Windows XP N a Bust 310
mushupork writes "CNN has an interesting article about the just-released Windows XP N.
From the article: 'Computer distributors and manufacturers are so far showing little interest in the new product, which compels consumers to choose their media player and download it from the Internet.' Could this open some eyes and increase interest in alternative (Linux, Mac) offerings?" Similar to an earlier article about the same issue from the PC Makers end.
Why would it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it? I think it'll open their eyes to how much "good" Microsoft's bundling does for them.
Only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
answers.... (Score:2, Insightful)
No. Next question?
Media Player? (Score:4, Insightful)
I didn't think the media player was the onlything keeping users of Windows XP or any version. To me, it is compatability with current programs such as Office and Adobe products, and there are attractive alternatives. Media players? Eh, there are 100s of media players for all platforms, it's not that big of deal.
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Why would the fact that people are not interested in choosing their software package push people towards linux, where that unwanted feature is commonplace!??!
Weren't OEM's B*tching About This w/r/t Browsers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did the OEMs suddenly lose all their imagination? Or are there not as many "partership" opportunities with media players?
Schwab
ARGH! (Score:2, Insightful)
It's about The users HAVING TO CHOOSE which software they download.
And if they complain "hey, this doesn't include media player!", you can answer: "It's illegal for monopoly". Then they'll be FORCED to choose and download a product. Yes, sounds sad, but Microsoft FORCED them not to choose in the same way.
The XP N idea won't work if the old version is still available. Doh.
No.... (Score:5, Insightful)
People like getting free stuff bundled with things that they buy. At worst, don't use WMP and download something else.
When you force the removal of the free media player as a court decision, it's the consumers who feel punished. Now they have to go out of their way to get a media player.
What would have been a better punishment for Microsoft would have been forcing them to open up their APIs and documentation, publish their source code, or split the company up into competing units, or revoke their license to do business.
Who will change their minds? (Score:4, Insightful)
It does a lot worse things.
Anyway, show me a linux distro aimed at home users whose default install doesn't have mp3/ogg/xmms etc.
Happy microsoft got slammed? Yes. Give a shit about the hole XP N thing? No.
Will it open people eyes? No, because form their perspective nothign has changed, unless you meant the distributors, who work on supply and demand, and will start taking space away from their m^2 floors as and when it will be profitable to do so.
Right now, they don't see it. Now the price of hardware is exacerbating the percentage of cost that goes to an OS, *that* might make a difference.
Tallyho.
Red Herring (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt that. The article says: "We'll continue to sell the old version because it's obviously better value for our customers," said Gina Jones, spokeswoman for PC World, Britain's leading PC retailer.. In other words, this is a battle between the new and old versions of XP. For the same price, which would you rather buy? The one that comes with the free media player or the one that does not have a media and forces to user to have an internet connection and download a player just to play CDs? I am guessing that most Europeans will look at the two products and choose conventional XP, without evening looking down the Mac aisle.
Just illustrates misguided courts (Score:2, Insightful)
Surprise? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not surprised there is little interest in this. Many manufacturers realize what their customers care about - after all, that's why they're still in business.
You ask the average person whether they want Windows XP with or without Media Player to allow a free choice, and they'll probably look at you like you have two heads.
Why? They don't care! They hardly care what OS they have PERIOD. All they want is for their office applications to work, for their email application to work, and their web browser to work.
Not only do they not care, but the moment they try to listen to an audio file or watch a video, they're going to be pissed that their computer "can't do it" out of the box.
Re:Media Player? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about the customers! (Score:2, Insightful)
* So now above someone is already mentioning a totalitarian and roughly monopolistic response of "make the choice between XPs illegal, make only the N- version available! Then customers can't buy it!"
* Yeah, we see involving the government in software is *all* about increasing freedom. meh.
* More to the point, if retailers aren't buying into -N, their customers aren't expressing much need.
What, this whole lawsuit business must have been about competitors's business, not about what the customer wanted! (Shock! Amazement!)
Re:I doubt it (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not too hapy with Microsoft actions sometimes either and as a developer, I use Linux/OSS whenever I see it fit because of its technical and non-technical values but can we try not throw random irrelevant comments whenever a new piece of news is shared? I'm sure we can come up with a better way of letting people know of alternatives without appearing as brainless zealots.
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
People wants the bundled stuff, they are just happy that they don't have to call their computer geek friends to read email or watch some porn^H^H^H^Hmovies. This is just a pain to normal users, and doesn't change windows. Tax payers money badly spent, again. Could have spent all that money on, let's say, universities that could have produced free software...
Re:Vote with your dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I doubt it (Score:2, Insightful)
It would influence your decision on the OS versions: N vs XP. I don't think anyone would want a degraded eXPerience when they can get the OS bundled with Media Player.
Re:Break Microsoft.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Dumb Solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
I will take that over karma any day
Re:Why would it? (Score:5, Insightful)
"We'll continue to sell the old version because it's obviously better value for our customers,"
The 'N' version was released due to a poorly thought out EU lawsuit. It turns out that no-one wants the new version of XP. They'd rather have the old one that the EU tried so hard to get rid of.
Shows you how out of touch with reality the EU is.
Sorry, you can't use this as a poster child for open source.
Re:ARGH! (Score:5, Insightful)
On the Windows front, there's a whole wackload of alternatives for Windows Media Player that goes on and on and on. In that respect, there's no decent photo viewer other than iPhoto (Picasa is there for PC), no decent consumer video editor other than iMovie (plenty for PC) and so on and so forth. No one has competed with Apple on this front. Why? Because it's their by default? Why isn't Apple getting sued?
Ya ya, because Apple is not a "monopoly" you say. But guess what? If Microsoft was *forced* to strip Windows Media Player/Internet Explorer/MSN Messenger and all their other additions, then why shouldn't Apple be forced to strip Quicktime/Safari/iChat/iPhoto/iMovie/iTunes from OS X? After all, it would give them an unfair advantage. They can start marketing that they have all these great features right out of the box while Windows only comes with Notepad.
Suffice to say Microsoft is doing absolutely nothing to stop others from installing other browsers/media players or whatever people want. So Real Player has every opportunity to gather attention, and in fact their player used to be quite popular. Then it started to be spyware ridden, over-bloated interface and horribly slow player, and they lost it.
EU's Antitrust reasoning, and why it sucked (Score:3, Insightful)
Bundling is considered bad by most pre- and post-Chicago school economists is that it uses monopoly power in the tying product (in this case, the operating system) to attempt to gain monopoly power in the tied product (the media player). Microsoft's strategy, so the EU and Justice Department allege, is to force me to take their crappy Media Player along with their operating system, locking me into it and creating a second monopoly from which they could then profit further - by jacking up prices for song downloads, e.g.
There are a number of reasonable critiques of this analysis which I won't get into here. However, the EU decision obviously provides no remedy to Apple or Real or whoever if Microsoft is allowed to continue selling the goods as a bundle, especially since doing so imposes no additional cost to them other than packaging costs (the marginal cost of the Media Player code on an XP CD is zero). If they were out for anything other than Gotcha!ing a big American company, they would force MS to sell the two pieces of software separately, or at least make MP available as a free download.
Of course, Microsoft doesn't want people to pay just for the parts of Windows they actually use - it's 200 bucks for the whole kit and kaboodle. For that reason, they don't offer XP-N at a discount, even though they might make more money by doing so.
Re:Why would it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course they should be allowed to. Mere inclusion isnt a problem. Sabotage of third party stuff is.
Re:No.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, how would the EU accomplish this, invade America? I think MS would abandon Europe's business before agreeing to split up their company or publish source. You might get an agreement on APIs?
Re:Why would it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why would it? (Score:2, Insightful)
- Microsoft cannot and should not be forced to bundle competing products, it sets a very bad legal precedent
- Why should choice be offered only for browsers? Maybe OEMs should bundle OSes and let people choose OSes on first boot. And Office suites too. Maybe PDAs should do it too, after all the newer ones have more power and storage than 486s. From this point on, your suggestion degenerates into several impractical scenarios. However, this is missing a bigger point--
Years ago, people bought word processors, spreadsheets, and so on. Until some bright spark brought out something called 'Office' -- a bundle of all of MS' products at one low cost. This generated a lot of questions and controversy, with editorials in PC Magazine asking whether customers would really abandon best-of-breed apps for a jack-of-all trades, i.e., by giving up Lotus Word Pro for the slightly inferior Microsoft Word. Well, we know now the result of *that* tossup-- Office suites won, big time.
The desktop OS marketplace is in the throes of a similar shift: the OS is no longer a bootloader + (virtual) memory manager, it's a suite of programs that let you interact with the digital world _and_ a platform that lets you build more programs.
Like with Office suites, people have voted with their wallets that they like OSes that let them do more. Apple and Microsoft -- and in a flawed way, Linux distros -- understand this. The only people who didn't were the EU antitrust lawyers, but given their myopia on other matters I can't say I am surprised.