Duckwizard.com

I’m talking to you, European Union. Microsoft deserved to be censured for abusing their monopoly power in a very specific way: they were threatening to revoke Windows licenses to computer manufacturers if competitor’s software was pre-installed. That was a long time ago, and they are not doing that anymore. Demanding that they don’t ship a web browser AT ALL or that they must include competitor’s software in their operating system is just ridiculous and stupid and petty.

This is a totally transparent money-grab. Even when Microsoft tries to comply by removing IE from the European Windows, the EU essentially says: “Thanks, but we would rather just fine you billions of dollars because that’s all this was about in the first place.” Is your country’s economy suffering? Claim that Microsoft is doing evil things and fine the crap out of them! They can afford it, right?

The truth is, Microsoft makes pretty much the only significantly useful operating system for business customers at the moment. This is because they work hard and spend a lot of money developing it. It’s not perfect, but if you’re not an idiot that opens “HOT NEKKED LADIES.exe” then it will serve you well.

I hate IE as much as the next guy. Probably more. Because it makes my job harder. But I don’t think Microsoft should be forced to include Firefox with Windows if they don’t want to (although I would love it if they did!). That would be like telling Honda that they must include 3 different stereo systems in their cars. Otherwise it’s not fair to the little guys in that industry. Right?

Wrong! Microsoft’s monopoly exists because everyone wants Windows. If you can’t point to a specific way that Microsoft is abusing that monopoly and subverting the free market, then STFU. If I were Steve Ballmer, I would tell the EU to go fuck themselves and withdraw all my products from the European market until José Manuel Barroso (or whoever is in charge over there) flies out to Redmond and polishes my boots.

If you think the continued prevalence of IE is evidence of monopoly abuse, I have to disagree. It’s evidence of ignorance and apathy on the part of computer users. People don’t give a crap that IE doesn’t support some CSS standard or is much more difficult to successfully code for. They don’t give a crap because we as web developers bend over backward to give them a good experience. If we ALL stopped doing this, and JUST coded to standards, then IE’s share would eventually start to correlate directly to their support of the standards. Nobody wants to be the first to do this, because they would lose the IE audience. This is a sucky situation, but it’s not Microsoft’s fault. It’s yours and mine, for drinking the IE kool-aid in the first place. Surprise: if you make people give a crap, then they will give a crap.