* Microsoft should quickly solve its dispute with the EU and move on
Late last year, in my Wired Windows column (link below), I reviewed my predictions for 2004. At the top of the list was that Microsoft would step up activity on the legal front. It turned out that Microsoft was involved in some litigation but fewer than I had thought. Instead, it appeared that the company had done its best to put its legal problems behind it, for example, Microsoft’s settlements with Sun and Novell.
I may have spoken prematurely.
While almost all the dust from the U.S. Department of Justice’s anti-trust suit has settled (including the extended efforts by the Attorneys-General of a number of states), the European Union’s case against Microsoft simply won’t go away. I mentioned in the previously quoted column that Redmond had reached settlements with Sun and Novell. It was widely thought that the impetus for Bill Gates & Co., to do this was to keep those two competitors away from the EU anti-trust case. In that respect, it did have the intended result, as neither company is a party or a witness in the EU proceedings. But that still doesn’t make the result in Brussels something in Microsoft’s favor.
The stripped down version of Windows XP that is supposed to have been offered for sale in the EU has still not appeared. According to a story in the supposedly Microsoft-friendly Seattle Times, (https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002224285_microsofteu30.html) Microsoft appears to be trying its best to both cripple the new version as well as drag its feet on complying with the EC rulings.
The Commission also required that Microsoft accept a trustee to oversee its compliance with the EU rulings, but according to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune (https://www.signonsandiego.com/news/computing/20050414-0515-tech-microsoft-eu.html): “Microsoft proposed rules that would have given it veto power over the trustee. The EU watchdog found that unacceptable… making it clear that Microsoft could not exercise a veto and limit the scope of the trustee’s work.”
Perhaps Microsoft hopes to drag out this process until XP is replaced next year, but I don’t think the EU is going to wait for that. Gates, Ballmer and their henchmen should be working overtime right now to resolve these issues, to the benefit of Microsoft’s customers, so that the company can draw up and follow a roadmap with milestones we can all count on in order to best plan what our future networks will look like.
