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New Blow for Microsoft in EU Row
twitter writes "The BBC is reporting on a stinging rebuke to Microsoft and their last defensive move in the EU anti-trust trials. Boston district court judge Mark Wolf accused Microsoft of trying to 'circumvent and undermine' European Law by requesting Novell documents. The story reminds us that last month, a federal judge in California denied subpoenas of Oracle and Sun for the same reasons, that a New York judge is currently considering a request against IBM and that Microsoft will be appealing their March 2004 conviction next week and may face millions of dollars of fines a day. New complaints were made just two months ago."
The EU bureaucrats (a highly unelected and unaccountable bunch) don't like strong American companies on their turf. In their eyes it's basically another form of "American hegemony". They're busy doing the same kind of thing as they're doing to Microsoft to American-based credit card companies (see, for example, this article as well as Forbes), accusing them of making too much money, even though, with the exception of Visa, their margins are all running under 8%. Google's, by way of comparison, is like 25%.
So, the EU crowd runs around rattling sabers at American companies, demanding that the companies basically lie down and give away product or service to competitors, "levelling the playing field," or suggesting that there needs to be a properly "European" (an adjective that is a very recent invention in itself) counterpart to every American business. As if having a myriad of credit card companies or document formats or software platforms would really benefit consumers.
Microsoft shouldn't be judged solely because they're trying to be competitive in their markets. (How many Linux distros could be accused of bundling too much software?) Unless you're a communist (like some prominent figures in organizations with recursive acronyms), how can one demand that source code be given to competitors?
Until the next Hitler comes along.
He is already here. His name is George W. Bush. Sieg Heil to all american friends of him.