Save up to $369 on HP notebooks
What he instead should have said is, "To heck with Mario Monti."
To be sure, the tangle with Janet Reno's Justice Department over antitrust charges in the 1990s taught Microsoft's brass to avoid making inflammatory statements in public.
If you don't think politics is behind the EU's muscle flexing, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Monti, who finishes out his term this year, has bagged the biggest enchilada of his regulatory career. Forcing Microsoft to bow to the will of a pan-European governing body stands in stark contrast to the U.S. Justice Department's feckless attempt to rein in the software maker only a few years ago. What's more, it establishes the EU's primacy as an arbiter of the technology business.
That's why Microsoft has been fighting tooth and nail to resist the Brussels bureaucrats, who want to decide what should go into Windows. Step away from the immediate controversy, and you see that the exclusion of Media Player from the operating system is small potatoes, compared with the precedent such a decision might set.
Wishful thinking. If the EU gets its way, Ballmer better develop a liking for moules et frites, because he'll need to spend plenty of time in Brussels over the next few years.
At the heart of the EU case is a philosophical dispute about the future and who should get to decide the contours of a still-amorphous landscape. During this old-new debate, Microsoft has bloodied many a rival--browser maker Netscape being the most famous example--by incorporating similar functions into the Windows operating system. That was one of the considerations that convinced the Justice Department to bring an antitrust lawsuit in 1998.
If Microsoft fails to block the EU's designs, it can't again afford to play cute by purposely rigging an inferior Media Player-less version of Windows. A better strategy is to let the market force the politicians to step aside. Bureaucratic dictates will be less telling than original equipment manufacturers' decisions. And the fact is that Microsoft's Media Player is as good, if not better, than RealNetworks' player.
Not that this is going to be a cakewalk. The behind-the-scenes bargaining promises to be intense. Some PC makers may hold out and demand discounts from Microsoft in return for stocking separate versions of the software. Certainly, no computer maker will pay for the inclusion of Media Player--not when consumers can simply download the software from the Internet. But if customers think the "OS complete" version is a better deal, Microsoft can still come out ahead.
And there's not much Monti or the European Union can do about that.
Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.
See more CNET content tagged:
Mario Monti,
European Union,
Steve Ballmer,
Brussels,
antitrust
"....it would establish the EU's primacy as an arbiter of the
technology business."
Not so. It is Monti's job to regulate monopolies. Both the US and
the EU now found Microsoft being a monopolist AND abusing its
monopoly powers to enter new markets - over and over again.
The only difference is that the US (after Bush came to power) was
satisfied with a mere "slap on the hand" as remedie (although
mush harsher measures were discussed before) and the EU, after
seeing that Microsofts behaviour has essentially not changed
since the US ruling, decided now for much harder remedies.
So the only one to blame is Microsoft, because they repeatedly,
despite beeing a monopolist, violated conduct rules imposed on
them via US and EU laws.
Like it or not, Microsofts behaviour brakes the law on both sides
of the atlantic, the only news here is that now it wont get away
so easily on this side.
Or do you really think regulating monopolies is a bad idea? Then
I suggest you pick up a basic economics book and learn about
the relation between monopolies and innovation.
Because this is precisely what's at stake here: The future of
innovation in the IT industry, no more no less. And that is what
Monti is trying to preserve: A business environment in the IT
industry where (non-Microsoft) innovation is possible.
So cheers to Mario Monti for holding Microsoft accountable for
the consequences (damages) of their illegal business practice
"The exclusion of Media Player from the operating system is
small potatoes, compared with the precedent such a decision
might set."
Why is it that Microsoft is market leader for Office products,
Browsers and (soon) Mediaplayers?
Right: because it was leveraging (sometimes illegally) its
Windows Monopoly in the Operating System market into new
markets.
To see how much harder it is for Microsoft to compete when
they cannot leverage their monopoly, just check out their
products for Mobile Phones, TV set-top boxes and game
consoles.
So a clear NO to Microsofts ambition to bundle annything into
Windows ("innovation through integration" as Ballmer calls it).
Because if Microsoft can leverage its Windows monopoly
unconstraint into new markets, then it means that it will only be
the technologies that Microsofts promotes that win. A Soviet-
style market.
Wouldn't it be nice if the better technology won? Or the
consumers had a choice?
Monti's decision is just about that: Ensuring that consumers
have a choice, ensuring that there is a business environment in
which different technologies can compete (may the best win,
even if its not from Microsoft)
So the EUs decision is surely bad for Microsoft (if it will ever be
implemented like this). But thats a good thing for the IT industry
at large and the consumer: Innovation and choice are higher
goods than Microsofts bottom line
right.
Time and again people in the US claim they are for "free
markets" when what they support is actually unfettered
capitalism - when the dominant power is the US.
What Microsoft (as a monopolist) ought to do, if it wishes to
integrate (say) media playing into its operating system, is to
develop _public_ APIs, implement a Media Player which uses
those APIs, and not _force_ OEMs to bundle their player. Other
companies could then develop media players which can also
integrate seamlessly with the Windows OS, and compete with MS
in the media player market.
Only then will you get competition, innovation and improvement
in the market place.
Feel free to substitute 'web browser', 'telephony',
'semantic web', 'database filesystem' and other future
technologies for Media Player in the argument above.
As a monopoly, that is what MS should do. As a doubly
convicted abusive monopolist, that is what MS should be
punished until it is _seen_ to do!
Remember another monopoly - AT&T - were forbidden from
competing in the computer and OS market place - why should
MS be allowed to leverage its might to break into other markets?
- Welcome to the European way of business
-
by
March 24, 2004 9:25 AM PST
- Microsoft didn?t stand a chance in the court of Mario Monti. Firstly it is Microsoft (big bad successful and profitable corporation) and secondly it is American. I was amazed the Mario didn?t find some fiendish link between Media Player, Windows and the Iraq war.
-
Reply to this comment
View
reply
-
-
See all 26 Comments >>We have such a fair, well balanced and regulated corporate environment in Europe that with the exception of SAP we have never created anything like a world ranked IT supplier.
Believe it or not but the last few times I have been in a London pub the conversation has not been dominated by the unfairness of Microsoft integration of Media Player. There have been no demonstrations and riots about the poor old Netscape. This has all been a field-day for the lawyers and the anti-Microsoft brigade and an irrelevance to everybody else.
What Microsoft?s case has made visible to the US is the insular, bureaucratic and anti-business environment that dominates the EU and its institutions. It is no wonder that the German and French economies bounce along on the verge of recession whilst the US steams ahead.
I really hope that Microsoft uses its financial and political power to delay this ruling until we get a more business friendly environment in Europe. I say that more in hope than expectation.