abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=353887
A woman looks at Microsoft products at a shop in Brussels, Wednesday Dec. A European Union court ruled Wednesday that Microsoft Corp. mu st immediately divulge some trade secrets to competitors and produce a v ersion of its flagship Windows operating system stripped of the program that plays music and video. has strategically nurtured its Windows Media Player, ma king it by far the world's most dominant program for playing digital mus ic and video on computers. It's not just that Media Player has long been bundled with the Windows op erating system, giving consumers an easy way to handle multimedia files without the need to download others. There's another big reason: Many companies in the fast-growing market of digital media from online mu sic providers to the makers of portable audio players have already chose n Microsoft as a primary multimedia format.
Latest Market Details One example of the many partnerships Microsoft has successfully pursued: users of Napster's online music service must have recent versions of the Windows Media Player in order to play downloaded songs, create a song l ibrary or transfer any tunes to a portable player. titan has also worked hard to win the backing of Holly wood for distributing digital movies and other entertainment using Micro soft's copy-protection technologies. Such partnerships later ensure that Windows software will be needed for playback. And in the same symbiotic ecosystem, many consumer electronics companies are thus including components that will support Microsoft's multimedia t echnologies. That's why analysts think the EU's ruling ordered implemented immediately by a European court on Wednesday that Microsoft be forced to offer a Wi ndows version in Europe without the Media Player will do little to tame the software giant. "Microsoft is basically establishing itself as the most popular technolog y, and I don't expect this decision to change that much," said Paul DeGr oot, an analyst with independent researchers Directions on Microsoft. Microsoft's multimedia technology is now simply too ingrained in the indu stry. The scenario is not unlike the Web browser monopoly issue with which US authorities grappled. By the time Microsoft settled the antitrust case with the Justice Departm ent in 2002 including giving customers the ability to hide Microsoft pro grams like its Web browser and only see competing products Microsoft's I nternet Explorer was already the predominant browser. Not just European consumers, but also PC makers will hardly have a reason to choose the pared version of Windows over the standard one, said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst. "Without a financial incentive, why would they want to leave it off?" What's more, manufacturers are catering to consumers who, in part, have b een trained by Microsoft's one-stop shop strategy. "We're not going to speculate on what effect, if any, this will have on D ell at this point in time," Venancio Figueroa, a Dell spokesman, said of the EU ruling. This material m ay not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
http://csua.com/feed/