Well i know this is a bit off topic but i consider it very interesting
for all the developers. I just got these news:
1. =3D=3D=3D=3D NEWS AND VIEWS =3D=3D=3D=3D=20
(contributed by Paul Thurrott, News Editor,
thu...@wi...)
* SENATE COMMITTEE PUTS BRAKES ON WINDOWS XP
The Senate Judiciary Committee announced late yesterday that it will
meet in September to debate Windows XP and its effects on Internet
competition. XP, which Microsoft plans to ship in October, has been at
the center of a growing controversy because of its numerous product
bundlings, which critics say are anticompetitive.
Given the company's recent legal defeat at the hands of a federal Court
of Appeals--which affirmed that Microsoft was a monopoly that illegally
acted to protect its dominant market--news that the government was
taking a fresh look at Microsoft's products is a bad sign for the
software giant. Microsoft has spent the past month backpedaling on
several controversial tactics and products in an attempt to escape this
level of attention from the government.
Even some of the company's strongest supporters agree that XP might step
over the line: The product bundles media playing, movie making, instant
messaging, and Internet integration functionality, and provides a slew
of digital media-related technologies that will make numerous
third-party applications superfluous. Senator Charles Schumer, a strong
Microsoft supporter, recently wrote a letter to Microsoft CEO Steve
Ballmer explaining that the investigation into XP was required because
it appeared to cause "grave harm to consumers" and competitors, such as
AOL Time Warner, RealNetworks, and Kodak. Schumer asked Ballmer to open
XP to competitors, letting them place their Internet services and
instant messaging, audio and video, and digital photography software in
the product to give consumers more choice.
Schumer alluded to Microsoft's recent decision to make Internet Explorer
(IE) an optional component in XP. "If PC makers and consumers can choose
their browser in Windows XP," he wrote, "surely they should be able to
choose their media player, messenger service, and other applications."
Critics allege that Microsoft's decision to decouple the browser comes
long after competition in that market has dried up, making it a hollow
gesture at best. Schumer says he will recommend an order delaying the
release of XP if Microsoft doesn't change the product to make it less
anticompetitive.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold three Microsoft-related
hearings in September, although XP will be at the center of only one of
them; the other two will focus on Internet competition and server
software. The Internet competition hearing will debate Microsoft's .NET
strategy, in which Microsoft has designed its HailStorm and Passport
services and online sites such as MSN Calendar and Hotmail to steer
consumers toward a Microsoft-oriented Internet. The server hearings will
no doubt closely mirror two European investigations of the company, in
which Microsoft has been accused of attempting to leverage its desktop
monopoly to expand into the server market.
Microsoft has not yet commented on these fast-moving developments.
* Ioannis Vranos
* Programming pages: http://www.noicys.f2s.com
* Alternative URL: http://run.to/noicys
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