Thursday, March 25, 2004

Microsoft slapped by EU
Bill-a-torial Dept: Or maybe that should be "Eeewwww...." This is just too stupid to even contemplate. One of several judgments levied against Microsoft by those bastions of Capitalism, the European Union, was that it must provide a version of Windows without Media Player. Seems that some folk were complaining that Media Player was giving Microsoft an edge and the EU is now demanding a level playing field.

For the love of Mike, have any of them actually used Media Player? Jack of all trades that it may be, it really does nothing all that well. And every version of ATI's All-in-Wonder software I've installed lately has, somehow, magically perhaps, managed to disable it in favor of ATI's somewhat more robust suite of media handlers. Perhaps the EU should have a long talk with the folk at ATI....?

And what's this 'level playing field' nonsense? At what point did the Europeans decide that the goal of a business should be to become mediocre? Can't you just see the corporate stockholders' meetings? "Invest!! We strive to be no better than our competition!!" Yeah, that's sure motivational.

Here's the deal, and it's something I've said before, when the United States decided it didn't like Microsoft either: In a free society, you can't keep a company from making a better product. (In theory, in a free society, you can't keep a company from making an exclusionary product either.) If you don't like it, buy a competing product. If no one's risen to the challenge of creating something competitive, you can't penalize a company for its competitor's sloth. ("Hey, you run too fast. We're going to cut off one of your feet and blind you in one eye to level the playing field for everyone else." That would certainly make the NY Marathon more competitive, wouldn't it?)

What you can do is legislate out the law of unintended consequences. If a competitor makes a component of the whole, the original product shouldn't cease function simply because its own component has been disabled. However, you can't force the original company to make its product operable with the competing component. The onus of that task falls on the competitor --and access to source code/design is necessary, with the correct safeguards in place to protect the original company's intellectual rights.

Sorry to keep bringing up cars, but this is a problem that SEMA, the Specialty Equipment Manufacturer's Association, has already been successfully dealing with for some time. Believe it or not, some car manufacturers have tried to void the warranties on vehicles where the air intake or exhaust have been changed to aftermarket components. SEMA has helped shape legislation to stop this monolithic behavior. (Now if it could only do something with Chevrolet... Press a button in my old Corvette and up popped the words "competition mode." Read the owners manual and you'll find that using the vehicle n a competitive driving event voids the warranty. Huh?)

Sanity, not penis envy, should be the governing rule, even if you live in Europe.
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