Browser maker Opera filed an Antitrust suit again Microsoft today with the EU to try and force Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser to become standards compliant. While some notable pro-Microsoft sites are (shockingly) against this, I am not surprisingly against them.

All About Microsoft takes the position that Opera’s antitrust complaint against Microsoft is a “bad idea” – but Mary Jo’s points all seem more out of a Microsoft talking points memo from the point when she states:

Even though many Web developers and customers have been frustrated and upset over Microsoft’s failure to make IE “100 percent standards-compliant” (whatever that really means)

Uh, “whatever that really means”? Okay, first of all no one is asking for them to be 100% standards compliant that is just pure exaggeration. No one, not Firefox, not even Opera, are 100% compliant – some technologies/standards are simply not mature enough yet. The problem with Microsoft is that they are BY FAR the worst in terms of being compliant with standards – so bad in fact that a ridiculous number of sites simply do not render in IE the way that they do in every other browser that is not IE.

There is no need for that “100%” exaggeration here, it doesn’t help your argument. Let me simplify the intention of the web compliance request: Make Internet Explorer render webpages like every other damn browser out there!

As a web developer I cannot even begin to explain the never-ending headache that Internet Explorer has caused me. It’s laughable at this point. I don’t think it would be exaggerating at all to say that Internet Explorer alone creates at least 50% more work than would otherwise be necessary across the board.

Mary Jo goes on to argue that antitrust courts should not be determining what web standards are. Fair enough, I agree with that in principle, but this is really just a veiled statement to suggest that Microsoft’s “standards” might be better than the open standards. Which is laughable.

So laughable in fact, and so in line with Microsoft’s thinking for the past decade-plus that perhaps courts are necessary. When Microsoft has utterly refused for all these years to get in line with what every single other browser is doing, where else do you turn? She claims that even the standards making bodies can’t agree among themselves about what the best standards are – again that’s trying to muck up what is really being asked for here: just make it so that Internet Explorer renders pages like every other damn browser.

Lets not beat around the bush here. Microsoft doesn’t follow web standards like the other browsers do for one reason: it gives them a proprietary edge with which they maintain control of the market. You should maintain control of the market because you have the best product, not because you force others to go out of their way to comply with your will and make it hard for them to support any other way.

This of course leads to Mary Jo’s next point:

Would it be positive for customers if Microsoft were suddenly forced to create a version of IE that looked good on paper, in terms of more complete standards compliance, but which broke third-party and custom Web applications?

So what she is really saying there is: yes Internet Explorer is messed up, but fixing it at this point will only make things worse for those who fell into Microsoft’s proprietary trap. Ha. If Microsoft fixing their browser breaks some web apps and causes people to abandon IE, that’s their own damn fault for not doing it right for the past 10 years.

These arguments are quickly going down hill. Lets move on. Mary Jo’s third argument:

With Mozilla, Firefox has proved you don’t need government intervention to wrest a substantial percentage of the browser market from Microsoft. You just friends with deep pockets (like Google) and a community of dedicated developers — plus a guaranteed customer base who prefer anything other than Microsoft technologies.

Ah yes, you knew this was coming! First of all I think that should be “With Firefox, Mozilla has proved…” but I digress – this is more propaganda of Microsoft trying to use their competitor’s strengths to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. It’s still wrongdoing!

Just because some people (myself included) have woken up and realized that any browser out there (not just Firefox) is better than IE, doesn’t make Microsoft’s practice of neglecting open standards to trap people in with their proprietary ones okay. It is still nowhere near a level playing field and because of that many less tech-savvy web users around the world are for all intensive purposes locked into using Internet Explorer.

The snide remark about a “guaranteed customer base who prefer anything other than Microsoft technologies” just accentuates the fact that these points are less about reality and more about the Microsoft company line drenched in spin. Are their people out there like that? Maybe. I’m sure some would say that of me, but it’s simply not true. I am not adverse to using Microsoft products if they meet one simple condition: that they are the best on the market. The problem is that there are very few products from Microsoft that actually meet that condition.

As I find myself repeating time and time again now, I was once an avid Microsoft fan and Windows user (went to the Windows 95 midnight launch, the Windows XP launch, yada yada…), but something funny happened – I found better products, a lot of them – from Apple, Google, and a lot of other great companies. I stopped using many Microsoft products for a simple reason: they are not the best on the market.

I think it’s a mistake to be so simple-minded as to think that people simply bitch about Microsoft because they hate them and nothing the company could ever do could change their minds. I know in my case that is 100% false. If Microsoft would make great products and deliver solid services, I would not be adverse to using them in the slightest bit. The problem is simply that they do not.

This whole issue at hand is simple as well. I repeat: Make Internet Explorer render webpages like every other damn browser out there. Is a lawsuit really necessary to do that? Maybe not in most cases, but Microsoft has had many years to do this and simply refuses to so as to protect their interests. That’s anti-competitive. They are not winning because they have the best product, they are winning because they have locked people into their bullshit proprietary concepts.