Thursday, December 21, 2006
Change Battery Lifesaver 1235
And with his PC, it will take Mr Windows or Linux?
You never heard this phrase in the mouth of the sellers of the radius of your computer distributor. You should have.
Hardly the decision of the Court of Appeal upheld the sentence of 532 million euros against operators Combine the
mobile
she only been given
UFC-Que Choisir
launches new campaign
, this time against Hewlett Packard, Bagnolet Auchan and Darty Les Halles.
For years surfers made their voices heard against the systematic provision of system operator
Microsoft Windows
sales of laptops 
(
and here). After years of advocacy, DGCCRF starts advantage pay attention to the problem (. If
plans to punish tying as abuse of dominance, the Competition Law was not applicable to this type of practice.
Indeed the two most important texts in Competition Law is the prohibition of abuse of dominance, and the prohibition of cartels ( respectively Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty establishing the union European transposed in the Commercial Code in Book IV thereof , and reflected in the Consumer Code).
If Microsoft has already been condemned by the European Commission for tying Windows Media Player to its system operator, the conditions of application of Article 82 of the Treaty are not fulfilled as regards the provision of Windows computers sold mounted. Regarding the previous case, Microsoft used its dominant position archi operator market systems to attack a downstream market: that of media players. By providing free Media Player, Microsoft wanted to reiterate its strategy "Internet Explorer" stifle the competition by discouraging consumers from taking the time to compare and choose a browser. For if the question is free software, including advertising arrangements can finance their production, and sometimes make them profitable, time to build a reputation and accumulate assets to attack other software markets. In this case, neither the manufacturers nor the distributors can not be regarded as dominant in the PC market mounted. So it's not on the text of the abuse of dominant position that the action against the "Windows Tax" will be paid. To overcome this flaw, French law provides in its Consumer Code prohibition of tying the consumer (Article L122-1
).
It should thus be possible for consumers to buy power so the Windows license for a price A or PC "naked" for a price B, or both together for a price of A + B. Ironically, Dell offers professionals an offer without Windows XP, 75 months euros expensive team of the OS, even though it is a contract between professionals (although the Consumer Law applies to them sometimes, but that's another debate). For consumers, the license for the OS usually reaches 10 to 20% of the total purchase price.
Most of the time, Windows is concerned, but according 01.net Carrefour also practice tying, but this time with Linux as the OS. The road is still long before the consumer is assured an undistorted choice of its OS.
We live in a pivotal time: while awareness of the damage caused by the market distortions of competition is emerging in Europe
, Anglo-Saxon envelop the European institutions in the sophistry of economists who equate chicagoïens undue tying the "Bundling"
(the bundling is to sell such shoes with their laces).
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