

The MS Dilemma: how do you get a browser on a OS without a browser? - crocowhile
http://mrtopp.com/2009/06/23/the-microsoft-dilemma/

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thristian
There are lots of minor browsers, most with miniscule market share, so the
first question that must be answered is "how many competitors do we want to
introduce". On the one hand, a healthy market will have a lot of competitors;
on the other hand a lot of these potential competitors will be niche products
for a Very Good Reason (i.e. they're crap) and it would be unfair to make
Microsoft present them as valid alternatives when they clearly are not (and it
might tarnish the reputation of other, better browsers included in the same
list).

This is a very difficult question to answer in a fair, objective manner. One
way might be to say "all browsers whose current market share on Windows is
greater than x%", but you have to push the value of x pretty far down before
your list of alternative browsers expands much beyond Firefox (ISTR Safari's
~4% share is almost exclusively on the Mac, and Opera is under 1% across all
platforms). If it were possible to draw a convincingly fair line selecting
Firefox, Opera and IE, that would be my preferred outcome.

As to distribution, since every PC needs a default browser, I think the only
reasonable thing is to let the non-IE browsers selected in the previous step
compete with each other for OEM bundling deals, then legally restrain
Microsoft to compete on the same level (price must be the average of the other
competitors, no sneakily giving discounts on Office in exchange for IE
bundling, etc.)

Finally, this age-old misunderstanding from the article clearly needs to be
addressed yet again:

    
    
        Surely if Microsoft is fined 900 million Euros for bundling a browser with
        an Operating System, the same should happen to Apple?
    

Ever heard the phrase "go pick on someone your own size"? If you have a
monopoly, by definition there _is_ nobody your own size in your market, and
hence there are things that other entities are allowed to do that you can't.
APPLE IS NOT A CONVICTED MONOPOLIST, THEREFORE ANTI-TRUST RULES THAT APPLY TO
MICROSOFT DO NOT APPLY TO APPLE.

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chaosprophet
I seriously don't understand all the hullaballoo on the browser issue. All MS
would have to do is insert a popup which shows the first time you run windows
pointing out the fact that Explorer (the file manager bundled which is part of
the windows shell) can very well be used to access the Internet. Ofcourse it's
not going to be as convenient as a browser, so most people are just going to
use it to google their favorite browser and install. Maybe MS could include a
small Bing button on explorer using which you can search for any browser you
want. Problem solved.

