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Has Microsoft done enough to satisfy the EC?

by Scott Bicheno on 12 June 2009, 17:34

Tags: Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), European Commission

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Is it enough?

Microsoft seems to have to main objectives from this move. The first, and most immediate, is to be able to launch Windows 7 in Europe at the same time as the rest of the world, without having the EC on its case.

It concluded that the best way of going about this is to remove the offending bundled browser and let OEMs or consumers decide for themselves which browser to use.

The second objective is to influence the EC's final decision on this matter and demonstrate it has seen the error of its ways. Microsoft will be hoping this measure at least mitigates any punishment the EC might have planned and might even lead it to conclude there is no longer a case to answer.

The latter eventuality seems unlikely, however, as the scope of the EC investigation reaches back to 1996. Even if it's satisfied that Microsoft is not currently abusing its market dominance, it would be surprising if the EC didn't fine Microsoft for the years in which it did bundle IE with Windows.

 



HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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so… you just have to download IE then? Although its really good news that I don't have to even bother putting up with IE at all as I use FF anyway.
Post removed by Saracen

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Aww, EU panicking that they're soon going to have to find another reason to sue MS, and thus fund the next 3 zillion years?
This is now almost totally pathetic users have the freedom to choose their browser already, there are many to choose from and now even programs like Windows Messenger use the defualt browser instead of just IE when opening outside links.

Internet Explorer has gotten alot better over the years anyway bar some of the non-standard CSS issues (pages look different in different browsers and have to be painstakingly amended to look right) Some of the new features in IE8 like web-clips etc.. look pretty good..

Dispite all that MS has seemed to have completely lost its market dominance in IE anyway - as if no one checked lol…
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

With the open source web browser Firefox staking up almost half the market now.

This is purely a thing of the past now there is no issue with Windows 7
I think some people are missing the real point here, MS was saying for years that they couldn't remove the browser as it was built into the OS. Now they're removing it….what gives?

I personally use FF, Chrome and Opera - but have IE7 and IE8 to check out how websites look. I won't miss IE6 at all, and couldn't really care less if IE disappeared from Win 7, but I'm guessing that absoluteley no-one will buy the E versions, which makes it a completely pointless gesture, which is how the EU sees it. So nothing changes there then eh!