I am growing exceedingly tired of the repeated use of regulatory bodies to fight what should be market battles.  What’s setting me off this time?  This NY Times piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/technology/27vista.html

The group said Microsoft’s XAML markup language — which it said was positioned to replace the current Web page language HTML — was designed “from the ground up to be dependent on Windows.”

“The very same practices the European Commission found to be illegal almost three years ago have now been implemented in Vista,” the group of rivals said.

A spokesman for the group, Thomas Vinje, said Microsoft was seeking to impose its own Windows-dependent standards and displace existing ones.

“The end result will be the continued absence of any real consumer choice, years of waiting for Microsoft to improve — or even debug — its monopoly products, and, of course, high prices,” Mr. Vinje said.

For starters, the position is poorly based (maybe I’ll address that over at ardentdev.com).  But leaving that aside, this is an issue for the markets to decide.  If users and developers like XAML applications, it will thrive.  If competitors can build something more compelling and market it adequately, it will thrive.

XAML is a good thing.  So are a lot of other new technologies from Microsoft.  If these anti-Microsoft coalitions scream “MONOPOLY! No fair!” everytime Microsoft adds something useful to Windows, we the users suffer.  If Microsoft cannot innovate and expand the Windows platform, we get screwed.  It’s deplorable that Microsoft has to fight regulatory bodies in order to improve its product.

And while I’m ranting, I want a suite of basic applications available on any operating system I install.  I expect Windows and OS X and Ubuntu to have a web browser, media player, etc.  The same regulations should be applied to all major operating systems.

[Disclaimer:  I am a Microsoft Regional Director and while I do have a close relationship with some parts of Microsoft, I am not a shill.  I freely speak my mind on Microsoft-related issues and I think my history in public forums shows I criticize or support Microsoft on an issue-by-issue basis.]

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