Bundle of Joy

So there’s yet another lawsuit against Microsoft. This time, it’s Opera filing suit in the EU over Microsoft’s bundling of IE in Windows (again) and because IE doesn’t strictly follow web standards. Where do I begin? I’ll start with the bundling claim (yet again). Yes, Internet Explorer is bundled with Windows. You know what. So are other applications. Solitaire is bundled, but card game developers aren’t beating a path to the court house.  Notepad is bundled, yet we don’t see text editor developers calling their lawyers. Do you know what they do? They develop something better. FireFox is a successful browser, and as far as I know they haven’t resorted to lawsuits to gain market share. They simply built a better product. Does Alpine sue BMW because they don’t give you the option to select an Alpine sound system when you order your nice new 650i? It would be absurd. I could go on and on with examples of “bundling” in other businesses, but why should software be any different?

Now let’s tackle the issue of IE not following web standards. So what. Why is it any business of Opera’s how Microsoft designs its browser? As a developer I would love it if all browsers were standards compliant, but that’s not for a court to decide. That should be settled in the market. Not by a cadre of lawyers. I can just see it now. IE8 is delayed for release because it’s still being code reviewed by the lawyers. Do we want the government mandating software features in a consumer product like a browser?

I could see there being a legitimate claim if Microsoft limited Windows to only IE and blocked other browsers, but that’s not the case. I’m running Windows XP, and I’ve got IE7, FireFox 3 Beta and Safari installed, and they all work as advertised. I’ve used Opera in the past (pre-FireFox days), but it’s just not my cup of tea. Maybe their browser isn’t being used as much as they would like because their browser just isn’t that attractive to consumers. Instead of spending the time and money to fight Microsoft in the courts, they should devote those resources to design and marketing if they truly believe they’ve got a superior product.

There’s plenty of room for lots of different browsers. The bottom line is that as a consumer I’ll make the decision which ones I’ll install and use. I don’t care what’s bundled with the OS.