Microsoft & Apple

Kevster

Why is it not okay for Microsoft to bundle IE with the Windows operating system but it's okay for Apple to require Quicktime be installed with iTunes? I hate Quicktime, and I hate people that diss Microsoft.


Kevin.

mr_disc

An old argument, but im with you on this one, guess you mean Media player also ......

BostonB

Because not enough people have complained about it. Kinda annoying as is the way iTunes doesn't give you an option not to install the memory hogging services. If you don't need them all of the time.

Kevster

Media player too, yeh. It also pisses me off me that Bill Gates' selflessness to charity rarely gets mentioned. I'm not sure how much he donates but it's definately in the tens of millions of dollars.

I've disliked Quicktime since I first installed it on my machine many years ago. It's poorly designed in my opinion and is just annoying in the way that it integrates itself with Control Panel.

8T8

QuickTime is a train wreak of an application under under Windows I would be be more than happy to see it die a painful death.

However to be fair it works fairly well under OSX it's just Apple has neglected QT on the Windows side for so long that is why it is so bad. On some level they must know as I have seen guys at Doom9 report bugs directly to Apple about QT only for them to be ignored so maybe they want users to think in order for {insert Apple tech} to work properly you have to get a Mac.

It is annoying as on top of that Apple's H.264 implementation is one of the worst on the market in terms of features, quality and performance under OSX or Windows & is easily blown out of the water by it's competitors but Apple & it's fan base crow on about it.

This topic is making the round on Ars' battlefront actually and the testimony from Microsoft is interesting reading in that it was Apple that put the kibosh an a cross platform video format, this was many many years ago.

A lot of things about Apple annoy me but they do some good stuff too as does Microsoft to give them their dues it's just Apple are better at convincing people their way is the right way (even if it isn't).

Stephen

What's the story with not being able to go fullscreen in Quicktime? What a load of arse.

8T8

You have to buy QuickTime Pro for that feature :rolleyes:

Peteee

Kevster wrote:

Why is it not okay for Microsoft to bundle IE with the Windows operating system but it's okay for Apple to require Quicktime be installed with iTunes? I hate Quicktime, and I hate people that diss Microsoft.


Kevin.

Because Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, which means they are not allowed leverage their monopoly in operating systems to push free media players/browsers to the detriment of competition.

And yes, Quicktime sucks

art

Kevster wrote:

It also pisses me off me that Bill Gates' selflessness to charity rarely gets mentioned.

Donating to charities improves the performance of media players? How does that work? I'm sure I gave some euros to a chap in front of Marks & Spencers last weekend ... is it only certain charities? Like the "Get Bush re-elected "charity maybe? Cause I sure as **** am not donating to that one ...

lodgepole

It's ludicrous that MS get **** over bundling software like IE and Media Player while at the same time getting grief over the low quality of what does get bundled*.

* which has changed... the applications with Vista like Contacts, Calendar, Photoviewer, DVD Maker are all really quite nice.

In 2000, Gates founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a charitable organization, with his wife. Bill Gates Sr. has credited David Rockefeller's generosity and extensive philanthropy as an influence on his son. The two of them met several times with him and have modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus on global problems being ignored by governments and other organizations.[1]
The foundation's grants have provided funds for college scholarships for under-represented minorities, AIDS prevention, diseases prevalent in third world countries, and other causes. In 2000, the Gates Foundation endowed the University of Cambridge with $210 million for the Gates Cambridge Scholarships. The Foundation has also pledged over $7 billion to its various causes, including $1 billion to the United Negro College Fund. According to a 2004 Forbes magazine article, Gates gave away over $29 billion to charities from 2000 onwards. These donations are usually cited as sparking a substantial change in attitudes towards philanthropy among the very rich, with philanthropy becoming the norm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation

mathias

Monopolies are bad for everyone , competition is good for everyone , IE 7 is fine , not bad at all , but you'd still be stuck with crappy IE6 if it wasnt for firefox ,
Microsoft can do good stuff, but they definitely take advantage if they are not kept on their toes , the same as any other propreitary OS maker.

Without the competition their products will stay buggy and mediocre at best.

lodgepole

Competition is fantastic, of course it is, but I fail to see how providing an internet and media capable operating system is unethical on Microsoft's part. And further to that, I don't see why OSX having an internet browser (Safari) and media player (Quicktime) is any different.

dermot_sheehan

The rationale is the Microsoft is using its monopoly power in one market (Operating Systems) to leverage its way in another market (Internet Browsing and media players), which is illegal under competition law.

Microsoft would argue that these markets are in effect combined and that browsers and media players are a subset of the OS, U.S. department of justice and EU Commission disagree.

mathias

I don't see why OSX having an internet browser (Safari) and media player (Quicktime) is any different.

Simply put , Microsoft control the market with 90+ percent of it. If you are selling a piece of software and Microsoft decide to include that for free , your are out of business , that cant be allowed as without competition there is no incentive to innovate. We could have had IE7 years ago but there was no competition , it took firefox to make Microsoft get their act together.

Microsoft have been doing it ( abusing monopoly ) for years and the monopolies commissions have been hammering them for years , Microsoft are so rich though , that they just pay and move along to the next case !!

Yes Apple do it too , but in terms of OS market share , they are minnows and nobody cares , they dont have enough market share to do any real damage.

They do care however , about itunes , where they almost have a monopoly , and certain parts of it have just been made illegal in Norway , if you care to google it , makes interesting reading and may lead to dropping of DRM and access to itunes and the istore by other players.

Mike...

Apple are moaning a whinging about everything, I use Microsoft all the time F**K Apple, In my opinion Apple usere are like Chevrolet/Daewoo Drivers, Think they are great but deep down know how crap it is.

Peteee

mathias wrote:

Simply put , Microsoft control the market with 90+ percent of it.

Of course, Apple control 100% of the macintosh computer market

lodgepole

mathias wrote:

Simply put , Microsoft control the market with 90+ percent of it. If you are selling a piece of software and Microsoft decide to include that for free , your are out of business , that cant be allowed as without competition there is no incentive to innovate.

Which would be fine except that their competition (Firefox, VLC, iTunes etc) are all available free of charge. The only web browser I can remember having a cost associated with it was Opera and I imagine it was Mozilla that people went to as a result of it.

I just can't get my head around the idea that an operating system should come without media or internet capabilities.

I agree with you in theory, that all market leaders should be kept on their toes. I'm glad the success of Firefox made them excel themselves with IE7.

They do care however , about itunes , where they almost have a monopoly , and certain parts of it have just been made illegal in Norway , if you care to google it , makes interesting reading and may lead to dropping of DRM and access to itunes and the istore by other players.

I did read that, and it pleased me. All digital music stores need to cop themselves on in that regard and improve the service and the price associated with their product.

mathias

Which would be fine except that their competition (Firefox, VLC, iTunes etc) are all available free of charge.

Apparently free , yes , to the home user its free , but lots of companies that give away the main software for free make money on enterprise service contracts , ad revenue , and so on , Google seem to give everything away , but its the ad revenue among other things that make them one of the most successful companies around.

The important thing is choice , the OS should be delivered with the option to choose your favourite apps , by and large this is the case at the moment, the monopolies commission have the job of keeping it that way.

Peteee

The important thing is choice , the OS should be delivered with the option to choose your favourite apps

The people who care about such things will go and download another program.

Upon booting up her new PC, Granny smith isn't going to care about picking WMP11, VLC, iTunes, FooBar2k, WinAmp and whatever intricacies they have. She just wants something that works, and if later she downloads something else there is absolutely nothing to stop her doing so.

Capt'n Midnight

gabhain7 wrote:

The rationale is the Microsoft is using its monopoly power in one market (Operating Systems) to leverage its way in another market (Internet Browsing and media players), which is illegal under competition law.

US competition law.
In the US it's legal to have a monopoly, it's only illegal if you abuse it. The last time there was any competition in the OS market (Dr-Dos etc.) The OS cost 3% of the price of the average PC , now it's more like 30%.

If they were an EU company then just having 90% of the market alone would be illegal. Just look at the way the ESB are being setup to be broken up - we've gone from the 3rd cheapest electricity in the EU just so some third party can make a quick buck on privatisation.

Capt'n Midnight

mathias wrote:

Apparently free , yes , to the home user its free , but lots of companies that give away the main software for free make money on enterprise service contracts , ad revenue , and so on , Google seem to give everything away , but its the ad revenue among other things that make them one of the most successful companies around.

The important thing is choice , the OS should be delivered with the option to choose your favourite apps , by and large this is the case at the moment, the monopolies commission have the job of keeping it that way.

Have a look at Help About on many of the "free" goodies in windows, many were written by other companies or licensed from them. Most are cut down versions of commercial products, so are they anti competition or just the usual try-before-you-buy stuff ? DELL throw a load of stuff on PC's , no doubt there is a kick back there somewhere - but who gains and who looses ?


Regarding IE being bundled with the OS, historically about half the patches on windowsupdate are for IE. But more and more apps are using IE for the GUI, I don't mean a standard web interface , and in the case of stuff like Backup Software and AntiVirus this had a negative impact IMHO.

art

Peteee wrote:

The people who care about such things will go and download another program.

Upon booting up her new PC, Granny smith isn't going to care about picking WMP11, VLC, iTunes, FooBar2k, WinAmp and whatever intricacies they have. She just wants something that works, and if later she downloads something else there is absolutely nothing to stop her doing so.

Well, IE6 was a security nightmare so she was no choice but to have her first experience of the web as one of violation basically. I work in IT and on a application with a web interface. We test with Firefox and IE6 etc and our use base is often people who have little or no PC experience. You would not believe the state they get their PCs in after three hours of on-line activity with IE6. It's just not funny. There's been several cases where we've had to do an entire re-format to make the PC usable again.

It's not just nerds that need choice, choices are good for everyone.

Richard

Peteee wrote:

Of course, Apple control 100% of the macintosh computer market

True, but in terms of software, the second biggest supplier of Mac software is... Microsoft!

Hugh_C

*mono* wrote:

In my opinion Apple usere are like Chevrolet/Daewoo Drivers, Think they are great but deep down know how crap it is.

Haha!



I'm a Mac user because it suits my workflow and I couldn't be ars*d learning another OS. It works great for me. Always has, always will. I'm sure Windows would work just fine too, but I don't feel the inclination.

P.S.

I drive a Saab.