Finally, the day has come. Analog TV is gone, except for LPTV. Totally makes sense right. Force everyone to change to digital except for those local low power stations. I don't think I've ever tuned into one or have the need to. I'm sure anyone who tunes to LPTV still made the digital transition since everything else changed. Good job FCC. Way to go all the way and fall an inch short.

For the sake of keeping the rest of this post sane, we're going to assume analog tv is gone. Now what do we do? Well for those who escaped the grasp of the cable companies, they're on the all digital bandwagon. TV is broadcast up to 1080i without having to buy a digital package. Yes this is a jab at the cable companies. Cable companies usually give you the broadcast channels over HD for free, but don't market it.

On top of that, cable isn't affected by the DTV transition. The digital signals they get from the broadcast companies will be downconverted to analog. Honestly, I feel that's an unfair advantage. A) get a digital box for OTA DTV from a company you've never heard of (and priced just barely above $40 to get the full value of the government voucher program) or B) subscribe to cable tv.

I get yelled at when I bring that up. If cable companies were forced to go digital, everyone would be forced to get a box. My response: OK!  For YEARS cable companies have been screwing with consumers. Force them to get boxes for more channels. Since you screwed customers by creating a box monopoly, cablecards were brought to life. I personally invested around 1000 USD in a CableCard system. How many United States citizens to you know who have cable and do not have a digital box from their cable provider in their home? Very few! Sure there are some that would get screwed by a digital cable transition, but much less than the OTA digital transition.

On top of that, since they're paying subscribers, there already is a support network setup.

Yes, I've gone on another rant, but isn't that what you've come to except by this point?

Windows 7 E will be the only version to ship to Europe. Similar to versions of XP that shipped to Europe without Windows Media Player, the EU ruled in an antitrust case that MS has an unfair advantage with IE being shipped with Windows.

OEMs that will ship machines with Windows 7 will have the opportunity to install whatever browser they would like to. Pretty much anything is fair game as long as Microsoft is not making the decision.

So if a consumer buys a copy of Windows 7 off of the shelf in Europe, they will have NO BROWSER. So how do you get a browser? You'll need to bust into an FTP site or get it via removable media.

Let's play make believe...

But wait... what FTP client are you using? Microsoft bundles in an FTP client. Clearly this is unfair. Microsoft should remove that to allow 3rd parties a fair shot.

Since you forgot to download your browser installer before you wiped your machine, you'll be getting impatient calling your neighbor to come over with IE8/Firefox/Opera/Chrome. You bust open solitaire. Isn't this unfair also? There are many companies out there that sell games for Windows. Clearly this is also unfair. Microsoft needs to delete solitaire and all other games from the computer.

You want to listen to some music instead. Whoops, sorry, Windows Media Player shouldn't be their either. Go download Winamp or WMP after you get a browser.

You finally get some audio playback software. You don't have your sound card drivers installed yet, so you decide to get nerdy and bust out some bluetooth headphones since the drivers and bluetooth stack were installed by default for your setup. But wait, there are a few companies that sell their own bluetooth stack. Microsoft had better rip that out too and force you to download your favorite choice.

I believe in a free market. If Microsoft actually blocks the installation of 3rd party software, by all means: burn them at the stake!! But as a developer, I use MSDN constantly. As one of many sources Microsoft opens up to the world, they want you to program for their platform! Sure, they'd love to see you use IE, but you don't see them crashing the Firefox installer.

If a 3rd party company like Mozilla or Google wants to compete, a customer will see their choices. Customers will make a decision. If the EU was being truely fair, they would force all operating systems ( all flavors of linux, windows, OSX, etc ) to not bundles internet browsers. It would be a level playing field. I'm assuming the decision passed down by the EU was meant to protect uneducated consumers, won't these customers be faced with a different decision? Buy a computer potentially without an internet browser... or buy that cute green ecofriendly hippie noncorporate machine Apple that has their own Safari browser ready to go?


edit: forgot to add source http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/06/windows-7-to-be-shipped-in-europe-sans-internet-explorer.ars

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525835,00.html

Real Life "Final Destination"

image source wikipedia