Europe v Microsoft, gloves are on in farce of the century

Stan Beer
Sunday, 14 June 2009 17:17

Opinion and Analysis

What Microsoft did to Netscape is ancient history. Mozilla has well and truly got its revenge with Firefox. There are now more browsers than you can shake a stick at to choose from but this is not enough for the EC.

They insist that Microsoft decouples IE from Windows 7. So Microsoft, which no doubt is sick of European lawsuits, has said fine it will supply its operating system with no browser at all.

That way, system builders in Europe can supply new Windows 7 PCs with whatever browser they choose to add. Of course, if you want to buy a boxed off-the-shelf edition of Windows 7, then you'll have to add your own browser after you do the clean install.

But wait! This is outrageous screams the EC. We want Microsoft to supply its operating system with a choice of browsers. So Microsoft not only has to supply its browser-less OS but also installation files for a range of Windows compatible browsers?

Do these unelected EC bureaucrats have nothing better to do?

Fining Intel a billion dollars for using its market power to unfairly marginalise AMD is one thing. But honestly, who really gives a toss any more about Microsoft's rapidly waning browser dominance?

Here's a suggestion. Let Microsoft sell boxed copies of Windows 7 with no browser in Europe but make it a requirement to supply a separate IE installation disk in the box. That way users who wish to do a clean install of Windows 7 can the install IE and use it to download Firefox.

Actually, here's a better suggestion. Just leave Microsoft alone, let it supply Windows 7 with IE as part of the package. Believe it or not, it actually makes it really easy to choose what ever browser you want to choose - even Opera!