nytimes.com — WASHINGTON, June 19 — Microsoft has agreed to make changes to its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of Vista is anticompetitive, lawyers involved in the case said today.
Jun 20, 2007 View in Crawl 4
zulhadmJun 20, 2007
@daftman you are not forced to only use 1 brand of gasoline (search tool in this case). If you've followed this post plenty of Vista users have already explained how easy it is to disable the default search feature provided by Vista. Google is being ridiculous in this matter. You're obviously a google fanboy.
daftmanJun 20, 2007
@ zulhadmThe problem here is not whether you can disable it. It is about whether Google can replace it. It can't.Furthermore, for the majority of users who doesn't understand about the technical feat in disabling it, they will use it and thus this is the same reason why IE has 80% adoption rate while it is much more inferior to other browsers like Firefox, Opera, etc.The Desktop Search won't just be about the desktop. Google obviously see this as a threat because most people will eventually use it to search the web using the desktop search. What this mean is that in the future when 90% of people use the desktop search provided by microsoft, they would eventually use it to by-pass google web-search.Yes it's pretty hard to think far ahead but it pays to know when your competitors is engaging in anti-competitive practices.
jackracJun 20, 2007
@daftman"However, if ford enter the car-radio business i.e manufacture their own radio, then yes it would be considered as anti-competitive because they are using leverage of one business to kill competitors of another."So what you’re saying is that if a company does any sort of in-house manufacturing than it is anti-competitive? By your logic a company must either produce individual components or they must purchase individual components and put them together. They can not do both without becoming anti-competitive.The finished product is the car. If ford wants to manufacture this car and put their own radio in it than there is nothing wrong with that. Ford paid to develop the radio, build the car, market the car, ect. If a company can not sell radios based on their own merit than perhaps they should find something else to sell. This sort of attitude that a company can rely on the government to keep them in business rather than developing a quality product and doing the proper market research to find a niche for said product is asinine.Without detracting from my above point this is no different than Ubuntu including Mozilla or Apple including Safari. A different browser is just an apt-get away but the team at Ubuntu chose to include Mozilla. Does this mean that they are anti-competative?
dstzJun 20, 2007
Contrarily to Windows, which many softwares are tied to (like my music applications), anyone can use another search engine than Google. So I don't get what the hate is about. And until dramatic changes, Windows will stay as a quasi monopoly with many tied users, and Google won't.
norman619Jun 20, 2007
LOL!!! Please show me how MS is/was preventing users from installing google applications? It has been prooven many times Google Desktop installs and runs fine under Vista. MS is supposed ot water down their features to make Google applications more relevant? Get real! Google has to release BETTER applications than MS to COMPETE. You do know the concept of competition right? No one is forced to use MS search over any other. Google has not basis for this complaint other than it's applications are not as good.
shadowklownJun 21, 2007
I'm sorry... The sidebar, the search, some of the best features out of the box.