NEWS With a preliminary decision made and a full report on the way, Microsoft is looking to settle its seemingly interminable antitrust dispute with the European Commission – but its latest move to placate the EC hasn't met with enthusiasm.
The crux of the dispute – Microsoft's dominance in the media player market and attempts to scupper rivals including RealNetworks – has apparently led the software giant to offer an olive branch to competitors.
One way that Microsoft is hoping to defuse the argument, according to the FT, is offering to include a CD with rivals' media player products on it when consumers buy a new Windows PC. However, it's unlikely that such a move will sit well with the EC.
James Governor, principal analyst at RedMonk, said that the move would be unlikely to win over the EC. "This case is all about location, location, location - but when it comes to location, inclusion on a CD-Rom just about gets a competitor in to the backyard, out in the weeds. I can't see Mario Monti doing cartwheels about this. Consumers tend to use preinstalled software – it's sitting right there with an icon on your desktop, or fired up through the browser."
Sources quoted in the FT concurred, saying that the EC had rejected the idea on the grounds that the difficulties involved with installing software for the average user would be prohibitive.
However, Governor believes current manoeuvres hint at a change in Redmond's behaviour. "It's aware that concessions have to be made and this looks like an attempt to pre-empt stronger sanctions," he said.
Among the possible punishments that could be meted out to Gates and friends is that they could be forced to unbundle the media player from Windows, pre-install other media players or share source code with rivals. Recent speculation in the German news that the Redmond behemoth could expect an antitrust fine from the EC of around €100m was rubbished by the Commission though.
A draft resolution is currently under consideration, with the final report into the case is expected to be delivered in May.
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1. anonymous
Who wants Real software on their PC anyway, besides the fact that they have a security vunerability in their software and the fact that installing their software brings along a load of spyware type progs from them as well.
Why can't the industry favour a media player that's less of a pain in the @rse than Real?
2. anonymous
I understand not wanting to give MS a competitive edge but PLEASE don't punish us all by ruining our computers with REALplayer!
If anything, ship the PC without any media player to spare consumers the headache of removing REALplayer and its bundled spyware/utilites.
In the name of fairness, what other players should be included?
Only WMP9 & REALplayer? What about Quicktime, WinAMP, DiVX, Musicmatch, Macromedia FlashPlayer, or the hundreds of Freeware players?
Can someone else sue MS because their media player gets left out?
3. anonymous
I understand what they're trying to do by getting Microsoft to remove Media Player from Windows but it isn't going to make a difference. I've tried pretty much all the media players available but I still use Media Player and so will most people I'd imagine. What are they going to do next, say that Microsoft have to remove all the games, tools and software like notepad from windows too. It's ridiculous. If Microsoft are being unfair by supplying Media Player with Windows how about all these websites like the BBC Radio 1 website where you have to have Real Player to listen to the radio. Shouldn't you be allowed to use any media player? If Companies like Real actually made a decent media player instead of trying to win over the market by suing Microsoft the might actually manage to make some money and gain a share in the market.