I may not always agree with John Dvorak, but he usually has some thought provoking (if not a little "out there") columns. One of his latest columns was suggesting that IE was Microsoft's biggest mistake and that IE should be pulled from the market immediately.
First, [Microsoft] needs to face the fact that this entire preoccupation with the browser business is bad for the company and bad for the user. Microsoft should pull the browser out of the OS and discontinue all IE development immediately. It should then bless the Mozilla.org folks with a cash endowment and take an investment stake in Opera, to influence the future direction of browser technology from the outside in. Then, Microsoft can worry about security issues that are OS-only in nature, rather than problems compounded by Internet Explorer.... People will not stop buying Microsoft Windows if there is no built-in browser. Opera and/or Firefox can be bundled with the OS as a courtesy...
He makes some good points, including asking how much better Vista could be if it didn't include Internet Explorer. Microsoft has taken a lot of flak for IE over the last few years; IE isn't helping Microsoft's reputation, and letting someone else deal with the security problems sure seems like a good way to deflect some of that heat.
And, on the bright side, ActiveX could just die and go away. ActiveX is becoming increasingly irrelevant with the advent of other technologies like AJAX, and frankly, I believe ActiveX is more harm than good. I don't trust ActiveX, I don't enable ActiveX, and I haven't suffered one bit. What exactly is it good for (besides Windows Update)? Who really uses it, anyway?
Rants aside, I'm sure we'll be seeing IE for a long time, but as a computer user and web developer, I sure wouldn't miss it.
What I don’t understand is this: why should anyone bundle something with their product that’s not theirs? That’s what strikes me as the most hilarious thing ever from the whole range of Microsoft court cases. MS — or any other company — will not agree to bundle a rival product in theirs.
There’s this whole issue with the Windows Media Player here in Europe. What. Why? Why do people have to whine about something like WMP being in an OS?
BeOS included a media player. And you could install a different one any time. It’s also not a security issue if and when the damn software isn’t running — so why do I care if some bundled components are still on my computer? I don’t. If I want to use Winamp, I will, and if I want to use XMPlay, I will. And if I want to use VideoLan for my video, I will.
The whole -M fiasco just doesn’t make a god damned sense.
Certainly, the fact that the browser is so integrated into the system that it always runs does raise a couple red flags, but… Let me ask a question. How would Mr. Average User get a browser on his computer without an http client of any kind? Hassle, isn’t it?
I’m all for making these components uninstallable. But the OS is there to help people use their computers, and you can’t expect an average person to go through all kinds of hurdles just to get a computer working. And if they don’t install their Windows, any sane computer builder will make sure the little e isn’t easy to find.
Besides, why isn’t anyone suing Apple for similar — if not even more harsh — behaviour?
Bundling software to make your product more valuable to the consumer is one thing. Bundling software to be anti-competitive is another. The latter is what Microsoft has done and it is that which must be corrected.
Why isn't anyone suing Apple? Simple. Apple's not the de facto monopoly.
Eva: you can install alternative browsers, mail clients, file managers and media players on your Windows system, (unlike how it was originally with the never to be released edition of Windows 98 which started the whole thing), and as such, there’s no reason to say this is being anti-competitive. It’s really just that they’re the big ones, therefore whatever they do will sway the market that way — if they had bundled a smarter CD burner into XP, Nero’s market could’ve gone way down right because of that (even if the Easy CD Creator sucks, which it does), and people would’ve been angsty and sue-ready about that.
I just see no point in penalising some company or corporation just because it happens to be big and happens to bundle useable (albeit seriously criticiseable) software in their OS. If Apple were the bigger, it would be pushed around the same way, and to be honest, some of their bundle and the extendability through APIs are just way more harsh than Microsoft’s anywhere the last couple years. Their luck is that they’re not big enough, and that’s it.
"Nero’s market could’ve gone way down right because of that (even if the Easy CD Creator sucks, which it does), and people would’ve been angsty and sue-ready about that."
Of course they would have been pissed off and rightfully so. Capitalism doesn't work if competition is not ensured. That is why anti-trust laws exist.
By tying the purchase of a product (Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Windows Media Player, etc.) to the purchase of another product (Windows), you are hurting the business of competitors that engage in the sale of the tying product. That is to say, if I make a media player and you sell your media player only so long as your customers pay for your OS, then you are hurting my business.
Tying is anti-competitive and as such, is an illegal practice.