Opera: Microsoft's ‘minor tweak’ of Windows 7 not enough
Microsoft may have felt forced to leave parts of IE within Windows, since some of the OS's functionality, particularly Windows Update, likely depends on those components. — A month ago, Microsoft acknowledged that its unilateral move might …
Context & Ripple Effects
Opera's challenge to Microsoft's browser distribution practices predates Windows 7: Microsoft was already answering Opera's antitrust claims in 2007. In June 2009, Mozilla also questioned Microsoft's browser approach, making Opera's criticism part of a broader rival concern about whether the proposed changes meaningfully alter user choice.
First-order effects
- Opera's rejection means Microsoft cannot present its Windows 7 adjustment as a resolution to the browser-bundling dispute.
- Keeping some IE components for operating-system functions leaves Microsoft defending where necessary Windows integration ends and browser distribution begins.
Second-order effects
- Opera and Mozilla's aligned skepticism gives rival browsers a shared basis to argue that Windows 7's changes do not create meaningful choice.
- Microsoft's need to preserve functions such as Windows Update makes browser separation an engineering constraint as well as a competition-policy issue.
Third-order effects
- If objections persist, browser competition will be shaped increasingly by control of operating-system defaults and components rather than browser features alone.
The trend: Browser competition is becoming a contest over operating-system integration and user choice, not merely rendering features.