More MS Anti-Trust Goodies

[JoeHill]

As usual, Europe will probably be tougher on the corporate criminal than
the U.S.

" In Europe, things look a bit more serious for Microsoft. The European
Commission has decided that Microsoft's conduct has violated EU
anti-trust law and that they should 1) change that conduct and 2) be
punished for past transgressions."

I especially like this part:

" The server market is one where MS has big aspirations, but not a big
market share. An order to open the APIs would be a setback, but not a
decisive one. Its different with Media Player. That has taken on a much
greater importance for MS in the three years since the EU started this
case. Here's the problem. Microsoft has grown too big for the markets it
dominates. Where's the growth in OS revenues going to come from in 5
years? They can't double their market share. Same goes for Office. MS
needs new markets and needs them desperately. That's why they've thrown
money at cable, phones, game consoles, and anything else they can think
of. I don't think they have a grand and detailed plan for global
domination. I think they know what way they want to go and they keep
trying things. Then they reinforce success. When they launched Media
Player, it wasn't that important in the grand scheme. But of all the non
OS, non Office possibilities, NGSCB (Trusted Computing) looks like the
best bet right now. By hooking up the player, DRM, MS file formats and a
secure OS, Microsoft opens some vast new markets. Look at it this way,
Apple may be the legal music download champ today. But if MS has
anything to do with it, they will own that market in five years. And
they need the player to do that. Each part of the puzzle is critical and
reinforces the other parts. MS file formats and hardware Ids mean it
would be hard to get around DRM. A secure OS tied to the hardware makes
it hard to get around restrictive file formats. Strong DRM is what
Hollywood wants to hear about. And the player wraps the whole thing up
and puts it in the user's lap.

They can do all this without the player, but its a lot more difficult.
Especially the Hollywood-DRM part. The studios have failed to get
compulsory DRM tied to hardware through lawyers, lobbying or laws. But
if MS can pull this off, they'll be able to give the studios exactly
what they want. In substance if not in name. What would that be worth?"


Death to DRM! 

Link:

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5144&page=2

-- 
JoeHill
Registered Linux user #282046
Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org
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