Got there in the end
The European Commission (EC) announced today that it has accepted Microsoft commitments to offer European users of Windows a choice of web browsers and to allow OEMs to turn the Microsoft browser - Internet Explorer (IE) - off on PCs they make.
This should mark the culmination of an EC investigation that commenced almost two years ago, and which was just the latest in an even more protracted series of investigations into Microsoft's business practices.
The EC considered the setting of IE as the default browser on all Windows PCs to be anticompetitive, and asked Microsoft to do something about it. Having contemplated producing a special European version of Windows with IE taken away, Microsoft eventually proposed a browser ballot screen when new Windows PC owners first connect to the Internet, giving them the choice of all the major browsers on offer.
Having mulled this over for half a year, the EC has finally decided this is a good solution. "Millions of European consumers will benefit from this decision by having a free choice about which web browser they use," said competition commissioner Neelie Kroes. "Such choice will not only serve to improve people's experience of the internet now but also act as an incentive for web browser companies to innovate and offer people better browsers in the future."
Microsoft has undertaken to make a ‘choice screen' available for the next five years to European users, starting mid-March 2010. OEMs will be able to set other browsers as the default and turn-off IE if they want and Microsoft is also prohibited from circumventing free and effective browser choice by any contractual, technical or other means.
UPDATE - 13:30, 16 December 2009: Microsoft has issued a statement in response to the EC decision, which we have reproduced, verbatim, on the next page.
