Microsoft Submits Windows 7 for Antitrust Review 166
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has submitted the follow-up to Windows Vista to the committee that oversees its US antitrust compliance, to ensure the operating system is meeting the terms of the company's agreement with the government. According to last week's status report on the US antitrust case, Microsoft "recently supplied" the Technical Committee (TC) with a build of the OS, code-named Windows 7, and the TC will "conduct middleware-related tests on future builds" of the software. The move was revealed in papers filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Those on the TC so far are the only ones privy to what the follow-up to Vista will look like, and Microsoft is mum on details of the software. But recent company moves and revelations hint at what can be expected from the software, which is due for release in late 2009 or early 2010. Lets hope Microsoft learns some lessons from the "Vista Capable" dilemma!!"
dupe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:dupe (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong attitude (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Could It Be The End? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Leak? (Score:3, Informative)
You mean, the way they did with XP? And 2000?
I haven't installed Vista, but XP did still have tons of Microsoft propaganda -- I mean, informative tips -- while you waited, telling you all the great things about the OS you're installing. So let me guess: You feel that Windows 7 will be "faster, more secure, more fun," etc? You know, the way XP was?
And this is a sarcastic statement!
Re:this annoys me... (Score:3, Informative)
...and I'm sure I'm going to have half of slashdot jumping down my throat, calling me a Microsoft Sympathiser for saying this, but... ...shit like third parties having their way with Windows is probably a very big reason why Vista isn't as great as it could be.
I understand your argument and it does make sense. I even agree that some of the new features in Vista are better than what is offered by the competition (I submitted feature requests to both Kubuntu and OS X and Windows asking for those types of audio controls years ago). I think where we disagree is that you seem to have some sort of an idea that antitrust regulation is supposed to be hurting MS and making their products worse or something.
The point of antitrust actions is to force a company to compete and give customers what they want for a fair price. In a competitive market, Microsoft gives OEMs (and through them end users) what they want or they lose money, so it is MS's best interest to give users the features they want. Introducing anti-features like Protected Media Pathway is something that would not happen in a competitive marketplace (or if it did the company would lose money because consumers could switch to alternatives).
The only problems with the EU's antitrust actions to date is that they have been too lenient and have not really made MS hurt in response to breaking the law and hurting users. The US is the one that should really have jumped on MS and solved this problem. The EU has been handling MS with kid gloves for diplomatic reasons. I have one other point to make. Antitrust resolution is about making Windows and alternatives better by forcing them to challenge one another for every dollar of consumers' money.
In my mind, the best way to deal with Microsoft at this point is to stop trying to micromanage every abuse individually (and there are dozens of obvious abuses that have not even been addressed yet). MS needs to be broken up and at least two of the new companies need to be given full access to the intellectual property and half the manpower behind Windows. New company A can start working on Windows A and new company B can start working on Windows B. Both must be forbidden from any collusion or even any nonpublic communications. Think about it. If company A knew consumers would be comparing their offering critically against Windows B, would they add more anti-features for the RIAA and MPAA that annoy customers or would they be financially motivated to get rid of anything that annoys users? Another advantage to this approach is that both companies are free to bundle or tie any products they want, since neither will have a monopoly and such bundling will no longer undermine the operation of the market. If one company pays millions to create some technology that is poorly designed (like IE) while the other company bundles Firefox, the first company will lose all that money and quickly look to either make IE better for users, or drop development and go with something cheaper and better. Finally, because having software work on both versions of Windows is important, developers will develop for whichever new company provides them with the best APIs and tools and developers will probably demand a way to write for both at once, which would have to be a published API, lending itself to cross-platform application development, which means programs that would run not only on both versions of Windows but also Linux, OS X , cell phones, and anything else for less cost... and that benefits everyone. In addition, investors will no longer look at investment in desktop operating systems or office suites as a doomed endeavor and will be able to invest in creating better alternatives (Like Linux distros) which will help to improve all OS's on the market.
...it's just that all this is overshadowed by the stuff it doesn't do well, which is arguably not entirely Microsoft's fault.
I mostly disagree with this