Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner believes that Microsoft should either ship Windows with all major browsers, or none at all.
Von Tetzchner was key to Opera's complaint to the EC over unfair practices by Microsoft in bundling its Internet Explorer with the dominant operating system Windows.
In an interview with TechRadar, the Opera man is still angry that Microsoft is benefiting from '10 years of breaking the rules' and insisted that the only way to balance things up in the future would be to offer Windows 7 with all of the rival browsers or none of them – merely a downloader to choose from a number of options.
Choosing your browser?
"If you have a level playing ground then you will see if these people are really choosing Internet Explorer," joked von Tetzchner, in reference to TechRadar's interview with Microsoft's John Curran.
"It is difficult to rectify the unfair playing field now, but the ideal scenario is to have equal choice; that you are provided with all of the browsers when you use Windows.
"So perhaps you could remove Internet Explorer and just have the option to download a choice of browsers.
"The best solution would be to include multiple browsers, although I'm thinking choosing a browser will not be that big of a deal.
"People appreciate choice and will gravitate to the one that they like the best and that suits them, there are differences with all the browsers."
OEMs 'too tied to Microsoft'
Von Tetzcnher had little truck with the suggestion that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), the people that make the computers, should be bundling in all the major browsers.
"If you go back in history a little bit here, in the beginning OEMs were not allowed to include competing browsers. It was in their contract [for Windows] that they could not include browsers.
"Now from the first court case there was a change – but even after that no other browsers were included anyway.
"The OEMs are too tied to Microsoft."
Opera 'welcomes competition'
The Opera CEO is convinced that his company would be a major beneficiary, should IE no longer be bundled as the default web browser within Windows.
"Basically we welcome the competition," added von Tetzchner.
"The more competition, the more people begin to look for the choice that most suits them in the browser market.
"…for a while there, before Firefox gained traction, it really began to look like Microsoft would get a near-100 per cent market share and that was a scary scenario.
Doesn't add up
Von Tetzchner is more than a little sceptical about figures that show Firefox creeping past 20 per cent of market share.
"When it comes to the figures in the market the problem is that they are biased towards US sites – what sites are these counters on?
"Our US market share is not as good as we would like, but in global terms it is very different."
Now read - IE8: The complete Interview
Your comments (7) Click to add a new comment
sharpdesigner
April 8th
7. One more advice to Opera CEO, if you are gonna give away this software for free, still I don't have "garbage" space in my hard drive for this piece of junk you called a Browser.
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sharpdesigner
April 8th
6. Well, I don't think y people only Bark at Microsoft!!! Why no one complaints about apple that it should give an option in the iPod for the user to either choose its patent iTunes and whatever other formats are available. Any answer Mr. CEO ???
Also, one question from the guy who published this story.
Dont you have any creative things to do other than just trying to spread hatred against Microsoft ??? Go and ask all who are crying to put an Operating System combinely. I bet that will still be a failure vs Windows!!!
Moreover, if it was not Windows, thinking about Computer would be a dream for Normal People and only those who born with a Golden Spoon would have been the one having a Computer[Apple] in their homes...
So, go and say thanks to Microsoft and Bill Gates!!!
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louis058
April 4th
5. It's Microsoft's operating system, so it makes sense that they will include Microsoft software, asking them to include others is pointless, it's their operating system, they can do whatever they want with it, and if Opera wants their browser included in it, then they should just make their own operating system!
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lovlid
April 4th
4. Every time this idiot complains about microsoft, some gullible journalist is going to write about it. Thus, the name Opera gets another airing, and maybe one or two people might try it out. We can all see which browsers are catching up on IE, and opera isn't one of them. Even if Microsoft dropped IE altogether, opera still wouldn't be in the running.
Please Mr Tetzchner, GO AWAY.
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jamjam
April 3rd
3. I wish this guy would just shut up! Nobody in their right mind would use Opera, it's ugly, doesn't work. Google are taking over the world so they wouldn't have a case. The only people that can have a case against Microsoft if Mozilla. And if they bundle other browsers, so do Apple and technically and Linux OS should be loaded with every open-source browser, or else this is just one big conspiracy theory against Microsoft. Here's some advice Jon, give up and shut up!
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chall3ng3r
April 3rd
2. There must be one browser pre-installed. The other optional browsers can be embedded in Win setup to be selected at install time. But I think its not necessary, user can always install other browser anytime.
Why Opera not angry with Apple? they don't even allow OSX to run on other OEM hardware.
// chall3ng3r //
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