That remark has been made numerous times, Asa. The big difference is that iexplore.exe disappears, rather than just the shortcuts to it. They won't be removing mshtml.dll, as half their environment depends on it. That's understandable, if you ask me. It's probably a minor change, which is being used for marketing purposes, but it's commendable nonetheless.

@TIM: "marketing purposes, but it's commendable nonetheless"

mm, in my opinion ducking before you get his is just commonsense, not really commendable. All in all, pure marketing. I would like to see Windows PC ship with other browsers before I feel this is commendable.

@Asa: did not see that article, but its news also at this side of the pond...

Marco

*sorry I meant to say:"...get HIT..."

From where I'm sitting, they could have just as easily done nothing. They showed some initiative, which I applaud.

Furthermore, I don't think there's anything more they could've done, unless someone comes up with a stable alternative for mshtml.dll, which can be used throughout the operating system.

I'm not a strong supporter of Microsoft, but they do seem to be getting a lot of things right with Windows 7. If you're going to judge, try to be fair.

It will accomplish nothing, of course, and that's exactly what they intend. But nothing can be done anyway in the current legal climate. Nobody's talking about breaking up Microsoft.

The only thing that can be done, in my opinion, is to make sure there are superior, open alternatives to proprietary software. E.g., in the case of Flash vs. Silverlight, where's the open alternative? Say, whatever happened to Juice and slim binaries, for example?

http://www.jucs.org/jucs_4_5/open_standards_beyond_java/Franz_M.html

It will give OEMs a legitimate, Microsoft-supported way to remove IE (but not Trident) from their pre-installs in favour of other browsers, should they so choose.

Sure it could have be done before with nLite/vLite, but OEMs are I would imagine likely to frown upon a third-party solution like that.

And I'll be surprised if they so choose. Which way do you think Microsoft is betting?

"IE8 can be shut off in Windows 7"
Um, big ass deal. Neither one of those are even final versions and it does not address the situation NOW. How about this? Mozilla Firefox 6 will serve milk and cookies.

How many years will it take for Windows users to upgrade to Windows 7? Assuming of course that everyone does the right thing and completely skips over Vista.
Microsoft can't even get their browser users to upgrade from IE6 to 7 some 2+ years later and now here comes IE8?

My theory is that we only saw the release of IE7 to shut everyone up about Microsoft abandoning IE6 and for not trying to compete with Firefox.
Seriously, if Microsoft was sincerely concerned about their consumers and making IE7 a truly competitive product and increase market share for it, they would have/would be dumping millions of dollars into promoting it instead of their lame Vista OS that they have to trick people into trying by cloaking its name (The Mojave Experiment).

This is all a VERY lame and blatant attempt to make people think that Microsoft just ain't that bad after all. And, before anything really happens, they are trying to dictate a solution or remedy for what they are being accused of, have done, and are continuing to do. Haven't they been dictating long enough?

This stunt insults (or really, really should) the intelligence of their intended audience (the media). It's despicable and typical.

A few stats for February from one of my sites.
Top 10 Browser Versions (Pageviews):
Firefox 3.0.6 - 41481
MSIE 7.0 - 41275
MSIE 6.0 - 20746
Firefox 3.0.5 - 12536
Safari 525.27.1 - 2969
Chrome 1.0.154.48 - 1982
Firefox 2.0.0.20 - 1982
MSIE 8.0 - 1690
Opera 9.63 - 1226
Firefox 3.0.1 - 1149

Also worth noting:
MSIE 4.01 - 11
MSIE 5.01 - 13
MSIE 5.17 - 2
MSIE 5.23 - 11
MSIE 6.0b - 2

Scary, isn't it?

@Marco,

"I would like to see Windows PC ship with other browsers before I feel this is commendable."

well, that depends on the OEMs, not Microsoft.

@VanillaMozilla,

"And I'll be surprised if they so choose. Which way do you think Microsoft is betting?"

I think Microsoft is betting that OEMs won't remove IE, since the OEMs have no reason to remove it. Why should they do it unless they can get some profit from doing it? ie. Google plans to strike deals with OEMs to bundle Chrome in Windows PCs, I think there'll be a lot of money flowing in that. It's business after all.

@Asa,

"to gain an unfair distribution advantage"

they sure has a huge advantage, but that's a fair advantage. Businesses do it everyday. For example Sony uses Playstation to promote Blue-Ray. Using your past success to pave the way for your future is not only fair, but a very logical and necessary practice for businesses. They'd be idiots if they don't bundle IE to Windows, and whining about it is getting you nowhere. The only sensible thing is to make vastly superior products and market it more so you can beat back Microsoft's advantage from its OS domination, like Mozilla is doing. Or try to beat the OS domination itself, like Apple is doing.

Anyway it's pointless to complain the browser market is not healthy when the OS market is not healthy to begin with.

stilwaiter, well, the United States and the European Commission both disagree with you and have for many many years.

They both place special responsibilities, restrictions, and requirements on companies that have monopolies. One of those restrictions is that a company may not use its monopoly in one market to gain advantage in another market.

Both the U.S. and the E.U. have found Microsoft guilty of breaking their laws, so no matter what you think ought to be, that is what is.

Or, to put it more bluntly: you are wrong.

- A

@Asa,

"Or, to put it more bluntly: you are wrong. "

So, to put it more bluntly, you are saying I'm wrong because United States and European Commission think so? LOL, I thought you can do better than that.

I don't care what crap Uniteed States and European Commission think and what their laws are, and I'm not living in US nor Europe, and many people in the world think US government sucks, and EU sucks even more. So You are the wrong one here, not me.

the United States and the European Commission both disagree with me? That actually proves me correct, since they are a bunch of idiots.