Great opinion piece 331

On Wednesday 09 February 2005 11:28 Abdullah Ramazanoglu

Well, look at this quote from the same article:- "This sort of contemptuous atbreastude is mirrored in the way the company is complying with the court's other requests. It has unbundled Windows Media Player from Windows XP, but called the result the 'Reduced Media Edition' and larded it with warnings. Good grace is apparently in shorter supply in Redmond than SMB documentation."

The court has imposed its will. Now MS markets two versions, one with and one without, both at the same price, and one loaded with warnings and with a name that makes no economic sense if one wishes to sell it.

Don't get me wrong - this is a GOOD thing, imo. If you want an analogy, a frigate called the EU Court has challenged a ship on the High Seas. That ship, feeling invulnerable, has (foolishly imo) broken out the skull and crossbones. Some would call it a brave act of defiance. The practicality is that the frigate is henceforth under no delusion as to what it is dealing with, and its powder is quite dry:-)

Oh yes:-)

Oh yes:-)

Oh yes:-) Hailed by the MS team as a major success at the time. It actually comprised a halt, - a "hang about. There could be serious problems here". - then "OK - maybe some problems, but trivial compared with the hype. We'll go for it"

Perhaps none. In my view, this is a very long-term plan, and is being executed with typical German efficiency - and part of that efficiency is the quiet way that they are going about it. As I see it:-

- They saw the dangers a long time ago - that is, the entire of their (our!) computer-I.T. industry in the thrall of what amounts to a foreign power. Admittedly a friendly one at present, but the day will likely come when U.S. and European interests are in some conflict. Closed source software, including the O-S(!) is NOT the best way to ensure one's freedom of action. If the situation were reversed, the U.S. would not tolerate the situation.

- They are seeing if they can do something about it. They are not making a big noise, not foul-mouthing MS. They are being very adult about it. If it fails, they might have to "come back to the fold". Why burn your boats if you don't need to?

- They are not (imo) seeking to harm MS per se., merely to do things their way. At the moment, they have taxation without representation - they pay billions, but have no say, play no part in development etc., and benefit from those billions only as a user of what they buy. To (mis)quote Linus, "It is not their intention to destroy MS. If that happens, it will merely be an unplanned side-effect of their strategy".

- So logically (they are above all else logical, planners, and excellent executors of plans!) they have set up large pilot schemes, the main one in Munich. It seems to cover everything, servers, desktops, office suites, browsers, e-mail, the lot, and it is being done in nice, easy stages, including the educational insbreastutions. They do NOT want it to fail:-)

- So are they serious? Oh yes:-) If they were not, they would have looked (at the time of that pause) for the best deal they could get from MS and grabbed it. They didn't. They are deadly serious. There's more to it than the I.T. budget of a major city. In fact, one could speculate that this is a major government(s) project, being fronted as the experiment of a city council.

I don't know. But what could they do? Nationalise SuSE?:-)

They are following. Germany is doing the pace-making.

Oh yes:-) Remember how the EU started - the principal players were Germany and France, a union of German industrial production and French agricultural production. Similarly the Euro. Also, bear in mind that the U.K. is invariably torn when it comes to relations with the U.S. - Special Relationship, kith and kin, and all that. i.e. a tendancy to be sympathetic with the U.S. With both France and Germany, the opposite is probably true. Certainly not to the point of enmity, but certainly to the point of wariness - and probably rightly so (imo).

You must not (again imo) leave the UK out of that equation - simply accept that they will less readilly upset the Americans. There are also others - the Netherlands will be well up there if it shows signs of flying:-)

Oh yes..... - and their monopolistic thinking - and their corporate rule - and a great deal of their influence in the industry (though it will still be very considerable)

So do I. I live in hope, but must remind you that, as my old grandmama used to remind me frequently, "Rome wasn't built in a day":-)

- but there gain, our German friends weren't managing that project!!

Kind regards Bill