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Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

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Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#41

Post by flangola7 »

formerly_proven wrote: post #40
eitland wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who else has been allowed to advertise on the front page of Google? None as far as I am aware of. Not even - again AFAIK - disaster relief after the biggest disasters we have seen after Google was founded. I'd argue that is quite clearly the same league as Microsoft pre-installing Media Player and Internet Explorer: taking advantage of a niche that they completely dominates and abusing it to wedge their way into anot…

When you try to change the default browser on Windows (a setting ignored by some Microsoft apps, which will always use Edge btw.), you can't just change it, you get a pop-up going like: You SURE you wanna do that? Edge is better you know. And more secure. And shit. [ BIG BLUE CONTINUE WITH EDGE BUTTON ] Arial, 6pt grey on white, "Use my choice" link Edit: You also can't move or remove the Edge symbol from your deskto…

What does that have to do with Chrome?

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#42

Post by Rarebox »

Dalewyn wrote: post #35
veave wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"massive ad campaigns" is hardly an antitrust matter. Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking.

Chrome when it released was faster than Firefox, but it wasn't "better". It ate far more RAM than either Firefox or IE did (and still does), back when RAM capacities were still practically limited, and Chrome was (and is) rendering the internet in Chrome ways much like IE did in Trident ways and Firefox has in Gecko ways. Chrome also had and still has its own UI paradigms, including no title bar, menu bar, nor status…

Back then I remember switching to Chrome for these reasons:

1. Feeling faster than firefox (still does)

2. Process separation for tabs. Firefox used to crash the whole browser, whereas chrome would crash just a single tab.

3. Shipped with support for Flash and PDFs

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#43

Post by theonlybutlet »

FullMetalBitch wrote: post #37
theonlybutlet wrote: post #34

I can't understand how Apple keeps getting away scot-free, considering this type of scrutiny exists and how their services work.

Generally speaking Apple isn't as big in Europe

Yes, their marketshare overall is lower however in certain very large EU countries their market share is very high and their practices shouldn't escape scrutiny as this type of law also applies to smaller players. I suppose it's an issue of allocation of resources for the regulators. Smaller has less impact. The individual country regulators can also address this.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#44

Post by withinboredom »

seszett wrote: post #8
kwanbix wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don't understand what they expect. That Microsoft bundles google meet? amazon chime? Slack?

> Slack filed a complaint with the EU in 2020, claiming that Microsoft was "force installing [Teams] for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers." I'm pretty sure force installing even more software and blocking removal isn't what they are going for.

Yes. Let me introduce you to a Mac. Where the messaging software comes preinstalled and you can’t remove it.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#45

Post by kwanbix »

kwanbix wrote: post #26
seszett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Slack filed a complaint with the EU in 2020, claiming that Microsoft was "force installing [Teams] for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers." I'm pretty sure force installing even more software and blocking removal isn't what they are going for.

Are you forced to use it? I certainly don't use it. I was able to remove it from Windows without any problems. You don't like it? you can use Linux or buy a Mac. There are very credible alternatives today. Edge is bundled with Windows and Chrome still has 80% of the market or more. I still don't see the problem.

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#47

Post by AlchemistCamp »

skinkestek wrote: post #39
theonlybutlet wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The get out jail free card is that the engine is open source chromium, not actually held by Google. Others are free to use it.

Seeing that they already nerfed ad blocking possibilities in Chromium before completely killing Firefox, what do you think they will do once it is completely gone? Those who use Chromium - either end users or browser creators who build on Chromium - are dependent on the whims of Google.

On this timeline, “completely killing Firefox” never happened. I used Chrome for a few years, but FF has been my primary browser since 2014.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#48

Post by loehnsberg »

_cenw wrote: post #36
skrause wrote: post #28

My employer is a prime example for this case: We use Microsoft 365 because we need Microsoft Office and use their email hosting. And then we use Teams simply because it's already included in the package anyway, even though many employees hate it, but it's hard to argue for another solution because why pay for Slack when we already have Teams "for free"? And since Teams doesn't really need to compete on functionality…

Saw the same pattern with 3 employers over the past 5 years. One killed Slack and all institutional knowledge in its search engine within a month. One replaced all remaining Intel Macs (not an insignificant amount) because Teams would being them to a standstill. The last one is currently happening and I'm wondering what unexpected cost will come to haunt this decision this time. Though one thing that always suffers i…

To be fair, video calls on Slack were below par at the time when Teams came out, and little effort was made by Slack to improve the call feature in the months that followed.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#49

Post by ethbr0 »

kwanbix wrote: post #26
seszett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Slack filed a complaint with the EU in 2020, claiming that Microsoft was "force installing [Teams] for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers." I'm pretty sure force installing even more software and blocking removal isn't what they are going for.

Are you forced to use it? I certainly don't use it. I was able to remove it from Windows without any problems. You don't like it? you can use Linux or buy a Mac. There are very credible alternatives today. Edge is bundled with Windows and Chrome still has 80% of the market or more. I still don't see the problem.

The market for Teams isn't personal use: it's enterprise use.

In enterprise, managed-device land, options are severely curtailed.

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