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EU Think Tank Urges Full Windows Unbundling

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fly-be-free-little-components dept.

leffeman writes "An influential Brussels think tank is urging the European Commission to ban the bundling of operating systems with desktop and laptop computers. The Globalisation Institute's submission to the Commission says that bundling 'is not in the public interest' and that the dominance of Windows has 'slowed technical improvements and prevented new alternatives entering from the marketplace.' It says the Microsoft tax is a burden on EU businesses: the price of operating systems would be lower in a competitive market. This is the first time a major free-market think tank has published in favour of taking action against Microsoft's monopoly power."

3 of 712 comments (clear)

  1. Facts. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    • Fact: Novell hires .NET developers
    • Fact: Novell makes its Linux desktop more .NET-oriented
    • Fact: Miguel de Icaza, who heads the Mono project, acknowledges that patents are a concern
    • Fact: Miguel de Icaza, a Novell VP, opines that OOXML is a "superb standard"
    • Fact: Novell gets access to Microsoft source code (visibility)
    • Fact: Novell works on interoperability in isolation with Microsoft
    • Fact: Novell perceives patent 'protection' as a competitive advantage
    • Fact: Novell implements Moonlight, which harms Linux by giving the illusion that Linux is fully supported (it is not)
    • Fact: Novell's implementation of OOXML translator have assisted Microsoft's fight against ODF policies in the United States and elsewhere
    • Fact: Novell's exclusionary work on 'interoperability' has helped Microsoft escaped scrutiny in the EU
    • Fact: Novell's exclusionary work on 'interoperability' has provided Microsoft with an excuse that helps them evade federal oversight in the US
    • Fact: Novell pays Microsoft for Linux and open source software.
  2. anal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic



    hi

  3. Unbundling won't make Vista better by michaelmalak · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Unbundling:
    • Won't make Vista any less dog-slow than it is.
    • Won't break Excel's 256-column limit
    • Won't integrate Word and Excel into one seamless package
    • Won't revolutionize the filesystem, e.g. with tags (breaking the strict hierarchy) or replacing it with relational database
    • Won't add RTOS capabilities to an OS that also runs the most popular business applications
    • Won't give us a standardized, robust, open standard platform for rich Internet applications.
    Why is it we care about unbundling again?