EU customers don't have now or the in the future a problem with selecting the chip they use or what browser they want to use. They don't need their/there government giving them options they already have.
This is to prevent monopolies. And the bold part is plain wrong. If you don't keep companies in check, they will screw you over in the future.
As the average user is too dumb to understand what "browser" and "CPU" and whatever technical is, it's easy to simply stomp the market if you have massive cash for ads and monopolize it.
As to why monopolies are bad, just think of Win 8. If Microsoft decides that you will use
Metro the New UI, YOU WILL (eventually). Regardless of what you prefer. Since simply there is only Microsoft that makes Windows and most stuff runs only on Windows (there are tablets and the bulk of light stuff like internet browsing and light gaming is moving there, but I'm talking of PC users).
Now, un-monopolize markets would be cool, but not really feasible. So you have to keep everything in check
before it goes beyond the point of no return.
When the EU is taking billions of dollars from you for bull droppings reason it's time to put the big foot down.
I'd agree, although for wildly different reasons than yours. Time for MS to leave the monopoly of the market with style.
Really, MS will gladly sacrifice all its employee's babies to dark forgotten gods before even thinking seriously about leaving a so gaping gargantuan hole in the market.
As the competitors that will fill that void (because
someone will since it's a huge amount of cash up for grabs) will be pain in the backside in the long run (as the next time that they do silly mistakes like say Vista or Win 8 their competitors will be ready to make a smart counter move and steal their customers)
Which will mean higher quality stuff in the long run. At least for Intel and AMD or NVIDIA and ATI (still AMD but oh well) it worked well so far. Both kept their competitor in check, and there is some fun innovation going on as well as they have a good reason to do so (outdo their competitor).
For MS the drive to improve its product has been much slower and (most would say) not in the right direction for the late iteration. (mac stuff is laughed off chart and linux isn't anywhere near a contender due to its geekiness requirements and because it's not anywhere near standardized so stuff may work or not depending on luck)
Sadly, as I said, you really need much more than the peanuts that the EU can ask with lawsuits to really convince MS to do something like you ask.
The larger the market the larger amount of customers will be screaming to the governing bodies to mind their/there own business and let the customers make their/there own decisions.
Uhm, no. The bulk of the customers don't know of this and don't even care. We that understand this stuff an can rant about it are a minority.
