Microsoft to change name of Windows XP Reduced

January 31, 2005, 09:13 AM —  IDG News Service — 

Following criticism from the European Commission (EC), Microsoft Corp. has agreed to change the name of the Windows XP version without Windows Media Player that it was ordered to offer in Europe.

The EC last year ordered Microsoft to ship the stripped down version of Windows XP as one of the remedies in the European antitrust case against the U.S. software maker. By including Windows Media Player in Windows, Microsoft gained an unfair advantage over competing media players from RealNetworks Inc. and Apple Computer Inc., the Commission said.

To comply, Microsoft in December said it was readying a new "Windows XP Reduced Media Edition." The operating system has since been made available to PC makers and will also be available in European stores.

However, European competition officials complained to Microsoft about the unappealing name of the product. Microsoft has now agreed to a name change.

"We had originally suggested a name, (Windows) XP Reduced Media Edition. While we believe that name is fully compliant (with the Commission's decision), in the spirit of compromise we have agreed to make a change in the name of the product," said Microsoft Spokesman Jim Desler on Friday.

No decision has been made on a new name, Desler said. "We're working with the Commission right now on alternative names that will help inform consumers about the product," he said. No boxed product or CDs had been shipped to outlets, so no product recall is necessary, he said.

An EC spokesperson was not available to comment on Friday. However, the Commission had threatened Microsoft with additional fines of up to 5 percent of its daily gross revenue if Microsoft made the alternative version of Windows unattractive to users, according to several media reports.

IDG News Service

I like it!
Post a comment
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Free books

Essential JavaFX
Get started building rich Web apps quickly with an introduction to the power of JavaFX key features -- scene node graphs, nodes as components, the coordinate system, layout options, colors and gradients, custom classes with inheritance, animation, binding, and event handlers.Enter now!

The Nomadic Developer
Consulting can be hugely rewarding, but it's easy to fail if you are unprepared. To succeed, you need a mentor who knows the lay of the land. Aaron Erickson is your mentor, and this is your guidebook. Enter now!

Featured Sponsor

AISO founders envisioned a Web hosting company that was environmentally friendly. While the company employed energy-efficient innovations like solar panels, its infrastructure produced unacceptable power and cooling requirements. Find out how AISO leveraged AMD technology to overcome their challenge in this case study white paper.

In this whitepaper, Scalar explores the opportunity to change the landscape with respect to mission critical databases built around Oracle. Leveraging technologies such as Linux, high-end commodity processing power and Oracle RAC technology to architect, design, build and maintain database infrastructure that delivers maximum availability, reliability and performance at a fraction of traditional cost.

On a typical day, weather.com, the Web site for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, serves up between 15 million and 20 million page views. But in September 2004, when back-to-back hurricanes ransacked Florida, the peak traffic on one day more than tripled: over 70 million page views by more than 7 million unique visitors. Read the full success story now.

Marketplace