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Why is Microsoft charged with Antitrust and Apple not

DesiPower

DesiPower

Lifer
Why was Microsoft charged with Antitrust for adding free Browser and media player where as you need iEyes and iFinger to use apple products and everyone is OK with that..
 
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More people use Microsoft products. Simple as that. Maybe Apple has better lawyers too. Who knows. Various governments have toyed with the idea but antitrust is rare. Microsoft's case with IE was due to the dumb European Parliament butting its nose in. It was a non-issue.
 
businesses have parternered with the gov. increasingly over the years at levels so deep no one hears about it unless you're in the "circle";

anything can be pulled off more easily than in the 90's and early 2000's.

capitalism has evolved.

laws governing software acceptibility are being stacked and rigged. creative people at the top are profitting off of this because they know someday...

someday, "the system" may collapse... when the information age transitions more fully to the knowledge age where developers offer software for free.

what you end up paying for is service, not for the software itself.
 
Microsoft was not charged with having a monopoly, that is perfectly legal.

Microsoft was guilty of abusing their monopoly power, which they started doing back with Windows 3.x against other DOS vendors, and continued to abusively target competing desktop OSes, office suites, development tools, servers OSes. browsers, web servers and finally media players.
 
If that's the case explain to me where the self destruct switch is when I load Open Office or Firefox on Windows then? Where's the restiction on loading Netware clients?

News Flash: Netscape failed because it was a crappy browser and they had a poor business model.

I've said for years Microsoft needs to unbundle IE and many of their other apps from Windows and sell them as an add-on option you have to pay for. This would shut the EU regulators up and generate more cash for Microsoft because 95% of people would likely still pay for it.

It's their OS - let them load what they want with it - Apple does. If you don't like it, load something else.
 
Yeah I never really understood the big stink about bundling IE and WMP. I mean if they did something to prevent you from running competing browsers or media players, that would be a big problem. But that wasn't the case. If IE killed Netscape, it's only because IE worked well enough for most users and Netscape didn't offer any features compelling enough for them to switch.
 
spikespiegal said:
If that's the case explain to me where the self destruct switch is when I load Open Office or Firefox on Windows then? Where's the restiction on loading Netware clients?

News Flash: Netscape failed because it was a crappy browser and they had a poor business model.

I've said for years Microsoft needs to unbundle IE and many of their other apps from Windows and sell them as an add-on option you have to pay for. This would shut the EU regulators up and generate more cash for Microsoft because 95% of people would likely still pay for it.

It's their OS - let them load what they want with it - Apple does. If you don't like it, load something else.
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95% would? o'rly?
 
DaveSimmons said:
Microsoft was not charged with having a monopoly, that is perfectly legal.

Microsoft was guilty of abusing their monopoly power, which they started doing back with Windows 3.x against other DOS vendors, and continued to abusively target competing desktop OSes, office suites, development tools, servers OSes. browsers, web servers and finally media players.
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Steve Jobs hasn't done the same?

Cat
 
Microsoft didn't just bundle IE for free and give away the IIS web server in order to "cut off their oxygen" (Ballmer) and starve Netscape for cash. They also:

- Made IE "part of the operating system". introducing years of security flaws, so that it could not be removed from Windows.

- Declared that the Common Controls (user interface elements) were part of IE, and could only be distributed by software manufacturers if they installed IE with their application. So your tax software or point of sale terminal might need to install IE just to show a list box.

- Used restrictive contracts for the sale of Windows where the IE icon had to appear on the Windows desktop, and no other browsers were allowed.

"Bundling" and "tying" are illegal abuses of monopoly power. Until they decided to crush Netscape, MS sold their server applications, but they were now willing to bundle the applications that matched what Netscape was selling free with Windows NT in order to drive their competitor out of business.

Once MS had won, they stopped caring about improving IE and let it stagnate for years until Firefox started stealing enough market share to scare them.
 
catilley1092 said:
Steve Jobs hasn't done the same?
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With what monopoly? They don't have one in desktops or smart phones. I suppose they might be considered to have monopoly power in MP3 players, but I'm not aware of how they've abused that by tying or bundling other products (iTunes would not apply, and iPods do play MP3s sold by anyone)
 
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apple is a niche product company, very popular, but the premium products arent going to take a monopoly position
 
Apple is a successful American company so it's only a matter of time until the EU finds some "reason" to make a cash grab.
 
Microsoft is still feeling the effects - remember the early Mac vs PC commercials, when Justin Long babbled about all the cool software that came with Macs? Yea - Microsoft makes the same stuff, the Windows Live Essentials suite, but they don't include it or make any mention of it in the Windows OS because someone would probably sue them.

Its stupid.
 
DesiPower said:
Why was Microsoft charged with Antitrust for adding free Browser and media player where as you need iEyes and iFinger to use apple products and everyone is OK with that..
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Because at the time of the lawsuit, Microsoft had exactly ZERO lobbyists in Washington. Now they spend millions and avoid the lawsuits.
 
dwell said:
Apple is a monopoly? For what exactly?
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Tablets? The iPad has about 80% marketshare right now.

I guess that iTunes could be considered a monopoly as well, since they own about 70% of the legal music download market. Someone could make a claim that the reason for that is because every iPhone, iPod, and iPad comes with bundled with iTunes, and they make it more difficult to put music from a competing service like Amazon MP3 on those products.

I know that's a weak argument, but the EU has convicted companies with weaker arguments than that in the past.
 
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They go after Microsoft because a monopoly has to have the power to set prices and influence consumer behaviour. Microsoft meets the definition of a monopolist, and they deserve to be fined big time or broken up into separate divisions.

Basically, Microsoft influenced consumers through the bundling of products which should not have been bundled. If MS didn't bundle IE the way they did, the browser wars would have ended up quite differently.
 
tokie said:
They go after Microsoft because a monopoly has to have the power to set prices and influence consumer behaviour. Microsoft meets the definition of a monopolist, and they deserve to be fined big time or broken up into separate divisions.

Basically, Microsoft influenced consumers through the bundling of products which should not have been bundled. If MS didn't bundle IE the way they did, the browser wars would have ended up quite differently.
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I don't think so... Netscape's browser turned into a bloated piece of crap around version 4 or so in 1997, and they were still winning the browser wars at that point. Version 5 never came out, and Version 6 was horribly buggy. By the time version 7 came out, it was already too late.

Even without Microsoft's help, I think that AOL would have eventually killed off the product.
 
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