Microsoft’s Browser Ballot: A Look Back (Premium)

If Google’s Android web browser concession seems familiar, that’s because Microsoft did the same thing a decade ago. Here’s a look back at Microsoft’s browser ballot screen, which was later renamed to Browser Choice.

It all began with a public statement from Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, on July 24, 2009.

“As the European Commission has just announced in a statement, Microsoft has made a new proposal in an effort to address competition law issues related to Internet Explorer and interoperability,” the statement reads. “Under our new proposal, among other things, European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a ‘ballot screen’ from which they could, if they wished, easily install competing browsers from the Web.  If this proposal is ultimately accepted, Microsoft will ship Windows in Europe with the full functionality available in the rest of the world.  As requested by the Commission, we will be publishing our proposal in full here on our web site as soon as possible.”

The letter goes on to describe Microsoft’s other efforts to adhere to the demands of the European Commission. This included creating so-called “E versions of Windows 7” which the software giant believed made it conform to EU law. And “a public undertaking designed to promote interoperability between third party products and a number of Microsoft products, including Windows, Windows Server, Office, Exchange, and SharePoint,” which seems rather quaint today; a big part of the EU complaint concerned Microsoft’s lack of interoperability documentation. Microsoft was also under fire for its proprietary Office document formats, another quaint vestige of the past now.

The EU eventually did agree to the Browser Choice interface and to a revised version of Microsoft’s proposal to create special versions of Windows 7, which it would sell alongside the normal versions in the EU. (Few consumers ever choose the special versions, which were called the N editions and cut out some key media player functionality.) And that triggered the following editorial by me, presented here with the usual annotations.

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The Fat Lady Sings: Microsoft Caves … to Opera?!

Late last week, Microsoft announced something that virtually no one—myself included—saw coming. Rather than continue with its previous approach to dealing with antitrust regulators from the EU—an approach that, frankly, was the technical equivalent of a middle finger lofted in the direction of Brussels—Microsoft said that it would simply accede to the EU’s demands. (Demands that, incidentally, originated with browser also-ran Opera.)

It’s important to remember how much the world has changed since the decade between 1998 and 2009, when Microsoft belligerently responded to regulators and courts in both the United States and the EU. At the start of this time period, Microsoft was still the singular dominant force in personal computing, but by the time 2009 rolled around, that was over, and Microsoft was uncomfortably adapting to a new world order in which it was hobbled and competitors like Apple, Google, and Amazon could rise to prominence. Microsoft capitulating to the EU’s demands at the time was unexpected and even shocking.

[Microsoft] will allow Windows 7-using customers in the EU to choose between competing web browsers via a so-called ballot screen. Its previous approach, the Windows 7 E Editions, which simply removed Internet Explorer from Windows 7 altogether, was apparently not radical enough. Not for Opera. And not for the EU.

As noted above, Microsoft scrapped its plans to ship E editions of Windows 7 in the EU and created something called the N Editions instead. The E editions would have simply removed the Internet Explorer end-user application from Windows, but not the underlying IE code required by Windows. By comparison, the N editions retained IE, but presented a Browser Choice screen. The N editions also did not include Windows Media Player, Voice Recorder, and Skype, though users could install them later if they wanted to.

What the…?

Microsoft’s concession has been compared, ad naseum, to requiring Coke to bundle a bottle of Pepsi in every six-pack. And it’s easy to see why such a comparison resonates with virtually everyone who reads it. There’s just one problem: that comparison is completely bogus. Coke never had the kind of monopoly that Microsoft now enjoys.

Nice one, Paul.

Worth noting, too: It would never have that kind of monopoly again, either.

Microsoft, of course, dominates the traditional PC space in ways that are somewhat amazing. Even within the context of the current economic downturn, Microsoft is pretty much printing money. Its Windows OSes are on about 95 percent of all PCs worldwide—sorry, Apple—and its dominant Office suite is used by over 500 million people every single day, despite free competition from Google, OpenOffice, and others.

IE currently dominates the web browser market, with 66.5 percent usage share. Meanwhile, the company dictating the terms of Microsoft’s capitulation, Opera, controls just .72 percent of the market.

It’s interesting to compare this share to Google Chrome today. On the desktop, Chrome controls 65 percent of web browser usage, compared to 10.23 percent for IE and 9.72 percent for Firefox. Mobile is nearly identical, for Chrome, which controls 63 percent usage share; Safaris is number two with 26.4 percent.

In other more forward-leaning markets—like the emerging market for cloud computing services—Microsoft, of course, has no guarantees. The software giant has taken a decidedly old school approach to cloud computing by taking its existing software products and pushing them online, usually with a subscription fee attached. (But not always: Office Web Applications, notably, will be free.) Some, myself included, argue that Microsoft in many ways doesn’t “get” cloud computing because it is hobbled by the software delivery and licensing models of its past successes. But that has little if anything to do with the antitrust action it’s facing in the EU.

This is an interesting peek into the then-unfamiliar world of cloud computing and my assessment that Microsoft, as an “old school” software maker, would have trouble competing with pure-play cloud services from Google, Amazon, and others. Today, of course, Microsoft has fully embraced the cloud and subscription models and is a major player. That said, it has had difficulty walking away from legacy software products like Windows and Office, which still contribute several billion dollars of revenues each quarter.

Microsoft faces three antitrust investigations in the EU, and if I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, this past week’s revelation may completely address one of them. First, it’s being accused of harming web browser competitors by bundling IE with Windows. Second, it’s being accused of usurping open document formats in its Office suite. And third, its being investigated for too closely tying Windows and Windows Server together.

Microsoft is actually addressing those other two charges in ways that I think are effective. But its decision to cave in the face of unreasonable EU demands—first suggested by Opera—in the IE/Windows investigation is unprecedented.

I had forgotten Opera’s role in this, though it makes sense: Opera is based in the EU, and EU antitrust law is based around keeping competition fair. So when a company from the EU complained that Microsoft was the sole gatekeeper to the web and its business practices were both unfair and illegal, the European Commission listened, and then acted.

If you’ve ever wondered what deep government oversight of a software product we used all day every day would look like, look no further than the new version of Windows 7 that EU customers will get in the months ahead. It’s a software product where viable (Read: Firefox) and unviable (Read: Opera) competitors alike are given a leg up on other software created by the maker of that product. It is Bizarro World.

Fair.

And it’s even worse than I thought: Microsoft is also making this change to Windows XP and Vista!

Fortunately, Microsoft will not hobble the rest of the world with this stupidity. (Though Opera, naturally, is now asking for that as well.) And of course, enterprises and other managed environments can continue to control which software is installed on their networks, using familiar, next-generation versions of the tools they already use today. But it’s clear now that Microsoft’s software development methodology can be undermined by any government powerful enough to call the company’s bluff. This has enormous implications for the future, especially in totalitarian regimes like China.

Microsoft never did make these changes elsewhere—well, beyond the K Editions of Windows that were sold in South Korea—but the EU’s aggressive antitrust actions, combined with the previous efforts in the United States, did go on to hobble the firm for a decade. Which again, gave rise to competitors like Apple, Google, and Amazon. What it didn’t help was Opera: Opera is still an outlier today, with just 1.6 percent usage share on desktop and 1.3 percent on mobile. 10 years later, yes, Opera did double its usage share. But to an insignificant figure.

I’ve always been amazed at the ways in which Microsoft stands up to and, alternatively, pushes back against various legal actions against it. This is one case in which the software giant should have stuck to its guns. It’s one thing to accede to anti-bundling demands when a dominant, monopoly product is involved. But allowing any government to convince it to bundle competing products is not tenable. It sets a bad precedent, both for the computer industry and beyond.

This I still agree with: The browser ballot was a terrible idea. But the way that Windows, like Android, lets the user choose their own browser seems to work well, despite the attempts Microsoft has made to push Edge regardless in Windows 10. And the amazing thing about Chrome’s ~65 percent usage share today, compared to IE’s ten years ago, is that it doesn’t benefit from being the default (on the desktop). Users have become accustomed to choosing the browser they want, no matter the default. So maybe this action, ineffectual its in its time, did at least preview a future in which user choice takes precedence over the preferences of the platform maker.

Kind of makes you wonder about Apple and iOS, though, eh?