Apple may have just overstepped the bounds of anticompetitive tactics
If there's one big company that knows to ruffle feathers, it would be Apple. Apple has filed a scatter-shot suit against HTC citing patent infringement, trying to slow down Google's Android OS's momentum. And in the app arena, Apple has been waging a war of words and actions against Adobe's popular Flash medium.
Apple has never allowed Flash Player to touch the iPhone -- that would represent a serious threat to its paid App Store. With the release of its latest Software Developer Kit (SDK) developer license agreement, though, Apple outdid itself by slipping in a ban on using "an intermediary translation or compatibility layer tool". That meant that any apps created with Adobe's Creative Suite 5 tool that translated Flash apps to native iPhone OS X code were banned.
Adobe responded by dropping support for the tool in coming versions of Creative Studio.
Now The New York Post reports that the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are "locked in negotiations" about who will be the first to file antitrust charges against Apple. Both are interested in launching inquiries; inquiries are used to determine if a full investigation is needed. An investigation can lead to big fines as Microsoft and Intel have found out.
Apple's new policies not only lock out Adobe's Flash, but also Sun's Java and Microsoft's Silverlight/Mono. Josh Kosman, author of the piece in The Post wrote, "Regulators, this person said, are days away from making a decision about which agency will launch the inquiry. It will focus on whether the policy, which took effect last month, kills competition by forcing programmers to choose between developing apps that can run only on Apple gizmos or come up with apps that are platform neutral, and can be used on a variety of operating systems, such as those from rivals Google, Microsoft and Research In Motion."
Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple recently accused Flash of crashing Macs and committing other sins. Adobe's CEO fired back a response, calling the claims "patently false". Adobe is championing Google's Android smartphone OS in response to the Apple rejection.
Apple thrives on a rebel/underdog image, but in reality it's bigger than Walmart -- the biggest retailer in the world. The company currently has an incredible $237.6B USD market cap.
The company is also currently being investigated due to Eric Schmidt and another Apple board member's possible conflict of interest serving on both Apple and Google's boards.作者: PC的i 时间: 2010-5-4 01:10
晕,不会吧老大作者: star123 时间: 2010-5-4 01:55
这下不好玩了。作者: 沙漠之狐 时间: 2010-5-10 18:38
鸟文看不懂作者: jobe 时间: 2010-5-11 01:20
苹果公司可能刚刚超越界限的反竞争策略
苹果公司从来没有允许Flash Player来触摸iPhone - 这将是一个严重威胁到其应用程序商店支付。随着发布其最新的软件开发工具包(SDK)开发许可协议,不过,苹果outdid通过了关于用“一个中介层翻译或兼容性工具”禁令滑倒本身。这意味着,与Adobe公司的Creative Suite 5的任何翻译工具创建应用程序到本机闪存iPhone OS X的应用程序代码被禁止。
苹果的新政策不仅锁定Adobe的Flash,而且Sun的Java和微软的Silverlight /单声道。乔希Kosman,在邮政的作品的作者写道,“稳压器,此人说,是天远离作出决定哪些机构将启动调查。它将侧重于政策是否开始生效的,上个月,扼杀竞争通过强制程序员开发应用程序之间作出选择,可以只运行在苹果的应用程序或来的小玩意儿是平台中立的,而且能在多种操作系统,多种应用,例如竞争对手的谷歌,微软和Research In Motion。“