I receive newsletters from Technet from time to time, which I scan to
see what's occurring in the world of Windows.
This morning's effort kicks off with the following question from
Alexandria Ball, the author of the email:
"You may have seen in the news a few weeks back that, in order for
Europe to get Windows 7 at the same time as the global launch on 22
October, Windows 7 will have to be shipped without Internet Explorer.
So, when you buy a new computer, you will not have a browser as part of
the operating system. I would be interested to hear your views on this
so please email me."
What a peculiar question for a representative of a major corporation to
send out to their customers! I don't know precisely how any rulings
within the EEC affect Microsoft's ability to ship browsers with Windows
7, but it seems highly unlikely to me that is the case as implied. We
are referred to a blog [1] for clarification, and it would appear that
the summary of the situation is that the bundling of IE is the issue (or
more accurately perhaps, the integration), and that it can be overcome
by simply following the same model as the competition does and making
various browsers available for users to install once the OS is up and
running.
The statement 'you will not have a browser as part of the operating
system' is interesting too, since there are /many/ things that won't
ship as part of Windows 7 that I have come to expect as standard with
most Linux distros, so why is this suddenly an issue? Doubtless there
won't be a spreadsheet application or database manager shipping with
Windows 7 either, so why aren't we invited to debate this?
I really can't fathom if this portion of the email was gloriously naive
and ill-informed on the part of the sender, or an attempt to raise the
rabble over some perceived injustice of the EEC rulings using
deliberately fuzzy facts.
Any thoughts?
Sean
[1]
http://tinyurl.com/mt7aty
--
www.funkygibbins.me.uk
