With Vista, Microsoft seeks to limit PC bundleware
WinInfo | at | by Mike
According to a recent report by CBS News, Microsoft believes that PC makers are undermining the quality of Windows by bundling so many horrible add-on applications with their systems. With the upcoming Windows Vista OS, especially, Microsoft would like new PCs to provide customers with a better user experience than was possible in the past. There's just one problem: Thanks to years of regulatory oversight, Microsoft has no legal way to prevent PC makers from bundling third-party applications with Vista.
The CBS report arose out of a confidential chat with Microsoft representatives at last 'week's 2007 Consumer Electronics Show. But Microsoft has been striving for years, with little success, to streamline the number of default third-party applications that are bundled on PCs with Windows client OSs. "We can't do anything about it because it would be illegal," an unnamed Microsoft representative reportedly told CBS News.