Tag: ANTITRUST

Microsoft, citing Google's tyrannical 95% share of the European search market, has lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission. It's not like Microsoft is breaking any ground here -- the European Commission has been investigating Google's alleged violation of European competition law since November 2010 -- but there's no doubt that the addition of Microsoft's gravitas will affect the ...

When I wrote about Microsoft's decision to begin offering Security Essentials via Windows Update to users who didn't already have an antivirus program installed, I wondered how long it would be until someone shouted "Unfair!" I wasn't the only one, either -- ZDnet's Ed Bott had similar concerns. This morning, Computerworld is reporting that Trend Micro -- who develop a range of antivirus and ...

You've probably heard of the recently-settled Intel/AMD anti-trust lawsuit -- most notably, the part of the resolution that involved Intel paying AMD $1.25 billion. But there was a lot more that went into the November 2009 settlement! For example, can you believe that the Intel compiler, the one used to produce a large percentage of all computer programs, intentionally cripples AMD processors? ...

Like sand through the hourglass, the browser ballot soap opera continues with a a whole new set of interesting developments. Yesterday, ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley poked around the small print of the Microsoft proposal and noticed existing Windows XP and Vista users are slated to receive the ballot screen via Windows update. From the release: "Microsoft will distribute a Ballot Screen software update ...

Microsoft has signed off on the Windows 7 code, and they've already begun pushing it out to manufacturers. Now if they could just get that pesky little situation sorted out with the European Commission... First they offered to perform an Explorerectomy on the new OS, which would have made it a little annoying for the average user to install a browser on their new system. Not so much for geeks ...

Hey, Microsoft! The EC heard you wanted to make a concession yesterday and were considering stripping IE8 from Windows 7 in Europe. Well, they've got two words for you: Nice try. The Commission's press release this morning states "As for retail sales...the Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of web browsers. Instead Microsoft has apparently decided to ...

Are you kidding me? Did a whole group of major companies just jump in to the Microsoft-EU brawl? Yep. Adobe, Oracle, Sun, Corel, and RealNetworks - who are members of the European Committee for Interoperable Systems - have joined up with Mozilla, Opera, Google, and the Free Software Foundation Europe in the fight to prove that consumers are too stupid to make their own choices. Thomas Vinje, ...

The European Commission appears to be a few steps closer to forcing Microsoft to provide customers with a choice of web browsers as part of an antitrust measure. European regulators took similar measures a while back by requiring Microsoft to offer a version of Windows sans Windows Media Player. But simply unbundling Internet Explorer is a bit more complicated, since, as many readers pointed out ...

Sometimes it may seem like there are only two or three web browsers that matter. Most computer users surf the web with Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari. But there are a ton of other options, including Opera, Google Chrome, and Sleipnir. Still, most people continue to use Internet Explorer, and one of the main reasons for that is because it's the web browser that comes bundled with Windows, ...

After nine years, Microsoft has given up its fight against European Union regulators. Essentially, the EU says Microsoft is a monopoly, and as such should take certain measures to give consumers more options and open up its source code a tiny bit to enable interoperability with third party software. Microsoft has decided not to appeal the latest EU court ruling, which means the company will fork ...

There's good news and bad news for Microsoft today. The bad news is that the European Court of First Instance has upheld a 2004 court decision finding Microsoft guilty of violating antitrust laws. The god news is that if anyone can afford a $690 million fine and 80% of court costs, it's Bill Gates. But somehow we doubt he'll see it that way. The Court upheld portions of the 2004 ruling that ...