will appear in random order each time the ballot is displayed
The implications of this are very saddening. That's beyond promoting competition, and just dividing up the booty.
Why stop at browsers then? We could breath new life into the text editor market, casual picture editing market, file compression market, file browser market, music player market, etc. These ALL existed! Where are their randomized ballot windows? Hell, that's free advertising! Where do I sign up to have the VB 3 based browser I wrote in 8th grade added? We could all be using HyperMonkeyMark
The object of this ballot system is to let users know that a choice even exists. It's not to promote any specific competitor. You seem to overlook the fact that there are people out there (and quite a few, I might add) that don't know they have a choice. They don't know what a browser is. They just know they click that specific icon to get on the internet. They don't know there is an internet separate from the web. A lot of computer users have very limited knowledge.
As to why they should know, that is everything to do with economics. You can go read about that in depth, but the gist of it is that information is the lifeblood of a market (particularly an information market).
Nice spin ! It isn't the job of MS to improve customer awareness. That falls under advertising and marketing. If it was Safari that was the default and if some other company was suing for having a browser ballot you'd be screaming bloody murder.
This has nothing to do with MS. Other browsers have failed to convince OEMs to include their browsers. And no, this time you can't blame MS for it. OEMs don't give a shit about other browsers. THis is just strong-arming through govt. Sigh, I thought Slashdot was agai
It isn't the job of MS to improve customer awareness. That falls under advertising and marketing.
This would be true except for one very very important factor: by making IE a "standard" part of the Windows install, Microsoft has leveraged their monopoly position to "advertise" and "market" IE. What better way is there to advertise your product than to have it preinstalled on almost every PC sold? No one except Microsoft can do this, and that's what makes it illegal.
Lets be clear on this: leveraging one market in order to increase your share in another is not illegal; leveraging a market in which you have a monoply in order to increase your share in another is illegal, and that's what this is about.
If it was Safari that was the default and if some other company was suing for having a browser ballot you'd be screaming bloody murder.
Why? I know I'm not the poster you replied to, but I think that shipping any one browser with Windows is a terrible idea because it puts the browser vendor in a position so powerful that they can dictate what everyone else is doing. For the record, I have never used Safari because I don't own a system that can run it.
Other browsers have failed to convince OEMs to include their browsers.
But would the same have been true given a level playing field? If IE had never been bundled with Windows and vendors had always had a choice over what browser to install as standard, would Microsoft have succeeded in convincing the OEMs to include IE in such a large proportion of installs? I can certainly remember vendors bundling Netscape with machines instead of IE before IE became bundled. The truth of the matter is that the playing field is _not_ level - there is very little reason for vendors to go to extra effort to give their customers another browser (whether or not it is better), and that's exactly what it is, extra effort, purely because IE is bundled and other browsers are not.
Personally, I support the idea of banning Microsoft from bundling *any* browser with OEM copies of Windows so that there is no "lazy path" for the vendors to take; but even if this happened, IE has been bundled for so long that it would take a long time for it to be displaced since too many end-users associate the IE icon with "the web" instead of "a way to access the web".
OEMs don't give a shit about other browsers.
I think that statement needs refining a bit - as explained above, OEMs don't give a shit about what browser they give their customers, so they pick the easiest option - the one that is bundled with Windows. No one except Microsoft can provide an "easiest option", and that's why it is a problem. There are only two possible solutions to this problem; either you bundle multiple browsers, making them all equally easy, or you bundle no browser, making them all equally hard.
Too bad all the anti-ms hate has screwed up your objective beliefs.
I'm not anti-MS; I'm against a single vendor getting enough power to influence the market as significantly as MS has. MS's lack of IE development and failure to embrace standards has seriously held back development of the web; this isn't really a comment on MS, it is a comment on their position - no vendor should be in a position to screw over the *whole* web as badly as MS has done.
This is also why I hope that Chrome doesn't gain a majority market share, because I don't think that it is a healthy thing for a single vendor to have complete control of a significant platform.
I can see the next Mac vs PC ad
The difference here, as has been stated numerous times, is that Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple isn't. However, Apple are indeed far more abusive of their position than Microsoft is, and being taken down a peg or two by similar rulings would do the consumers a lot of good in the long run (Apple can't be far off being considered a monopoly in certain markets by now).
Allowing a single vendor to use their monopoly position in one market to gain or maintain a position in another market is very bad for the consumer in the long term. Preventing this from happening is usually bad for the consumer in the short term but provides massive long-term benefits. Unfortunately, many people are only interested in the short term view and therefore oppose measures to fix the problem. The problem here is that always looking at just the short term and ignoring the long term leads to a gradual decline and its only when things have got *really* bad that you notice; then the fix is often far far more painful than it would have been if you'd acted earlier. I would argue that we are already a long way down that decline, which is why the short-term pain from this fix is so bad - if we had put a stop to the whole thing as soon as MS started bundling IE then things would have been a lot better..
This would be true except for one very very important factor: by making IE a "standard" part of the Windows install, Microsoft has leveraged their monopoly position to "advertise" and "market" IE. What better way is there to advertise your product than to have it preinstalled on almost every PC sold? No one except Microsoft can do this, and that's what makes it illegal.
My sister has this incredibly small Mac boxen and it appeared to have some Mac web browser installed on it. I would assume that it came with the OS?? (or does it? I never actually used one myself, but I've seen people do)
My sister has this incredibly small Mac boxen and it appeared to have some Mac web browser installed on it. I would assume that it came with the OS?? (or does it? I never actually used one myself, but I've seen people do)
Yes... what's your point?
The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.
-- Sagan
Sad (Score:2, Interesting)
will appear in random order each time the ballot is displayed
The implications of this are very saddening. That's beyond promoting competition, and just dividing up the booty.
Why stop at browsers then? We could breath new life into the text editor market, casual picture editing market, file compression market, file browser market, music player market, etc. These ALL existed! Where are their randomized ballot windows? Hell, that's free advertising! Where do I sign up to have the VB 3 based browser I wrote in 8th grade added? We could all be using HyperMonkeyMark
Happy (Score:3, Insightful)
The object of this ballot system is to let users know that a choice even exists. It's not to promote any specific competitor. You seem to overlook the fact that there are people out there (and quite a few, I might add) that don't know they have a choice. They don't know what a browser is. They just know they click that specific icon to get on the internet. They don't know there is an internet separate from the web. A lot of computer users have very limited knowledge.
As to why they should know, that is
Re: (Score:0)
As to why they should know, that is everything to do with economics. You can go read about that in depth, but the gist of it is that information is the lifeblood of a market (particularly an information market).
Nice spin ! It isn't the job of MS to improve customer awareness. That falls under advertising and marketing. If it was Safari that was the default and if some other company was suing for having a browser ballot you'd be screaming bloody murder.
This has nothing to do with MS. Other browsers have failed to convince OEMs to include their browsers. And no, this time you can't blame MS for it. OEMs don't give a shit about other browsers. THis is just strong-arming through govt. Sigh, I thought Slashdot was agai
Re:Happy (Score:2)
It isn't the job of MS to improve customer awareness. That falls under advertising and marketing.
This would be true except for one very very important factor: by making IE a "standard" part of the Windows install, Microsoft has leveraged their monopoly position to "advertise" and "market" IE. What better way is there to advertise your product than to have it preinstalled on almost every PC sold? No one except Microsoft can do this, and that's what makes it illegal.
Lets be clear on this: leveraging one market in order to increase your share in another is not illegal; leveraging a market in which you have a monoply in order to increase your share in another is illegal, and that's what this is about.
If it was Safari that was the default and if some other company was suing for having a browser ballot you'd be screaming bloody murder.
Why? I know I'm not the poster you replied to, but I think that shipping any one browser with Windows is a terrible idea because it puts the browser vendor in a position so powerful that they can dictate what everyone else is doing. For the record, I have never used Safari because I don't own a system that can run it.
Other browsers have failed to convince OEMs to include their browsers.
But would the same have been true given a level playing field? If IE had never been bundled with Windows and vendors had always had a choice over what browser to install as standard, would Microsoft have succeeded in convincing the OEMs to include IE in such a large proportion of installs? I can certainly remember vendors bundling Netscape with machines instead of IE before IE became bundled. The truth of the matter is that the playing field is _not_ level - there is very little reason for vendors to go to extra effort to give their customers another browser (whether or not it is better), and that's exactly what it is, extra effort, purely because IE is bundled and other browsers are not.
Personally, I support the idea of banning Microsoft from bundling *any* browser with OEM copies of Windows so that there is no "lazy path" for the vendors to take; but even if this happened, IE has been bundled for so long that it would take a long time for it to be displaced since too many end-users associate the IE icon with "the web" instead of "a way to access the web".
OEMs don't give a shit about other browsers.
I think that statement needs refining a bit - as explained above, OEMs don't give a shit about what browser they give their customers, so they pick the easiest option - the one that is bundled with Windows. No one except Microsoft can provide an "easiest option", and that's why it is a problem. There are only two possible solutions to this problem; either you bundle multiple browsers, making them all equally easy, or you bundle no browser, making them all equally hard.
Too bad all the anti-ms hate has screwed up your objective beliefs.
I'm not anti-MS; I'm against a single vendor getting enough power to influence the market as significantly as MS has. MS's lack of IE development and failure to embrace standards has seriously held back development of the web; this isn't really a comment on MS, it is a comment on their position - no vendor should be in a position to screw over the *whole* web as badly as MS has done.
This is also why I hope that Chrome doesn't gain a majority market share, because I don't think that it is a healthy thing for a single vendor to have complete control of a significant platform.
I can see the next Mac vs PC ad
The difference here, as has been stated numerous times, is that Microsoft is a monopoly, Apple isn't. However, Apple are indeed far more abusive of their position than Microsoft is, and being taken down a peg or two by similar rulings would do the consumers a lot of good in the long run (Apple can't be far off being considered a monopoly in certain markets by now).
Allowing a single vendor to use their monopoly position in one market to gain or maintain a position in another market is very bad for the consumer in the long term. Preventing this from happening is usually bad for the consumer in the short term but provides massive long-term benefits. Unfortunately, many people are only interested in the short term view and therefore oppose measures to fix the problem. The problem here is that always looking at just the short term and ignoring the long term leads to a gradual decline and its only when things have got *really* bad that you notice; then the fix is often far far more painful than it would have been if you'd acted earlier. I would argue that we are already a long way down that decline, which is why the short-term pain from this fix is so bad - if we had put a stop to the whole thing as soon as MS started bundling IE then things would have been a lot better..
Re: Only Microsoft? Really? (Score:2)
This would be true except for one very very important factor: by making IE a "standard" part of the Windows install, Microsoft has leveraged their monopoly position to "advertise" and "market" IE. What better way is there to advertise your product than to have it preinstalled on almost every PC sold? No one except Microsoft can do this, and that's what makes it illegal.
My sister has this incredibly small Mac boxen and it appeared to have some Mac web browser installed on it. I would assume that it came with the OS?? (or does it? I never actually used one myself, but I've seen people do)
Re: (Score:2)
My sister has this incredibly small Mac boxen and it appeared to have some Mac web browser installed on it. I would assume that it came with the OS?? (or does it? I never actually used one myself, but I've seen people do)
Yes... what's your point?