EU Regulators Open New Microsoft Investigations

The New York Times is reporting on two new investigations into Microsoft business practices opened by EU antitrust regulators. The new cases center on the company's positioning of Office and Internet Explorer, and were apparently partially prompted by Microsoft's earlier heel-dragging. "'It would have been preferable if these issues could have been resolved amicably with Microsoft,' said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes. 'But that has not proved to be the case. Therefore we have opened these formal investigations. That does not prove there is a violation. We will only be able to come to a conclusion after investigations.' The legal battle that ended last year involved the bundling of a media player with Windows and the availability of information required to make rival software operate smoothly with Microsoft products. In September, the Court of First Instance, Europe's highest after the European Court of Justice, endorsed the commission's 2004 decision to impose record fines on Microsoft."

Comments

Re:MS pulls out of EU

[Mantaar]

Orly?

Are you just joking, or a complete nutjob? I assume it's the former, just for the sake of sanity.

Inhabitants of the EU: 494.8, Millions, that is. Way more than Kentucky. Way more than the US, actually. Over half of the households in Europe are actually using computers. That's one hell of a market, if you ask me. MS can't, just can't afford to lose that market. And it's not only about the numbers - the European market is very innovative, many software companies are producing - well... software. Imagine if their environment wouldn't mostly use Windows as its main OS?

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_statistics
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90781/90877/6314195.html

Re:The only way to fight bundling...

[Tom]

Education matters little.

Even if the average user knows there are alternatives, it is additional work, he is insecure, and MS works hard to make it as inconvenient as possible.

More importantly, corporate IT departments are very reluctant to install any additional software if there is already software of the same kind. They'll support one browser, one office suite, one media player. Guess which ones. Not because those are better, but because those are pre-installed and they have to support them anyways.