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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."
Bundling software has been the source of the EU's complaints against MS. The only way to fight bundling is to inform the consumer that they have choices. Until the average consumer understands that there are other programs outside the suite that Microsoft offers, there will be no real competition. Power users are not in the majority. The people that know what vlc, foobar, opera, etc. are are not in the majority. Firefox has proven that is possible to break out and actually compete with MS products, but they had to establish name recognition with consumers. The standard windows package with WMP and IE will cotntinue to strangle the market until people become vaguely familiar with the fact that their are options. It wouldn't hurt for people understand open source support and how it contrasts with closed source support, but that's probably an unattainable dream. However, Firefox has proven that when the stars align, there is a market for non-MS products.
Education is, as always, the great equalizer. It's the only thing that can make a market actually work.
I got a catholic block.
I wonder if it's Microsoft being a clear example of a company that got ahead and then rested on it's lead or is it cases like this that are bringing it down? Now that they're losing their lead it's hard for them to change because it's so ingrained in their corporate culture that they're ahead. Granted they do put out some new and interesting technology, they are getting smoked in a number of areas.
Microsoft's problem is that they thought they were beyond reach. They behaved as bastards--thinking they could not be touched. So, Microsoft started this and the EU is pissed and is going to finish it.
I don't think you understand how huge the EU market is. If MS doesn't release any software into the EU you can expect a BIG shareprice drop.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Wow. I cannot believe 3 people can miss such absurd sarcasm. Wow.
Well, being a little more serious here, revoking Microsoft's copyrights would be the nuclear option in any such dispute. That's the step they take after they've issued arrest warrants for Microsoft executives but found that they're all in the US and extradition isn't going to happen. Pretty extreme. There are treaties and so forth, but a copyright is considered a form of property, so there's no reason the EU courts couldn't confiscate Microsoft's copyrights as part of a legal penalty and declare them public domain, just as they could confiscate Microsoft's offices in Europe and auction them off.
Microsoft would probably struggle to enforce any kind of premium on EU consumers anyway. What's to stop us importing their completely weightless product from outside the Union?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Shouldn't you be a little less skeptical given that this was the basis of the original DOJ cases against Microsoft in the U.S.? ... before they mysteriously went away, that is. If you want to suspect that justice is being subverted, you might look instead to why those lawsuits did not follow to their logical conclusion after the initial ruling. It's not hard to follow the money in that case, now is it?
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx