news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7834792.stm What do the EU keep harassing Microsoft?  If they keep fining Microsoft then all their products in the EU will cost even more than they already do!  Everytime they fine Microsoft a billion dollars... that money has to come from us who buy their products.   And this time - complaining about including an Internet Browser into Windows, a basic program which everyone needs.  Next they wont be able to include Notepad or a Calculator program!  What the hell???   It's just like the EU fining Honda for including a GPS unit into their cars, because it's unfair competition against those companies who make GPS units.                                                                                                                                                                             

dont u just love the "powers that be"                                                                                                                                                                             

It is Microsoft's monopoly that caused the downfall of Netscape. The Navigator suite was far Superior to explorer.                                                                                                                                                                             

yer talking technical again!                                                                                                                                                                             

navigator was crap, I used it for a while.  Most sites didn't work (properly) on it.   But it really is like Tom Tom going bust cos car manufacturers use Garmin GPS units for example.   It's not Microsoft's fault they're doing so well.  People by their stuff cos it works, it's simple and it streamlines a lot of things making IT Admin and Mgmnt much less complicated.   Why should Microsoft promote google, netscape, mozilla etc - who are plain old competition for them.   Where will it stop?  What about defragmentation tools? Partitioning tools?  Backup/Restore tools?   I for one would rather by Windows WITH and internet browser, defrag, backup, calculator etc all built in... cos that's what I'm paying for and that's what I want.   If MS are forced to sell a basic, empty copy of their OS with nothing in it... we will all have to start paying a lot more (Either extra for each application, or we'll just pay the same amount for a limited, crappy version of Windows).   Leave MS alone, they pay enough tax and VAT to our countries already.                                                                                                                                                                             

Its because Microsoft marketing is extreme and they use these methods and their massive power to erradicate the competition.  They were not the first or best, but managed to lever the competition out of the way using marketting. Way back DR-DOS was better than MS-DOS but MS-DOS got shipped with PC so thats what you got.

Do you really want to live in a computer world where there is no competition?  As it is Vista spends a hefty chunk off your processing power checking up on you, that you are not breaking copyrights or using copied software. Could get to extreme stage where windows would only run software by companies who pay microsoft licences, like apple used to do, this would kill small software companies, there are many of these in UK.

They dont pay VAT to our country, they pay the VAT we pay them, its not their money ever, they also do not pay much tax here, they have a minimal staff level here too.

They also force us to "upgrade" to latest product, by making new software incompatible with older OS.  They are not a fluffy company out to help us, they made their bed here because of tactics.  They ahve a plan to charge us everytime we run their software now, everytime you start up IE you have to pay.

May I also point out that the other browsers on the market are also free, so where is this extra cost coming from by taking IE out of windows?

One last point, IE drag behind in browser development, Opera and now Firefox are ahead of the game on it, so we get better browsers by there being competition there, if IE managles these because of marketting we will end up with worse browsers.

I have no sympathy for Microsoft either and agree with everything that tamaz has said about them. Having used Macs for the last 15 years, I have no cause to love them. I was happily using an LC II with Apple software until the Internet came along when I was forced to use Microsoft's crappy software because people insisted on attaching .doc files to their e-mails. Having progressed through a G3 266 to an i Mac Intel, at least now I have some choice with software and a non-Microsoft web browser on my operating system although I still had to buy Office for Macintosh at a rip-off price to read e-mail attachments. At least I could download Firefox to my computer and still have no need for Internet Explorer.

It's not just the EU that have been chasing Microsoft. A few years ago, the US Government was pursuing them under Anti-Trust legislation and called for the company to be split up. According to the late Alistair Cook's Letter from America at that time, a very experienced politician at the hearings took 20 minutes to get a straight answer from Bill Gates. The legislation in question was enacted to counter the "robber barons" who operated monopolies on railroads and utilities in the US at the end of the 19th Century and had to be dusted off to restrain Microsoft.

When I was involved in riders' rights work, I frequently butted heads with the EU institutions at Brussels over some of their misguided directives on road safety but if they're taking Microsoft on, I can only wish them luck. Maybe if they concentrated on taking the monopolies down like this instead of giving the motorcycling community problems, we would have more time for them.