IP: re herring Microsoft giveth, but not much

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>Catch of the Day: Microsoft giveth, but not much
>
>Microsoft wants to show a willingness to bargain on the
>settlement terms of its antitrust suit. That is the stated
>intent behind the company's announcement Wednesday that it
>will allow PC vendors (and users) to uninstall Internet
>Explorer from Windows XP and also will allow PC makers to
>put their own icons on the new Windows desktop.
>
>The icon concession is a good thing for PC vendors, as it
>allows them to differentiate their offerings and showcase
>their "value-add" by putting their own applications in the
>position where new users are most likely to see them. It's
>also good for software developers.
>
>The Internet Explorer concession, however, is only symbolic.
>It's what the antitrust suit wanted, but it's too late.
>Sure, a vendor could replace IE with Netscape or another
>browser, but there's no longer a clear user advantage to
>such a swap (Windows without IE would be a value-minus), and
>the development costs for a new competitive product would be
>prohibitive.
>
>More importantly, Windows Media Player and MSN are still
>cemented into the operating system's user interface, and
>these are products that do have serious threats: RealPlayer
>and AOL. Microsoft still knows how to protect its
>weaknesses.
>
>- Rafe Needleman
>   rafe-needleman@redherring.com



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