re: Shame on Red Hat - When you can't win in the marketplace, run to the government

William — Mon, 03 May 2004 14:52:00 GMT

Hi Bill,

I want to try to answer your question about bundling media player hurting consumers. I don't know how it hurts consumers but I can see how it hurts the smaller companies that are trying to make media players of their own.

95% of the people who use computers at home are running a MS OS. Of those, probably 90% of them don't know that you can use 3rd party media players and don't have to use the MS media player that comes with Windows. They just use the MS media player because it's there. If the MS media player wasn't bundled with Windows then those 90% of people would be in the market for a media player, and that's a lot of people! MS could ship Wnidows with a link on the desktop where a user could download and install their media player, and other companies could work out deals with vendors to do the same for their media players, that way users could have a choice. Yes, most users would choose the MS media player because it would be free (I know I would!) and most of the other media players cost money. But in doing this MS would not be misusing it's huge market share to take advantage of the typical users, and the fact that they don't know that they have a choice for the media player that they want to use.

The media player is not an integral part of the OS, and that's why MS is getting in trouble for bundling it with their OS, and not allowing 3rd party companies to make deals with vendors of PC's to put their media player on Windows machines when they are built and sold. I also don't believe that you can remove the MS media player from Windows, so even if someone wants to use a 3rd party media player on their PC, MS media player is still there.

Just some thoughts,
skicow

re: Shame on Red Hat - When you can't win in the marketplace, run to the government

William — Sun, 02 May 2004 17:07:00 GMT

I couldn't agree with you more.

re: Shame on Red Hat - When you can't win in the marketplace, run to the government

William — Sun, 02 May 2004 07:29:00 GMT

Thanks for support Bill. I am also really frustrated that all these companies are sponsoring "antitrust" lawsuits here and abroad. It's ironic they depend heavily on the property rights they are attacking, and sooner or later it will come to haunt them.