There was victory for the anti-Microsoft lobby yesterday. Well, kinda. The European courts have decided that Microsoft is misusing its monopoly in the IT sector by automatically bundling its Windows Media Player in with the Windows operating system. Microsoft's critics say that by supplying the IT giant's media player with their operating system consumers are more likely to use it than a rival player developed by one of Microsoft's competitors - which users would most likely have to download.
The European Courts yesterday said they agreed and ordered Microsoft to 'unbundle' the operating system and media player with immediate effect - meaning that even if Microsoft plan to begin a long appeal against the ruling (which they almost definitely will) they still have to unbundle the software immediately.
So a big victory for the anti-Microsoft crowd? Well, not really. In order to be able to say they have 'unbundled' their software, Microsoft simply have to release a version of their Windows operating system without the media player. They can then release another version with 'free media player' written on the box. Given that the two versions will retail for the same price who is going to buy the version of Windows with less functionality? The only way the courts could really overcome Microsoft's monopoly in this area is to force them to include everyone else's media players in with the Windows system software - which wasn't part of this ruling.
Of course at the end of 2004, Microsoft no longer seems quite as dominant as it did a couple of years ago. Commercially it still dominates of course, but the rebirth of Apple post-iPod and the fast growth in the use of Internet Explorer rival FireFox in the web browser space (try it - it's so much better and you can download it for free - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) suggests that it is public demand for superior products, rather than expensive legal action, that might eventually crack Microsoft's computing monopoly.