EU and Microsoft Near Agreement
Finally the EU and Microsoft look like they’re going to reach an agreement in their ongoing battle over web browsers in Windows 7.
Initially the EU wanted Microsoft to release a version of Windows that didn’t have a browser at all. Some open source zealots (good friends of mine) made the same mistake in their logic as the EU did. No browser pre-installed on Windows 7 allows the user to pick the browser they want.
However there is a fatal flaw in this logic… How does you average home user download any browser (Firefox, IE, chrome etc.) without a web browser in the first place?
Thankfully Microsoft and later the EU realised this and the web browser ballot was born (see image). This makes the user select a browser to install the first time they connect to the internet. This will hurt Microsoft and annoy end users, not as much as the frankly stupid “no browser” idea, that was initially floated, but it will still hurt them, and here’s why.
It’s easy for Tech Savvy people, such as us, to forget how the average user thinks about software and computers. They don’t care if the browser is open source, or if it meets the latest W3C guidelines, they just want it to do what they want it to do! The fact it doesn’t support HTML5 doesn’t matter, until a user want to view a web site that needs HTML5 support, and then IT’S THE WEB SITES THAT’S BROKEN not the browser.
So all the end user is going to feel when given the choose is “which one do I choose and why are Microsoft making me choose?”.
Posted via email from scottherbert’s posterous
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