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Comment by chongli | Hacker News Reader

They are in danger should Microsoft ever gain a significant foothold with the Windows Store. Microsoft can turn off "side-loading" of software in Windows and lock everyone into their walled garden. If Valve hasn't successfully migrated away from Windows by that point they will be completely screwed.

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Given the importance of backwards compatibility for corporate Windows users and the history Microsoft has with the Justice Department, I find such a situation very hard to fathom. Microsoft is not Apple - they cannot use the Reality Distortion Field to get away scot-free with imposing draconian restrictions on their user base.

They'll just turn on signed side-loading in the high-end corporate version of the OS; with Microsoft providing the (revokable) signing keys as part of the corporate site license.

As for the Justice Department intervention? I wouldn't hold my breath.

If pain deploying applications on Windows becomes greater than pain of switching to Linux (porting applications and training personnel) then Microsoft might have a problem.

That doesn't sound backwards compatible to me. Businesses will just refuse to upgrade in such a scenario.

And Microsoft made the mistake last time around of ignoring the Justice Department. They won't this time.

> Microsoft can turn off "side-loading" of software in Windows and lock everyone into their walled garden.

I think the EU might have something to say about that.

Not to mention corporate customers with inhouse business applications.

Perhaps WindowsRT will become the consumer OS and Windows (x86) will be the 'professional' OS

Yeah, just like they had something to say about the iOS walled garden.

Also, I'm sure the bankruptcy courts will wait for a policy change before allowing Valve's (or any of those walled garden competitors) dismemberment.

The EU didn't force apple to open up iOS, and this is with a near monopoly in the tablet space. Microsoft doesn't have to close down windows, they just need to make windows rt the default option for consumers wanting to get a machine that runs office and some games.

EU antitrust laws aren't against monopolys per se, but against using the power of a monopoly to gain an advantage in a new market. So, Microsoft wasn't fined for having a 95% of the PC market, but for trying to leverage that share to force its competition in the internet field out of the market. Apple tablets were born with the app store and conquered (created?) the tablet market, so, no problem.It'd have been different if they allowed people to install apps from anywhere and afterwards restricted them to the app store. So, I think microsoft would be in big trouble in the EU if they tried to shut Steam out of the market by disabling third party software on windows.

MS would never be able to pull that one with an existing install base, so that's something we'd have to not buy in the first place, perhaps winRT 2.0 might look locked down like that.

The other scenario would be if windows moved to a rolling distribution type model, perhaps even for free. They could pull that move then.

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