EU Mandates Removal of Windows Media Player in Europe

The European commission is requiring Microsoft to distribute a version of the Windows XP operating system without the Windows Media Player (WMP) application included. What is the point of this? Whenever Microsoft comes under fire for its monopolistic behavior, it seems the resolution is to force Microsoft to sell their operating system without some component. During the browser wars, there was a push to get MS to distribute Windows without Internet Explorer. Now, in Europe, it's WMP.

Supposedly, the idea is that MS has crushed the competition because their software is included in the initial distribution of the Windows operating system. I guess the idea is that if a user starts Windows for the first time and finds WMP there, that user will not bother to look for any other media player. Taking WMP out of the initial distribution will force the user to decide what media player to use and go get it. This argument does not make too much sense. If the user already knows about the other media players available on the web, that user will go get them whether WMP is on their system or not. If the user does not know about media players, they will go to the Microsoft website and download WMP since that would be the logical first place to go.

These are free programs that a customer can easily download. Today, I buy a copy of Windows and IE is right there. The US government wanted me to buy Windows then download IE. Other than adding hassle to my initial setup of a new PC, what's the point? If I want IE, I will get IE. If I want Firefox as my web browser, I can download it and run it. The presence of IE on my machine does not prevent me running Firefox. Similarly, the presence of WMP does not prevent me from running Real One Player or any other media player. So how does removing the MS component from the initial distribution do anything? (By the way, I use the Firefox web browser and for a long time used the Real One player, so I am not advocating those MS products.)

This approach seems predicated on the assumption that only one media player at a time can be installed on a PC. If the user has WMP, they cannot or will not use any other media player. That's plain ignorance. Such silliness is what one would expect when governing bodies get into the business of designing software.

What I really love about the EU decision is that MS must "remov[e] references in product documents and packaging that warn that certain products won't work without Media Player." So the EU does not want MS to tell Europeans that their software might not work! That's hilarious! I guess knowing that some program is not going to function without WMP would bias users into using WMP. The EU would rather break existing software and have users use only Real One than have software that actually works. (It must be easy to be a software developer for the EU since it appears actual functioning is not required of their software.)