You’d think that Microsoft’s rivals would welcome the company’s announcement that it will ship Windows 7 in Europe without an internet browser.
After 15 years (that’s how long ago it was that the US first forced Microsoft into a consent decree promising not to “tie” other products illegally to Windows) the software company has finally agreed to untie the browser completely, at least in Europe. It feels like a watershed.
So are the makers of Firefox, Opera and other browsers dancing in the streets? Not a bit of it.
Several we’ve heard from have been more than underwhelmed. Rather than see it as an opening to persuade PC makers to ship an alternative browser with new PCs, they believe that it is little more than a way for Microsoft to entrench Internet Explorer even further.
Opera, which led the complaint in Europe, rejected Microsoft’s move almost immediately. Now we hear that Mozilla, the organisation behind Firefox, is about to come out against it as well.
Mitchell Baker, chairperson of Mozilla, tells us:
It’s impossible to evaluate what this means unless and until Microsoft describes — completely and with specificity — all the incentives and disincentives applicable to Windows OEMs. Without this it’s impossible to tell if Microsoft is giving something with one hand and taking it away with the other. For example, if Windows marketing dollars are tied to IE or browser-based programs, then the ties to Windows are still distorting the browser market. One could think of many other examples. As a result it’s also impossible to tell whether this does anything more than change the technical installation process of the OEMs.
When we spoke earlier today to Hakon Wium Lie, chief technology officer of Opera, he had a similar complaint. This is the way he put it:
The relationship between Microsoft and OEMs is quite oblique. It’s hard to tell what is going on there.
Maybe this knee-jerk suspicion is only natural. But there are certainly examples where Microsoft’s software rivals have succeeded in securing real estate on new PCs. Google and Yahoo have actively bid to have their search engines set as the default on new PCs, forcing Microsoft to respond in kind. And anti-virus companies have paid to have trial versions of their software shipped.
Why shouldn’t browser distribution work this way? Google said last year that it would look to buy distribution for its Chrome browser, so it clearly feels that getting access to consumers through new PCs is a valid route to market.
The EU obviously needs to take a close look at Microsoft’s untying of the browser, but the experience suggests that this may well create more of an open market than rivals claim is likely.
