsers when they allow you to use whatever browser you want to.
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?
Once again, the E.U has proven themselves to be nothing more than a sodden bottomed group of weeping children.
Someone should spank them.
I abhor I.E. with a passion and only use it to view websites that only work on it [which is rare now because most websites are fairly good in most all platforms]. Otherwise I stick to Opera and Firefox which have much better options and tweaks. I’ve been an Opera browser fan since back when you had to actually pay for it. Firefox is ‘ok’ and I.E. just peeves me to no end.
I really want to see microsoft and google battle to their respective deaths. microsoft for their business practices and google for its efforts in supporting the chicoms and filtering the world’s information. i hope they kill each other.
4. chris,
You can turn filtering completely off for google searches under their preferences.
-But, yeah…I wouldn’t mind seeing google in a death-match with Micro$oft. Google is in bed with the 0bama admin so I say… LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
Delia: I’ve switched off content filtering. My beef is that the do “filter” conservative content. I wish I could remember what I was searching for when I discovered this (but I cannot, sorry) but I absolutely knew there would be information on a topic so I first searched google and came up with something like 5 hits and then did exactly the same search on Yahoo! and got pages of results. Ditto for altavista. Furthermore, their head honcho, their grande fromage, is totally in bed with the Obama administration (http://searchenginewatch.com/3632686).
In the information age, he who controls of the information flow controls the society. The microsoft/google search engine war, the microsoft/netscape browser war and others was as much about control as it was about money. Moreso, perhaps, given that the browsers were free! For further evidence, I refer you to the past election and the media’s role in its outcome.
The real bummer, for me personally, is that my Safari browser has a (very handy) google search bar built in. If you, or anyone, knows how to change this to another search engine, I’d really appreciate it… now I have to, horrors!, remember to command-click (on my mac) a shortcut to open a Yahoo! search page. : )
Delia: Sorry about repeating the google/obama thing. I shot my mouth off before reading your entire post. My apologies. : )
Good posts, Chris. No probs. I jump the proverbial gun myself from time to time. Shhh.
Just remember…”big brother” is getting OBESE. We might have a full-on lard ass spytastic group of geek squad/hackers/1337 fleets soon under the Hope and Change insignia. Grab ankles and squinch eyes. Palin’s email getting hacked? Check. Joe the Plumber’s personal info getting hacked? Check. Who’s next huh? :O
If Windows didn’t ship with IE, how would you download Firefox or Opera or …
9. NormD:
If Windows didn’t ship with IE, how would you download Firefox or Opera or…
APPLE?
God forbid. Eww. lol