Antitrust: The Apple doesn't fall far from the tree

Worse title ever? I don't fucking know. A fire alarm went off over half an hour ago, and I'm mad. The timing on it was impeccably bad too, since it went off the moment after I turned on my laptop. Anyways, I figured now would be a good time to write about antitrust issues, and suchforth.



Here are some related articles. They aren't a necessary read, but it'll be good to understand where some cases extend. It would also be good to look at the articles in my previous post related to Apple's new TOS stance and how it affects developers such as Adobe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft (Yes it's wikipedia, sue me... well, don't)
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/11/a-close-look-at-the-new-antitrust-allegations-against-intel.ars
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/05/googles-diversity-causing-it-antitrust-trouble.ars
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Antitrust Laws are defined so companies and products must undergo ethical practices with their product. Meaning, anti-competitive or monopoly behavior is NOT allowed.

One case in which a company got slapped in the face due to the law is Microsoft. Remember Netscape? If you do, then you likely remember stopped using it after a few years, and started using Internet Explorer, right? When Microsoft shipped their operating systems, they only included Internet Explorer for the browser. Furthermore, they literally integrated the browser into the system, making it extremely difficult to remove without losing some functionality of the operating system. Their aggressive tactic eventually phased out Netscape, and IE would become one of the most dominant browsers in the market. This isn't the only case of Microsoft's antitrust issues, though.

Now fast-forward to now. Microsoft 10-15(give or take 5...) years later have changed since then, and it's noticeable. Their approach to releasing their software has taken a radical change. In the European version of Windows 7, for example, they included ALL the options for possible browsers the user can use upon installing their OS, and IE isn't at the top of the last list. Also, they made it possible to uninstall IE without losing functionality of any part of the OS in Windows 7. With that said, while IE shares has dropped, Firefox, Chrome OS, and even Opera has taken a considerable part of the market. Unfortunately, there are still relic IE6 users out there making a stain on society.

Another example of Microsoft's change in approach was the release of their own security software, "Microsoft Security Essentials." I still cannot express how much I love this software, since it is one of the best security programs I've used in YEARS. Here lies the problem. Microsoft hasn't actually marketed the product that well or at all (to my knowledge), and the only people who knows are those who keeps up with the technology news, or friends of those people. This is because Microsoft wants to avoid having Antitrust issues with MSE, because they know companies such as Norton and McAfee are going to have a field day if they start marketing their product. They just offer it on their website, nothing more (such as Windows Update). In fact, you can get it right here.
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Although Microsoft has cleaned up their act in recent years, Apple is looking like they're picking up the slack. And not in a good way either. The recent change in their TOS has spurred a massive controversy between Adobe, and even fans of both Adobe and Apple, since the change just makes Adobe's 3 years of writing API's for the iPhone completely useless, and by extension the iPad too. This prevents developers from porting their apps to the iPhone, are forces them to use some other API to write apps for the iPad. And this is cutting it close to Antitrust issues.

The reason I am not a big fan of Apple is because their systems are locked down. Mac OSX, iPad, iTouch, iPhone, whatever they have. There's a reason why users jailbreaks their products, it's to allow free reign over their products. With the development of Apple's TOS, this limits what can be developed for the products more than it has to. Apple is simply trying to phase Adobe out, at this point, just look at the iPad. No Flash support. What are they trying to prove? All I can see is they trying to sell crippled products to the mass loyal consumers.