Re: Opera files Antitrust suit v M$ with EU

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 23:18:28 -0600, Jim <jim@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<898538a4-01fa-4a51-a43c-c34a669bf780@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Mayor Of R'lyeh" <mayor.of.rlyeh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Dec 13, 6:19 pm, Jim <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <uqt2m3t29bbis9uvf34rqp3p81644rn...@xxxxxxx>,
Mayor of R'lyeh <mayor.of.rl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:15:37 -0600, Jim <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <dqs2m3tmseakrh5g5v45d6e15c3ep1o...@xxxxxxx>,
Mayor of R'lyeh <mayor.of.rl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:16:18 -0600, Jim <j...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArticle.jhtml?articleID.
..
801988

This leads to an article about Vista.

I suspect that this is the article you mean:
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VVQEND0ZT...
RSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=204802755&queryText=opera

Opera Software has filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the
European Union, accusing it of stifling competition by tying its
Internet Explorer Web browser to Windows, the Norwegian company said
Thursday.

more...

( Do old habits die hard with M$?)

"Much of what Opera accuses Microsoft of seems to already have been
settled in the EU's antitrust case against the company.

Then why did the EU take the filing?

I suspect its much like here. Anybody can file anything they like. You
can go to your local court and file a case against your neighbor for
being an illegal alien from the planet Proodo if you want. Whether the
body decides to accept it and give your complaint a hearing is another
matter.

However, it's been shown the EU appears to take things more seriously
than is here.

This is a largely unserious matter. The notion that no one downloads
another browser just because one comes bundled has been shot down by
Firefox's dramatic rise. As far as the EU being more serious, its more
like anti-American. This wouldn't even be an issue if Microsoft was
based in Brussels instead of Washington state. The European consumer
certainly doesn't think its much of an issue. Sales of XP N are 0.005
percent of XP's European sales.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/legal/european/04-24-06windowsxpnsalesfs.ms
px

Well, maybe. But M$ is not in Brussels is it? That might make all the
difference with provencal leanings.

But that hardly makes it fair. Why shouldn't Windows include a media
player when every other OS does? Why shouldn't Windows incl;ude a
browser when every other OS does? If they truly wanted to be fair
they'd ban all OSs from including these things.





Although that judgment dealt with Windows Media Player, the settlement
of that case makes it somewhat unlikely that the governing body would
go after Microsoft again."

Its a last gasp of a company that never was able to make a viable go
of it.

Competition takes time and it's hard to compete when you're being
squashed on a less than level playing field.

The playing field is perfectly level. There's nothing stopping anybody
from installing and using any browser that they want. Look at Firefox.
They are thriving in this supposedly unfair enviroment.

It's not a level field when this thing is tied to that thing as is the
case with M$ and it's system level integration of things. The EU seems
to think this was the case in their findings.

Part of the settlement with the EU requires Microsoft to open up more
of their source code to third party developers to avoid such things.
And the EU case was about including Media Player. So far as I know no
one has ever claimed it was integrated like IE was.
And regardless of IE's integration it never prevented you from using
any other browser you wanted.

You can't possibly think that Opera, out of the box competes when it has
no marketshare which takes time to build.

Opera is far from a new product. They've been around for years.
Firefox hasn't been around half as long as Opera and they've gone from
zero to 1/5 of the browser market in two years.

Regardless, some folks like Opera for it's configurability, interface
and other reasons, sorta just like you like certain things. Isn't that
enough?

There's a lot to like about Opera. Its a nice browser. However that
doesn't guarantee them success. Like I related before, for me and at
least one other respondent in this thread, the lack of plugin support
was a deal breaker. As nice as Opera was in other areas it wasn't
enough to overcome the irritation of having to either jump through
hoops to see some content or just plain miss out on it entirely.


Are you advocating that Opera is meaningless when it is some level of
competition? There is the old tortoise and hare thing...look, you don't
like Apple/Macs, yet they're selling more and more with increasing
marketshare. It makes them a choice, not good, bad and competition.

Opera is not meaningless but there's no reason it should have its
success guaranteed by governmental fiat either. I'm sorry that they
couldn't make it in the marketplace but that's how it goes. The ironic
thing is that if they fold and make Opera opensource the first thing
changed will probably be the plugin support issue getting a fix.







"Opera's calls may fall on deaf ears however, especially considering
Firefox's rise from Opera's levels to almost a fifth of the browser
market in less than two years. The problem with Opera may not be
Microsoft per se, but more a lack of buzz in its own product."

I tried to use Opera as an alternative to IE for a while a few years
ago. It was a nice browser with some unique features. The trouble was
that it lacked support for many plugins so a surprising amount of
contnent simply didn't show up.
I'm not sure why they get overlooked so much since everybody seems to
support Firefox but I suspect the lack of plugin support has more to
do with their low marketshare than anything Microsoft did.

I use it all the time for compatibility with a M$ centric place where
even IE for the Mac doesn't work, while Opera works just fine.

But how much of what you do requires plugin support beyond the most
common ones like Flash?

I don't, but you brought up plug-in support, not me.

I brought it because in my experience that was what was lacking. It
was enough of an annoyance to make me drop Opera and switch to
Firefox. I doubt if I'm alone in that.

IOW, individual experience will vary based on needs. It's that one man's
poison is another man's wine thingy.

In this case it looks like its poison to more than its wine.



--

Why settle for the lesser evil?
Cthulhu for president 2008.
.

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