Browser War

The browser war is going on, lobbyist groups discussing with EU, EU attacking Microsoft, Microsoft offering solution which are difficult for the EU to accept. A lot of money and time is lost and without any advantage for the consumer, user. Did the European Commission gone to far in this case? Is the European Commission a play ball of the big companies? At the end we talk about Free Software and Free accessible software to the public. The European Commission wants to give the users more choices which browser the can use. I am a strong believer of choice and competition, which will lead to more effective and inventive products. But what is really going on here. EU believes that, due the dominant position if Microsoft, they push their own browser. Is this really true, or is it just casual business? Some History: Microsoft created an operating system many years ago, (it doesn't matter if you like it or not), and it had a serious impact on how we life now (Private and Professional). Microsoft is not the only one; we have Apple, IBM, the Linux community etc. Microsoft has maybe a leader position, but must fight back as Apple is taking over some market segments (Article on CNet News on 29 July 2009, Apple owns the premium PC market at U.S. retail). To maintain the success for Windows, Microsoft had to add new features all the time, also a browser. Would you buy an Operating System without a browser? Microsoft had to invest a lot of money in marketing, sales, logistics etc, all this to become a serious player and to maintain his position.

Other players doing the same as Microsoft:
Apple: the have their Operating System, on their hardware and they have their Browser installed.
Google has the same plans, they want to build an Operating System, add their browser.

So let’s have a quick look at the proposition Microsoft proposed:
1. Windows without Internet Explorer: This is a very bad solution, how will people have access to the internet? How will people download other browsers and software? This is a no go

2. During installation of Windows a list of browsers will be proposed. This looks a great idea in first glance, but this will block new inventions, new companies to enter the browser market in long term. Who will decide the list? Which procedure must be followed to be on the list etc. Who will be responsbale for the compatibility of the browser with the operating system? I also can see some opportunities here for hackers, spammers also, I would say No Go

My proposition:
I believe that every company should do the maximum to produce good software, secure software and creating software that is good for the consumers. If they do so, consumer will buy/download the product and the best one will be the leader.

If the European Commission wants to be sure Microsoft isn’t abusing their dominant position, if they want to put rules in place which are also effective in the future, they should give guarantee that distributors (PC Builders) have the freedom to pre-install any software.

Doing this way, every company/organization must negotiate with the distributors/builders, real contracts must be signed, customer service must be provided, the user will have a choice etc. And the good thing is that this way is just following the business rule of an ordinary business case. Companies/organisations who invest more, who are creative, who has a huge user base like FireFox will win.

Dell, and other PC distributors are willing to sell PC’s with other software, operating systems, to differentiate themselves from the competitors. So don’t allow contracts that forbid installing others Software. That is the only case the European Commission must investigate.

To have a view on the browser war going on, have a look at some statistics of browser usage:
W3Schools.com: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp


More links to browsers, companies website mentioned in this article can be found on http://frederikvanlierde.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/browser-war/