| There is a massive difference between just bundling your additional software with your operating system and integrating (for no technical reason) your software with the operating system so that using an alternative is extremely difficult if not impossible (for the average user). While I do believe that Microsoft should be able to include whatever it wants with Windows I want to be able to replace those parts with alternatives with zero friction. Imagine if the US and the EU had not taken Microsoft up on this? We would still be using a god awful web browser which would have more than likely stalled the web from growing the way it has over the past decade and therefore not allowing a lot of the amazing web services we have today to exist. The same with media players. Look how crappy WMP is still compared to things like VLC. Or god forbid we would still have to buy things like CyberLink PowerDVD to play back DVDs because they are "allowed" by Microsoft to replace the built in media player for things. Forcing Microsoft to split things up has done wonders for the IT world and while a lot of people see the huge fines as pointless they are very much not. In the 90s Microsoft used its power to stall the growth of the web by several years. It was not until Firefox (and more recently Chrome) came along that Microsoft pulled its thumb from its ass and started to improve Internet Explorer much like it was not until Linux really got a hold in the server space in the early 2000s that Microsoft started to improve its server operating systems. The same can be said for many parts of the IT world. Databases for example. Pressure from MySQL and PostgrSQL undoubtedly forced Microsoft to improve SQL Server (who remembers how god awful SQL 2000 was?). Even programming languages like Java and Python, etc. pushed Microsoft to make better languages (C#, F#) and platforms (.NET) and give away free tools (Visual Studio Express). They had to as they had made the entry level to developing for the Windows platform (client and server) too expensive for individuals so they were going with the free tools as that was the only route someone could take if they wanted to get into development. That is why we now have individual targeted tools for people to start with (the Express line as mentioned) so that Microsoft does not lose everyone to the free alternatives. Pretty much the only product line that has survived the old Microsoft ways is the Office line because even with OpenOffice businesses couldn't make the jump for compatibility reasons (another awful thing about Microsoft). Things are starting to change with things like Google Docs (mainly for small businesses) however I hope to see more competition in the next decade as with HTML5 it will be possible to provide a solid Office replacement as a web app. The key for the enterprise in my opinion is the ability to offer this internally rather than an externally hosted solution like Google Docs though. Time will tell if I am right but I would bet that I am. |