20 July 2006 | Author: Alastair Wright

Microsoft announces plans to promote competition

On July 19th, Microsoft's General Counsel Brad Smith announced three principles that will guide the future development of the Windows desktop platform - starting with Windows Vista. This announcement follows on from a previous bigmouthmedia article "Microsoft's anti-trust / anti-competition issues continue to hound".

So what are these "Twelve Tenets to Promote Competition"?

• Principle 1 - "Choice for Computer Manufacturers and Customers"

"Microsoft is committed to designing Windows and licensing it on contractual terms so as to make it easy to install non-Microsoft programs and to configure Windows-based PCs to use non-Microsoft programs instead of or in addition to Windows features."

Fantastic news for anyone who has had problems introducing 'alien' software to their Windows operating system. Of particular interest to consumers will be the announcement which reads:

"Microsoft will design Windows so as to enable computer manufacturers and users to set non-Microsoft programs to operate by default in key categories, such as web browsing and media playback, in lieu of corresponding end-user functionality in Windows. Computer manufacturers are free to set these defaults as they please when building new PCs."

So, users will have the freedom to customise their own PC and manufacturers will have the freedom to sell customised PCs. This should open up the market in myriad ways, with multiple software companies vying for their software to be the default. This means users will also be able to choose which search engine to set as their default for Internet Explorer 7 in Windows Vista, which is due to be launched early next year. One could speculate what kind of effect this will have on the market share of companies such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN and also how this will effect the smaller search engines that still have a growing level of popularity such as Ask.

• Principle 2 - "Opportunities for Developers"

"Microsoft is committed to designing and licensing Windows (and all the parts of the Windows platform) on terms that create and preserve opportunities for application developers and Web site creators to build innovative products on the Windows platform - including products that directly compete with Microsoft's own products."

One would imagine that Windows will therefore become the playing field for PC software instead of the whole league and governing body. This is actually a good thing for MSN as it forces them to show their might against the competition and to silence their critics who tend to the think the dominance of Microsoft products on the market is somewhat unfair and unjustified.

• Principle 3 - "Interoperability for Users"

"Microsoft is committed to meeting customer interoperability needs and will do so in ways that enable customers to control their data and exchange information securely and reliably across diverse computer systems and applications."

So just what doesMicrosoft mean by interoperability? Well, they want to make it easier for people to exchange information, pure and simple. Are emails not easy enough, I hear you ask...well actually no, they are not. If you think about it, the email is a fairly limited interface and requires you to attach any important information - a bit like a fax's cover page - clearly not an ideal system.

Perhaps Microsoft plan to abolish email attachments eventually by making it easier to view multiple pieces of information simultaneously and without the risk of large emails being rejected by over-sensitive firewalls. This is, of course, speculation on our part - but watch this space, this is a story that won't go away.

Ted Halstead, the founder and president of the New America Foundation, the US non-profit public policy institute who sponsored the speech at the meeting of the National Press Club, stated: "This is a historic turning point, not only for Microsoft, but also for the industry as a whole."

The investment community certainly agreed as Microsoft jumped by 2.5% on the NASDAQ after the announcement.

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