Europe Invites Mozilla to Participate in Microsoft Antitrust Case
by Sam Dean - Feb. 09, 2009Comments (2)- Related Blog Posts
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This past weekend, Mozilla's Mitchell Baker put up a blog post on the European Commission's preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.” The EC has been considering forcing Microsoft to make browsers other than Internet Explorer available in copies of Windows pre-installed on new computers. Now, the EC has granted Mozilla the right to join its antitrust case against Microsoft. Does Mozilla have a good case to make, though?
In her post, Baker says:
"I’ll be paying close attention to the EC’s activities, both personally and on behalf of Mozilla. Mozilla has enormous expertise in this area. It’s an extremely complex area, involving browsers, user experience, the OEM and other distribution channels, and the foundations for ongoing innovation. An effective remedy would be a watershed event; a poorly constructed remedy could cause unfortunate damage. I’d like to offer Mozilla’s expertise as a resource to the EC as it considers what an effective remedy would entail."
She also refers directly to damage caused by Microsoft:
"The damage caused by Microsoft’s activities is ongoing. Mozilla Firefox has made a crack in the Microsoft browser monopoly. But even so, hundreds of millions of people use old versions of IE, often without knowing what a browser is or that they have any choice in the quality of their experience. This makes it very difficult to bring innovation, choice or improved user experience to vast parts of the Internet."
However, in an interview with PC Pro, Firefox architect Mike Connor contends that he doesn't want Firefox bundled with Windows. "My personal view is that it's not the right outcome," he said. "The choice [when installing Windows] would be weird. There's no good UI [user interface] for that."
What? I can't agree with Connor there. He also goes on to question whether bundling leads to market share. Of course bundling leads to market share. Microsoft's dominance in the browser market has nothing to do with Internet Explorer being the best browser, and everything to do with the fact that millions of people get it on their new computers and never realize that they have browser choices. Bundling is how it became dominant, going all the way back to Microsoft's battle with once-upon-a-time browser titan Netscape. Mozilla officials should pow-wow over all of this and at least come up with a coherent stance.
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