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Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

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Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#511

Post by adventurer »

_f1dq wrote: post #489
ATsch wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. linux sucks in a lot of ways. But it sucks for boring reasons I can deal with, like lack of resources, incompetence or even just ideas I disagree with. You know, just the every day inevitabilites that come with interacting with other human beings, even when they're doing their best. But what is infinitely worse than that is, on top of all of those things still happening, also having a random chance of waki…

You mean like how Outlook injects an ad into nearly every email I receive encouraging me to use Copilot for sales even though I'm not in sales and think Copilot is, in classic Microsoft form, buggy, bloated, and nearly unusable beta software that they're plaguing on their customers and charging them for the privilege?

That’s interesting. Can’t say I get those.

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#512

Post by dumbo-octopus »

xzjis wrote: post #401

The problem is that it's already too late. In my company, we used Teams because it was "free" (they even added a free version that lasted between COVID-19 and 2023), bundled with everything else, and now that we have to pay for Teams alone, we won't consider switching to something else because people are used to Teams. We never considered an alternative, and we will never consider one, and it's just more expensive fo…

Not Microsoft’s fault in any way. EU is legally requiring them to charge more. Unless you know a way they could comply with the rules (which state they can’t charge less) without charging more?

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#513

Post by surfingdino »

ssahoo wrote: post #63

Why don't they apply the laws universally and effectively make this kind of bundling illegal for mega corporations? For endusers, it feels like they are playing with different rules for Microsoft Apple Adobe and Google. Since EU waits until the damage is done and milks them, it barely helps the situation for consumers. For corps they just assume the penalty as cost of doing business.

They cannot do it before damage is done, it would be like charging people with pre-crime. Nobody wants that.

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#514

Post by Too »

nextos wrote: post #441
farhadhf wrote: post #405

This essentially killed my (EU-based) startup in the project management and collaborate space. Before MSFT bundled Teams with O365 we were rapidly growing and closing enterprise customers in the automotive, energy and education industries with high retention rates. Right around the time the Teams bundling started our retention dropped, churn went through the roof, growth slowed down, we failed to raise our next round…

Last time I checked, they also arbitrarily excluded Firefox, which works fine on other WebRTC platforms such as Google Hangouts or Zoom. Furthermore, I have always needed a Microsoft account to join a Teams meeting, as they want to make sure you get sucked into their ecosystem. Aside from that, resource consumption on Chromium is totally crazy. Zoom or Hangouts are fine, but Teams makes my old NUC overheat during sim…

It’s up to the admin of each organization to choose if anonymous guests are allowed or not.

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#515

Post by surfingdino »

Aeolun wrote: post #444
bee_rider wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It could be legislative but it could also mean governments supporting FOSS development more. To be explicit, if governments want to use open source software, which seems like a pretty good idea, they of course need to be aware of the fact that lots of it is hobbyist stuff tossed out into the public square with no quality guarantees. To use open source code, the governments will have to fork and audit the code, and…

> the governments will have to fork and audit the code Why would they do this? It’s not like they fork and audit the code that they’re using now. They just trust that it’s safe because they paid for it. Which probably sounds incredibly stupid to anyone who’s ever worked for big enterprise, or just followed the news really.

To prevent hacking. They do it today. Not necessarily forking, but there are audits.

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#516

Post by tbrownaw »

bee_rider wrote: post #467
Aeolun wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the governments will have to fork and audit the code Why would they do this? It’s not like they fork and audit the code that they’re using now. They just trust that it’s safe because they paid for it. Which probably sounds incredibly stupid to anyone who’s ever worked for big enterprise, or just followed the news really.

When you sell somebody code you have an ethical responsibility to have done your best (and maintained a reasonable level of professional competence) to ensure it is defect free. Lots of companies don’t take that very seriously, which is bad, and a great reason to switch away from them. At least the government can bring the CEO before congress and waste his day. With open source code the responsibility is taken by the…

> When you sell somebody code you have an ethical responsibility to...

> With open source code the responsibility is taken by the user instead.

What is RHEL?

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#517

Post by surfingdino »

crowcroft wrote: post #190

What's the difference between anti-competitive bundling, and developing seamless integrated experiences? If this is anti-competitive, is it anti-competitive for Apple to bundle music features/up-sell into the iOS UI, or provide an interface for headphones that no other manufacturer can integrate with?

> What's the difference between anti-competitive bundling, and developing seamless integrated experiences?

Software is not like glazing on a cake. You can install different pieces of software on the same machine separately and have them work together. It's not like installing them all at once results in a better experience.

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#518

Post by Rinzler89 »

farhadhf wrote: post #405

This essentially killed my (EU-based) startup in the project management and collaborate space. Before MSFT bundled Teams with O365 we were rapidly growing and closing enterprise customers in the automotive, energy and education industries with high retention rates. Right around the time the Teams bundling started our retention dropped, churn went through the roof, growth slowed down, we failed to raise our next round…

Can you mention which startup was it?

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#519

Post by Rinzler89 »

hx8 wrote: post #454
cosmojg wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many workplaces will restrict your choice of operating system and email client.

I ask about the tools I will be using during the interview process. There are several that I refuse to work with and will end the interview at the next possible polite point if they are required. Microsoft Windows is on my blacklist. The entire point of private retirement accounts and transferable skills is that you aren't required to stick with one employer. If your employer requires you to use bad tools then find a…

>then find a better employer

What a clueless and entitled point of view.

Entire industries are almost exclusively Microsoft (basically all those that make the modern civilized world work: medical, transportation, semiconductor, logistics, automotive, industrial, architecture, infrastructure, CAD, etc).

Your choice then is unemployment. Not everyone is an app/web developer who can freely choose employers based on stacks and tools, end even then, not in a bear market. Most people wishing not to be homeless don't have the choice of saying no to employment just because they use Windows.

Your comment is the equivalent of "let them eat cake".

Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

#520

Post by dantheman »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #461
farhadhf wrote: post #405

This essentially killed my (EU-based) startup in the project management and collaborate space. Before MSFT bundled Teams with O365 we were rapidly growing and closing enterprise customers in the automotive, energy and education industries with high retention rates. Right around the time the Teams bundling started our retention dropped, churn went through the roof, growth slowed down, we failed to raise our next round…

I am amazed the EU is being more capitalistic and breaking up monopolies. WE should be doing that. This is how capitalism thrives. Break up large companies in different markets. Also break up Amazon and AWS already.

These are not monopolies.
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