I am a european but still I am totaly with microsoft on this, they should do whatever they like and put whatever they want in there OS screw the european competition regulations
The EU isn't sitting here requiring Apple to take Safari out of OS X. Why do they act like such a cock to Microsoft.
Don't forget the statement is made by a microsoft employee. The EU clearly claimed to seperate IE from the OS!!! "The upgrade option was not available, Microsoft said, because it was trying to comply with European competition regulations." IMHO M$ was pissed off and didn't want to lose market share of IE. Against great odds they cancelled the upgrade option to Europeans, stating a lame excuse.
Losing market share of IE? Perhaps they are tired of tap dancing to the EU rag. Maybe the EU should screw with them some more.
Tap dancing to the EU everyone has been tap dancing to MS for years and being ripped off by the extortionate prices especially of here in the EU
It's equal to be pissed off. Fact is for M$, the EU is a pain in the ass. At last the European court adjudged M$ to pay a lot of money. A concentration of capital, every monopolist such as M$ tries to obtain, restricts the competition at the market. Concentrated capital = dead capital. M$ missed to develop an Internet browser in time and missed the start of the Internet Area. As reaction of their mess up they forced the user of Windows OS to cope with their crap IE and prevented others to grow at market using dishonest methods. The EU don't put up with it.
I don't think they can (fair trade practices), but they could offer a free downloadable version.. as does other vendors. Of course I expect that would lead to a paid version eventually
Honestly, I don't see your rationale. Is MS preventing *anyone* at gunpoint from purchasing Mac, or downloading an open source OS, such as a Linux distro? Are people coerced to use IE? I don't think so. One of the first things I do upon installing Windows is to install Firefox. It's a no-brainer. If MS made it impossible to install any other browser, I could see the outrage. But this seems like much ado about nothing.
Im completely with MS on this one. The only flaw MS has is that IE is a crappy browser. Nevertheless, according to the statistics, more than 60% of PC users don't bother to download any other browser, they just stick to what they have.
There were WIN versions which made it for a common user almost impossible to de-install the IE completely. Most of the users are a kind of lazy and are using what's coming with the OS and that's the IE. So the other browsers have less chances to get used. Another aspect is the safety. If many users are using the IE, programmer of mal-ware have one object to attack only. A bigger variety of browsers makes the net safer. The market share of Firefox is not low in Europe and will raise, when the IE will be not a part of W7. For me personally there is no problem at all. I'm using Firefox at home as well, I'm arguing in the aspect of the common users.
....yes, and next year Porsche will build a 911er version with 75HP as driving to fast may kill you. Well, I'm a European (German) and I'm pissed off ! I'm more than upset to get patronized by "the freak show" (European parliament @ Brussels, Belgium). Buying a product and paying the full price I expect a full version, and not a castrated one cause I'm living in merry old Europe. Protecting consumer interests is one thing, but placing consumer under disabilty is onther one !
I still bring up Apple as a bigger monopoly than MS ever is/was at least in the consumer OS market. OS X - Browser - Safari built in. Not many alternatives out there, Opera and Firefox are about the only ones. Who bitches about this though? Nobody. OS X - iTunes built in, so we go with the lazy consumer approach and now you not only have iTunes as a media player, but also an online music store. At least WMP lets you choose. Apple Hardware and Vendors - Up until about 2-2.5 years ago nobody could sell Apple computers but Apple and it was running proprietary hardware. I can't go out and buy a PC and put OS X on it. You can do the opposite though. Do people not bitch about Apple because they don't have such a large market share or the fact that the only people that like them are gay or trendy.
I've asked my biosmods what they would like to activate and they said that they are preferring WIN7 Ultimate RTM, full version, no IE on board.
Have any of you used IE8? I think MS is finally moving in the right direction. Sure it's a blatant ripoff of Firefox and Chrome, but it's pretty decent both from a user and developer perspective.