EU Court Unbundles Xmas Present for Real

David Schatsky | December 22, 2004, 05:36 AM

The papers carried an AP report early this morning that a European Union court has ruled that Microsoft will have to abide immediately by an EU rule to divulge some trade secrets and to produce a version of Windows without Windows Media Player.

The story said the ruling as "huge implications for the company."

I don't see it that way. And neither, apparently, did the committee that wrote the article:

The court ruled that delaying the execution of the EU ruling wouldn't cause Microsoft irreparable damage

Analysts predicted the financial impact on the company wouldn't be huge.

And they predicted Microsoft

wouldn't suffer much in the near term if it is forced to release a version of Windows without Media Player...

because Microsoft has supposedly already prepared a version of the Windows without it.

The implications are surely not going to be huge for Real, who filed the complaint that led to this ruling, as Windows Media Player has successfully been established a dominant platform in the digital media arena, with broad content publisher and device support and widespread consumer adoption.

The article does note that the ruling may set precedent a that could embolden others to challenge Microsoft's right to bundle other components into Windows. That indeed would be a major long-term nuisance to company that would effectively subject a central element of the Windows evolution strategy to outside review in the future.

But if Microsoft's goal is to establish new components as standards or and to dominate not only the OS market but also the markets for all adjacent functionality, it's unclear that simply offering a component would be much less effective for them than bundling that component. With Microsoft's market power, they'll probably amount to almost the same thing.