Hacker News Reader

Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft OS has monopoly power in the PC market. They have been in the court for actions like this before [1].

The difference between mobile and PC is that if hardware maker has their own closed system, what they have is basically an appliance. PC's are generic item build from standards and Microsoft has produced an open operating system with large markets for software running on their OS. They can't just close it on a whim and abuse their monopoly power position [1].

----

[1.] Findings of Fact in U.S. v. Microsoft Corporation, Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ) and State of New York, ex re. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer et al., v. Microsoft Corporation, Civil Action No. 98-1233 (TPJ), November 5, 1999.

"Monopoly power" is not the same as monopoly. One must always point this out when saying it or discussion is derailed.

View on HN

But surely they're not closing off the pc platform, just potentially restricting what can happen on their OS. You can still use PCs with linux without any lock in. Long gone are the days when Microsoft was a monopoly on client computing devices, these days we have linux, Mac osx, chrome OS, Android, steamOS and iOS.

Several of these other platforms are already closed to one degree on another, with iOS probably being the most restrictive, so I'm not sure I see Microsoft as being dominent enough to warrant a claim of monopoly power any more

They are, PC manufacturer have to lock down the hardware for Win10. Good luck trying to install Linux/FreeBSD/etc on a new notebook. Microsoft is using their desktop monopoly and OEM cartel to lock down the platform.

reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...

I have bought and installed linux on laptops from hp and Lenovo with no problems at all. Also you can buy laptops from Dell with linux pre-installed.

Can you provide any citations for the assertion that Microsoft are currently (2016) forcing hardware companies to tie their products to Windows?

Can you cite your "no problem at all"? That statement is just wrong, if the hardware shipped with Win8/8.1/10 pre installed.

Such devices come with a locked down UEFI, the "legacy" BIOS is deactivated and often hidden behind shortcuts that one has to press during boot. Also it depends if you bought a business or consumer hardware.

Of course I can as it was my personal experience. On the other hand you made a general assertion about their actions which really needs a citation.

Reinstalling an os is a technical task, which requires some knowledge to do effectively. Having been doing this for 25 years or so, I can safely say it's easier now than it used to be...

Good for you. You could provide photos of your UEFI settings and or BIOS settings, and of course you had to change several of them and hold down specific buttons.

And no, it was easier before Microsoft introduced Windows 8 and 10. It was very easy, just insert a CD/DVD with a boot-image. Read about UEFI and "secure boot" came along with Windows 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In...

It's never a good sign for your argument when you have to resort to ad hominem attacks.... No real point I trying to respond if that's your track but remember this is just a discussion on a website, no need to start throwing around personal accusations, for which you have no evidence.

Might I suggest you take a break from the keyboard, perhaps go for a nice walk in the fresh air:)

I've been happily running Xubuntu on an Acer gaming laptop with UEFI with no problems. I did it after my Win 10 upgrade killed my SSD. Yes, I had to do a quick Google search to find out how to get into my legacy bios but if you are going to install a Linux distribution you should definitely be able to find this info no problem.

I believe the concern is that the requirement for manufactures to allow disabling UEFI has been dropped, so new hardware may not make that possible.

Some broken UEFI BIOS refuse to do DOS boot when GPT partitioning is used. It can give the appearance of requiring Windows when you are installing a Linux distribution that does not support EFI boot, but uses GPT partitioning. My guess is that might be causing people to think such things.

I needed to buy a computer some years ago.

My favourite OS is Fedora.

First thing, is I find out that all manufacturers only were selling non-Windows machines at a significant markup, the only way this made sense to me is if Microsoft is actively bribing them (ie: "selling" windows for a negative price).

So I thought, I would just buy this cool Windows 8 laptop, and remove Windows 8, since it is crap anyway.

Well... no, I am still using that Windows 8 (now 8.1, after it forcefully upgraded itself), because for some reason (maybe a UEFI bug) I can't make anything that ins't Windows that came installed to boot, not even Windows install discs boot, much less Linux discs, and yes, I did disabled SecureBoot, but it still blocks everything except Windows 8 itself from booting (this mean I can't use Memtestx86 either)

If that ins't closed, I dunno what is.

So your pc or fedora has a bug which prevents you changing os and it then follows that Microsoft have a monopoly power in PCs... Sorry I don't quite think that follows

Nitpicking, but the problem as they described is definitely not fedora. It is definitely a PC problem.

The main problem here is that Windows is such a monopoly that the PC manufacturer didn't care to make sure anything else worked.

Just like mobile developers don't bother making Windows Apps because they consider the % of users is too low.

In other words, this manufacturer probably didn't care because the % of users who would use it for something other than the standard config is too small to justify the time spent outside that standard.

I don't think this specific case can be called monopoly. You can install Linux and other stuff fine in most laptops, this looks like an isolated case. I mean, you can even install Ubuntu on a Surface Pro and Surface Book (proprietary MS hardware).

> First thing, is I find out that all manufacturers only were selling non-Windows machines at a significant markup, the only way this made sense to me is if Microsoft is actively bribing them (ie: "selling" windows for a negative price).

It's not Microsoft bribing them, it's the crapware vendors.

The vendor knows that if someone WANTS a non-windows PC, they are going to be willing to pay more, so the price goes up. They also are implementing a whole new process for a small set of customers which increases their costs. They pass those directly on to the consumers with the need/want. It's the special flower luxury tax.

Exactly right.

It actually does cost more to make and sell a non-Windows PC. You have extra work to install and validate the different OS for hardware and drivers, plus extra stock-keeping, accounting and distribution costs, and then extra advertising and support costs.

And you don't get a kickback from installing crapware ;-)

If you do all that, most of your buyers will complain that you've installed one version of Linux and they would have preferred a different version....

I think it's a different story when it's been there from the beginning and developers choose to join your platform versus leveraging your huge already captured market.

So a company who doesn't have a monopoly should be restricted from changing their product because it didn't use to be that way....

Seems a bit harsh to me... if Microsoft still occupied the same kind of dominent position they did 15 years ago it would be a different story, but now there are a lot more viable alternatives

The laws on monopolies don't see it that way and Microsoft still has a huge one in the computing space, despite the in-roads made in the past few years.

Actually you are , AFAIK, incorrect there. Microsoft's consent decree from their antitrust trial expired in 2011/2012.

"Microsoft OS has monopoly power in the PC market."

Is there a legal difference between a "PC" and a tablet or phone? They all seem like general purpose computers to me. From that perspective, MS definitely doesn't have a monopoly.

A large fraction of the employees of corporations and other organizations need laptop or desktop computers: it would be impractical for them to use tablets or phones instead.

Only a very small fraction of those employees use any OS on these laptops and desktops except for Windows, and that small fraction is concentrated in the computer industry, e.g., Google and Oracle (if they are in fact mostly non-Windows; I don't know for sure) which means that the monopoly is even stronger in the industries other than the computer industry than the global numbers would suggest.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com