Microsoft talks turkey in Brussels
Last orders in the last chance saloon
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Microsoft and the European Commission are back in talks aimed at ending anti-trust investigations against the company.
The most advanced probe is the Competition Commission's investigation into the browser market sparked by complaints from Opera, but the Commission is also looking at word processing and spreadsheets.
Competition Commissioner 'Steelie' Neelie Kroes is keen to tidy up the probe before she leaves office.
The browser probe is approaching D-Day - either Microsoft finds a way to satisfy the bureaucrats or they are likely to take action later this year.
Several proposals have been made to end the bundling row, including a possible "ballot window" when a machine is first booted up offering users the choice of several browsers, or forcing OEMs to include other browsers in the software bundle supplied with machines.
Microsoft's grandstanding offer to sell a version of its software without any internet browser was not welcomed by the Commission which said the move offered less choice, not more.
Discussions were attended by senior Commission and Microsoft figures, Bloomberg reports.
Microsoft declined to comment on this story.®
COMMENTS
Have the dawn raids started yet?
@Grandstanding indeed....... I did warn you guys !
I would suggest the word "probe " in the article was appropriate, but the antitrust commission are only in the foreplay stage yet.. Rubber hoses and bright lights in the backroom next!
@AC "Hrm" and @Chris Miller
AC: 'So the main problem is the bundling of IE in Windows, so MS removes IE from Windows and therefore removes the bundling component, and still the EU are not happy?'
Well, duh, how would anyone be able to install a browser if there wasn't one (or more) available to be installed from the media? It's a catch-22 - if you don't provide a browser, you can't install a browser. Unless you think most people should get by with the text mode FTP client.
Also @Chris Miller:
CM: 'I bet if Dell announced tomorrow that they will offer all their systems pre-installed with Fedora, the blogs would be full of Ubuntu enthusiasts wailing "it's not fair"!'
Uh, Dell sells systems pre-installed with Ubuntu:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/segments/gen/client/en/ubuntu_landing?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs
and before that for quite a few years they could pre-install Red Hat Enterprise Linux (like commercial Fedora). So there's an existence proof that you're wrong.
Talks turkey?
More like with forked tongue.
However, I think it's about time they were trussed, cooked, carved and served like a turkey.
Ah well, it's a nice thought...
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