Re:media player (Score 3, Insightful)

Well the problem with the existence of windows media player is somehow an oddity. Windows OS needs some kind of media player for preview purposes. I know, It's just something flashy, but what do you see when you enter a folder, highlight a movie and a small preview with stop and play appears. It's flasy and of course sometimes usefull. Of course there might be programming interdependencies with IE and Windows Explorer that we don't know yet. From here to a full fledged player is just a simple step. You only have to put on the player engine a nice interface and 'voila you have a player, BUT, it's not bundled, it's integrated, it is part of the OS itself. The same thing is with the Internet Explorer. Hell, Windows Explorer is in fact containing IE in itself, or viceversa. Microsoft Windows is not an OS its a package. I agree with EU only at some points. MS has to make the code available such that integration with 3rd party software is much easier, but you should not force out parts of the system. Going on like that we will return to DOS shell's. Why ? because there is Total Commander as file manager, there are other windows game's providers, there is Winamp and Co, we have alternatives to anything, so what remains from the package, a simple core. MS does not sell that. On the other part if the customer is getting an OS that has media capabilities incorporated, why should he buy InterVideo software for playing DVD's, or why should he bother downloading the free BSPlayer. Common users will not do this step and thus 3rd party software providers are having a hard time fighting MS. Still if another media software provider wants to sell more of its products then he should make it better, more performant and flashier. Mozilla has done it, even forcing removal of the IE.