Comment Re:Why WMP endangers freedom (Score 1) 420
If MS can leverage their strong market position in the desktop OS area to drive competing commercial producers of media players out of business, that is a freedom issue.
How many people actually believe there is any evidence that Microsoft has "illegally" driven Real or Quicktime out of the media player business? Everyone hates Real software with a passion, Apple's marketing of Quicktime is nonexistent at best, and Microsoft happens to have created a Media Player that is head and shoulders above the competition (for commercial non-free media players) but people still buy into this argument that Microsoft have somehow illegally pushed their competitors out of the business.
The EU's investigation of Media Player bundling is nothing more than an exercise in bureaucracy, a copycat of the Netscape case, but based on far weaker "evidence" much of which comes from serial deceiver, Real Networks. If people want to be gloat that Microsoft has finally gotten some comeuppance, then they should say so, but let's not pretend the Media Player part of this ruling is just and fair, because it's trumped-up bullshit.
How many people actually believe there is any evidence that Microsoft has "illegally" driven Real or Quicktime out of the media player business? Everyone hates Real software with a passion, Apple's marketing of Quicktime is nonexistent at best, and Microsoft happens to have created a Media Player that is head and shoulders above the competition (for commercial non-free media players) but people still buy into this argument that Microsoft have somehow illegally pushed their competitors out of the business.
The EU's investigation of Media Player bundling is nothing more than an exercise in bureaucracy, a copycat of the Netscape case, but based on far weaker "evidence" much of which comes from serial deceiver, Real Networks. If people want to be gloat that Microsoft has finally gotten some comeuppance, then they should say so, but let's not pretend the Media Player part of this ruling is just and fair, because it's trumped-up bullshit.
