Globalisation Institute Brussels, calls for Unbundling Pre Installed Windows
Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market.
Operating systems, it says, are not a natural monopoly, requiring just one supplier. Instead, in a competitive market, there would be a broad compatibility between different supplier’s products. “Competition would encourage open standards and interoperability as vendors would, for competitive reasons, want their products to interact with other vendors’ products,” the submission says.
Full Report is here http://www.globalisation.eu/publications/unbundlingmicrosoftwindows.pdf
On 9/24/07, Anivar Aravind anivar@movingrepublic.org wrote:
Globalisation Institute Brussels, calls for Unbundling Pre Installed Windows
Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market.
An interesting excerpt from the document:
To be clear, this paper deliberately concerns itself with the commodity computer market, where products are aimed at the mass market. We consider the Mac to be a premium, niche product, like a Bang and Olufsen television, which is difficult to justify in the business world outside of the publishing sector. We therefore do not think that the Mac, despite claims of its superiority, provides a meaningful competitive threat to Microsoft.
James
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Anivar Aravind -
james mathew