Windows 7: EU to pursue antitrust case, despite Windows 7 E

The EU committee against anti-competitive behavior is around now. They have the duty to guard European consumers against greedy manufacturers. Airbus is not excluded from this control, before or after the fact. There is no need for anyone to complain, they have the obligation to be pro-active. Still anyone who has a valid case that Airbus is in some way anti-competitive can lodge a complaint with the committee.

There is a vast list of illegal European price-fixers, trusts and whatnot which have been already taken care of during the years past. They don't make the frontpages as MS is doing, because they decided to not fight the inevitable.

The point which they (and you) don't seem to get is that MS is obligated to come with a solution that will make MS less anti-competitive according to the rules laid down by the committee.

The committee did (incredible but true) learn their lesson from MS's subterfuges with the WMP case.

In their press statement they allude to this. If you read the burocratspeak well, this is what is what is says:

You f**ked us once, you won't f**k us twice. We will give you in due course a remedy you will obligated to follow or we hold you in breach of an European directive.

This needs no new case. Appeals will just serve to spend cash to no real purpose, as the mills of burocrazy are in motion. If i were a shareholder i'd tell the board to quit playing silly games, those days are past. Adapt or get royally *****ed.

Why bother adapting, 'cause thy're going to get f*cked anyway. This is the problem. By any logical analysis, MS's decision is the proper one. They were hit with bundling charges, so they are now unbundling. That is about as uncompetative as you can get. The EU decides to f*ck them anyway. This is the problem and why MS won't give in without a fight. This is absolutely a new case. MS is following the letter of the ruling and the EU is changing its tune. At this point there needs to be a new ruling to explain how unbundling is anti-competative.

Oh, and MS did not screw them over with the WMP solution. That was all EU. That was complete stupidity on their part. It goes to show out of touch they are with reality. To think that a unbundled version would sell better. Wow, impressive bunch of bureaucrats they are.

Phree

They were adjudged to be in violation of abusing their position as a virtual monopolist, amongst other choses by making IE an integral part of their OS. Since 3rd party softwaremakers are thereby limited in their options (they can't integrate their software same way and are as such by definition less capable) they were told to do someything about it.

Just removing a few exe's and dll's is not a solution. IE = Explorer with an HTML engine. Taking the I out of IE is just trying to mess around with an annoyed hungry grizzly with cubs. I guess MS slightly overplayed their hand.

But they sure are a bunch of burocrats, don't get me wrong i am far from defending, i am just explaining the European Committee's way of doing things.

Reading other likewise posts i realised that practically all Americans have no clue how the EU works.

The elected european parliament makes laws, the appointed european committees check if they are uphold and dishes out the dirt, the european court is then the last resort against a decision made by the committee in question.

Once a EU committee has decided that someone (this can be a private enterprise but also a membercountries government) breaks a European law or directive they serve the guilty party with a remedy/punishment.

France has received multiple fines for not complying with the EU directive that a national budget has no more then 3% deficit annualy for example.
(they never paid but still)

This serving can be appealed, which MS tried last around. As can this one. But appeal doesn't mean the decision can't be enforced, this is up to the committee to grant a stay or not.

When the EU anti-competition directives were put in place they were meant to prevent pricefixing, marketcornering and such in the EU.

The burocrats were well aware that court cases can stall for ages, so they made decisions enforceable per direct. All the court can do is decide afterwards it was unjust and then the measure taken will be retroactively undone.

The problem is the EU never made clear the difference. MS stated that HTML rendering is used in many parts of Windows as a component part. It was an efficient method for data presentation. The problem was that there was nothing in the ruling that stated MS needed to remove the engine. They just needed to remove the IE application frontend.

PhreePhly

Yes but that's MS's fault for not giving enough access to it's internal working. By trying to outsmart over the years the competition and USA's anti-trust they finagled themselves in a corner.

By moving around components to 'comply' with the USA requirements, they in fact made the whole mess even less transparent so that by now i doubt that there exists anyone at MS who fully understands where I ends and E begins.

So stuck between a very hard place and a much harder place they had no real option but to just removing iexplorer.exe.

Which is really by consequence a real 'in your face' gesture not unlike a frustrated child who throws his favourite toy to bits because he is punished.

Which is a good description of the EU's behavior. They're like Paris Hilton complaining like unfair treatment in gossip magazines. Think they might bring some of the complaints on themselves?

PhreePhly

Like i said: Everybody with a valid complaint that a company operating within the EU breaks the rules as set down in the EU laws can address himself to the EU committee concerned.

If someone has proof that Airbus is in breach of the EU anti-competition directives they should lodge a complaint.

Obviously the EU committee cannot engage itself with WTO rules, as they are not EU rules. It's not their jurisdiction.

If a nation finds that Airbus (or whomever) is in breach of the WTO rules they should address themselves to the WTO.
After that it's up to the WTO to takes care of that situation.

If they don't, well they don't.

Furthermore, all fines levied by the EU are distributed amongst the membership countries. They don't serve the EU budget itself.

Don't take it personal, it's just how things work. There's always a bigger bully around the corner......

The sh*tty part is the EU can behave like that because they are bigger. MS can't because they are smaller.

I don't know why EU is doing this ... IT'S DISCRIMINATION!

Why they are not forcing Apple to remove Safari from Mac OS
and also remove firefox & konqueror from Linux distributions?

Stupid question, or not?

Ahh... What I Hear... They are biased against MS!

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EtHAN