News and Analysis to 25th March 2004
Super Mario gets tough on Game Boy
Mario Monti, the European Union competition commissioner
flexed his muscles recently in fining Microsoft $612m for abusive monopolistic
practices in respect of the server and media player market. This is pocket
money for Bill Gates and will probably come out of petty cash. However Mario
wants Microsoft to make the workings of its Windows software more visible to
competitors and to provide a version of Windows that doesn’t come with Media
Player installed. Such remedies will be painful for Microsoft, which sees the
Windows platform as a moat that protects its market dominance. The US
Department of Justice was critical of Europe’s stance. But this hasn’t stopped
the state of Nebraska reopening a class action lawsuit against Microsoft.
The tills are alive with the sound of
music
Microsoft is keen to find a new power base should the PC
become obsolete. The chances of this happening in the medium term are low.
However long term growth will come from the consumer marketplace, where the
platform of choice is still up for grabs. Hence Microsoft’s foray into the
games console market. Lately it has been eyeing up Apple’s iPod digital music
player, which essentially allows people to carry/wear portable jukeboxes, which
are fortunately less bulky than the old Wurlitzers. Consequently Microsoft
plans to introduce its own Portable Media Centre, which should be available by
Christmas. The PMC would be a thoughtful Christmas gift from Bill Gates to
Mario Monti. Just to show there are no hard feelings.
Interactive advert
Yahoo! has come up with an innovative approach to draw
attention to its car trading website. It has set up a live car-racing video
game on a Times Square billboard. Passers by are invited to use their mobile
phones to dial in and use their keypad to race the car on the billboard. Let’s
hope that the advertising doesn’t backfire through getting a reputation for
being a honey trap for mobile phone muggers.
Linux news – SCO turns on US government
SCO Group’s
market irritation campaign continues unabated. Its attempts to jitter both
technology companies and end-users of Linux have now extended to the US
government. SCO’s theme is that users of Linux are infringing their
intellectual property. Whilst this might in fact be true, it seems somewhat
hostile to open up the discussions with Linux users by firing off letters
threatening legal action. Perhaps SCO is morphing into a tech sector law firm
and is simply demonstrating its rottweiler tendencies to attract customers for
its new business.
Linux news – HP to ship Linux PCs
Premier
league PC manufacturer HP plans to ship PCs with the Linux operating system.
They are initially focusing on the Asian corporate market. Linux has
established itself as a server operating system. Given Microsoft’s stronghold,
the thought of Linux on the desktop is seen by many as a romantic notion.
However HP sees Linux as a way to reduce the cost of a PC particularly where
the users do not need powerful applications. For those that simply need web
access and email, a Linux based PC will be a very cost effective option. With this in mind HP is targeting call
centres.
