Microsoft fined £484m

Tut tut

In theory the watchdog could have fined the firm 10% of its global annual revenue, which would have totalled $7.4bn based on its 2012 report.

That would have helped a few deficits, and prevented a rise in the EU budget. Note that the US Gov goes after non-US companies with plenty of effort (BP).

I have to say that I find this all a bit silly. A browser nowadays is an essential part of the OS and I don't see many (any?) companies actually selling them. It's a bit like Apple providing Safari with their OS - I see no big compaints about that.

It would be interesting to know what proportion of people, when faced with that unnecessary choice program, actually picked a browser other than IE. Now I must dash of a note to the EU complaining about the fact that Microsoft offer me only Visual Studio and don't point out that other compilers are available. Shocking.

I agree. As they are all, or at least the ones I use free, I am not exactly sure what it is that is being stifled. Explorer is not actually my browser of choice, but it is fairly essential as far as I know to the Windows operating system, as it browses the local computer as well.

I do not see why Microsoft should distribute products from possible competitors as it just makes their system discs even more bloated.

I suspect there will now be an expensive appeal. Perhaps that is what the legal system is hoping so they are all kept in work.

Why should Microsoft have to promote other browsers? What a farce. EC should be ashamed of themselves.

So I suppose based on the ECs logic if firefox or opera make their own operating system then the EC should demand Microsoft implement a warning screen to offer the user to uninstall Windows and use the competitors product instead?

Why just pick on the internet browser aspect?

... and why not pick on it in the ubiquitous iOS? I see no splash screen there to invite me to use a browser other than Safari (despite the fact that it crashes with such ease). And it's not as if you can use the excuse that Apple is a smaller company than Microsoft.

Should Google be forced to advertise multiple browsers or toolbars, other than just Chrome?

Silly or not MS agreed to include it as part of their settlement. They didn't so they deserve the fine.

Safari doesn't crash for me. Chrome does frequently when I use it and it does have some nifty features thet mean I use it frequently. The difference is that Apple have never made the claim that Safari is an intrinsic part of Mac OS that cannot be uninstalled. This is the argument Micrsoft used in their cynical land grab back in the 1990s. They deserved everything they got when it came to regulators bearing doen on them when they had the dominance they had at that time. Maybe the time has arrived for them to go and talk to the regulators again, but they didn't do that before not including the option to select an alternate default browser.

They didn't for a certain version/time period. A percentage figure would be useful, because Windows 7 SP1 will not account for many installations when taking an average (you've got to include XP, Vista, 7 RTM, 8...)

I personally find the browser choice update a total pain in the [censored], if I happen to see it i HIDE it permanently.

It is a disgrace they are fining Microsoft this amount of money on such a pathetic issue - they should be fining companies that leak data and have massive privacy violations.

Microsoft make that claim because its true. Windows was written with IE included. When they wrote XP and Vista they did not know that some bafoons in the EC would rule that including features in an operating system is anti-competitive. Many programs and components of Windows use internet explorer APIs (Perhaps AEP can confirm this in more technical reasons... as I am not a programmer) and if it was stripped out of the system many things would not work.

I just do not get why they are picking on the browser component only, why is including an internet browser anti-competitive but including a calculator, and notepad etc, fine? It is just because Firefox and Opera kicked up a fuss.

What is ironic is the EC probably use internet explorer themselves, afterall, last time I looked, it was not very easy to manage Safari/Firefox/Chrome in an enterprise environment.

I don't disagree, but Microsoft agreed to include it. They could have gone back to the regulators and suggested what with smart phones and tablets and google and the rest that things have moved on, users are bombarded with browser options all over the show (including sneaky installers for Firefox and Chrome in installers for things that have nothing to do with the internet and Safari in iTumes/Apple update). They could have said this choice is a PITA for consumers now (I agree it is). They didn't do any of this, though.

It is true, but it was primarily done to grab the browser market off the back of a dominant OS share. As were their cynical attemtpts to tie all sorts of proprietary code into IIS that they wouldn't licence for use in other browsers. Do you remember the pages you couldn't open without IE? I do. Of course, that fed into OS share too since it made it harder for other OS writers to compete too. MS wanted to own the web.

The regulators both in the EU and the US made sure that that could not happen by making sure they couldn't get their way. That's a good thing. We would live in a rather denuded world if all we had to rely on for innovation were the same people who brought us Windows 8.

Very valid points. I just think if they are going to come down on Microsoft this hard (and they really have done), then it is about time they came down hard on Google for breaching numerous privacy and data protection policies. This is more serious than an idiotic screen which asks the user to install another internet browser.

I think the world only ever hears one story when it comes to IE and compatibility. What I point out to a lot of people is while IE may have not complied with some standards etc, it delivered a lot of features that web developers took advantage of which other browsers didn't offer. So, web developers who used this sort of content were not innocent in it all (ah yes, this takes me back to the time of embedded midis, pointer trails, and all sorts of stuff!).

There is a hell of a lot of equipment out there that needs IE to function properly, still! Draytek products are best configured using internet explorer hands down. A lot of HP Procurve products -- web interface only accessible with IE and Java. Can't blame Microsoft for that one.

Edited by Pipexer (Wed 06-Mar-13 22:31:10)

Google's day of reckoning on those issues is yet to come. Of that I have no doubt.

I've not tried Chrome on my iPad (TBH, I didm't realize that they did an iOS version). Safari is notorious for crashing on the platform - I'd say mine does it a dozen of more times per day.

I agree that the current fine is fair enough, under the circumstances. The farce is that Microsoft were forced to include this nagging browser choice in the first place, to avoid an equally large fine, which only serves to confuse most people, whilst other firms are allowed to get away with similar practices.

In essence the problem was that Microsoft were supplying such a good integrated product that it was difficult for third parties to demonstrate the need - for most people - of an alternative. It's the same when you buy a car nowadays; almost all of them come with an audio system integrated, which makes life difficult for third-party suppliers of automobile audio equipment. Or televisions which come with an integrated FreeView tuner - is that fair on the manufacturers of separate FreeView boxes? You can install an alternative browser or car stereo, you can buy a separate FreeView box; but most people don't bother if the supplied equipment does the job.

Coming to think of this I can't remember not seeing this browser choice screen offered as part of an update for the past 2 years or so.

I am sure Microsoft have checked this given the sums of money involved.... but, I am curious now. I've done enough Windows installations to know, and I've run into many when this has been installed. It gets right on my nerves which is why I notice it.

The problem is it is offered as a Windows Update, but I think Microsoft should find out exactly how long it has been omitted for and what percentage of the market for. Because I don't think it is high.

Hmm - I still think the fine is too high for the crime though. I think that is pretty damaging for the industry actually if the EC are going to act like bullies.

Edited by Pipexer (Wed 06-Mar-13 23:13:59)

the question is why havent google and apple been fined for the same thing?

On mobile operating systems they are much more locked down to vendor apps.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Hmm - I still think the fine is too high for the crime though. I think that is pretty damaging for the industry actually if the EC are going to act like bullies.

I wouldn't know if it's too high, but I'm not comfortable with such an institution getting the cash. I would rather MS hand out half a billion's worth of free software to EU schools or something practical for the EU and MS. It encourages MS to not make the mistakes, and sends a signal to business that the EU is pro-business where practicable.

Things like this on top of bankers' caps just says "we want to control business", while also saying "we don't know how".

In reply to a post by AEP:

I've not tried Chrome on my iPad (TBH, I didm't realize that they did an iOS version). Safari is notorious for crashing on the platform - I'd say mine does it a dozen of more times per day.

That suggests you have a faulty install. Neither of my iOS devices have any problem with Safari (although the desktop version has too many idiosyncrasies for my tastes).

I bought a Canon camera the other day, and it came with Canon's own editing software. So that isnt allowed as they didnt tell me about other software i could use?