I would also pay double for Windows to see the company pull it’s products from the EU entirely.
In fact so would every American, Australian and other non-BRIC countryman as the cost of Windows and any other MS product would naturally go up, up, up as it’s lucrative customer base goes down, down, down…

I don’t want to repeat my earlier insult only to apologise again, but how exactly would one characterise the thought process of endorsing the pulling out of a ~500 mill. population market?

You are right, I saw on TV. One end of your culturally diverse population was floating on the water and the other end flew over in their private jets 3 days later.

If Microsoft moved out of Europe entirely then their share price would halve and the top 10% of your diverse nation would see their pension fund disappear. It would have no effect on the EU other than to inject money into open source alternatives. Not to mention all the tax dodging Microsoft do there would disappear.

The “HTML5 is not finished” line is used by all IE supporters and is a red herring.

The HTML5 spec is massive and would have come as about 15 different standards if there was anyone willing to maintain them. Instead it is all one standard with different sections, each section is at a different stage of development.

For example the canvas section is very mature and every other browser implements the working draft spec correctly. Other sections such as DOM storage are less mature and are receiving a lot of feedback from the (other) browser manufacturers and the spec is being constantly updated.

Think of the current HTML5 spec as a beta. All interested developers should be looking at it and checking for bugs / implementation problems / inconsistencies now so that when the spec is set in stone, everyone is happy.

Instead Microsoft is ignoring everything until the spec is final. This is similar to driver developers waiting for the RTM before writing drivers for a new operating system. If there are any problems then they will only have themselves to blame.

http://wiki.whatwg.org/wiki/FAQ#When_will_HTML_5_be_finished.3F

Either way, 2012 is not that far ahead. Microsoft will have some real work to do if they think they can implement even 90% of that spec in 2.5 years. They haven’t even started on the basic stuff yet.

They should start with the WebForms improvements and then do canvas and the audio and video tags, but that would reduce the need for Silverlight so I am sure they will do everything they can to hold back the progress of the web instead.

This is why Opera says that it is not solving the problem.

The ISO would normally handle standards but since the OOXML thing, I don’t think anyone would respect their judgement on anything. That leaves WHATWG as the only group that cares about creating a new standard and Microsoft has shown they are not interested in being involved with them. Maybe this looks unfair to outsiders but it is Microsoft that took their ball home.

Are you daft? You say: “you Americans….”

America is the most culturally diverse nation on the planet.

Being an American is to live a political existence where all people agree to very little and what they do agree to is very simple – that each is born with an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which is independent and free of interference from government and others that try to deny them access to their dreams.

Rather than march lock-step in formations as dictated by despots and ‘exist’ according to a cast set of rules, Americans are free to take an idea and advance it according to its merits and their own hard work.

Sadly and most dangerously, America is now following Europe’s model and creating a social welfare state where no one may succeed that does not have the approval of the state. Corrupt Chicago area politics have gone national and the bright light that America once presented, is being snuffed out under the jack boot of a totalitarian regime using tactics that are terrifyingly consistent with national socialist domestic and economic policy.

It’s populist nonsense and as unimaginative as your attempts to marginalize others on this blog with utter, but no less rank “Bovine Scatology!”

Be not mistaken, Microsoft has made a stand that it will not move away from. I’d pay double for Windows to see the company pull its products from the EU entirely.

> “This is not a fencing match, it is a court trial”

No, its not a court trial. The Competition Directorate is both judge and jury. If you doubt that, please name the judge in the case.

> We really need HTML 5 to be fully adopted

Care to provide a URL for the finalised HTML 5 standard?

I agree that standard compliance should be required. In fact, I would say that no vendor should be allow to describe a product as a “web browser” unless is meets the applicable standards. This should be applicable to all vendors, not just Microsoft. The problem is, who is the final arbitrator of standards compliance. (Microsoft clearly isnt compliant, but unless this question is addressed, there will always be the Operas of this world who will argue whatever they have done is not compliant).

I hope that there is something in the final ruling (where Microsoft WILL lose) which dictates how they follow standards. We really need HTML 5 to be fully adopted, another 10 years on HTML 4 is really going to kill this industry.

So you are saying that MS should get public opinion points for offering a childish solution to a 10 year-old problem, days before the official resolution is forced upon them? This is not acting in the public’s best interest at all.

This is not a fencing match, it is a court trial. Microsoft really need to understand this or they are the ones who are going to be slapped around for the next 10 years.

As other people have pointed out, nobody is going to end up without a browser, the idea that they would is rubbish spread by anti-EU American journalists. Probably the same journalists who were involved in the Freedom Fries propaganda.

Reading this, its pretty clear that the EC will demand a ballot screen in Windows. (It could not come any closer to saying that without actually saying it).

It seems that the EC is wanting to reguate the OS/Browser market to ensure that there is a healthy diversity of standards compliant browsers. Actually, I support this in principal – after all we regulate mobile phone services to ensure there is choice and innovation.

What I cant agree with is that they are doing this under the guise of anti-trust actions against Microsoft. They issued in January a Statement of Objections that found Microsoft had illegally bundled IE. No that Microsoft has unbundled it, they say “Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.”

The key point here is its not Microsoft’s job to provide choice. Microsoft, as a monopoly, is only obligated to not restrict choice. By removing IE, they force users to choose a browser, so its hard to see how this is restricting choice.

I’m proud to be European, and I’ve generally supported previous EU competition actions, but they really do seem to have lost the plot on this one.

For a start, most consumers get their PCs from an OEM, and these guys are just going to put a browser on – maybe even more than one. It might not be IE, but the choice is no longer Microsofts, so they are out of the firing line.

For Windows bought at retail, Microsoft will ship a big stack of DVD with IE on, which the store clerk will hand to you for free.This disc is going to have all sorts of other stuff on it (all the Live client sofftware for a start). As this is NOT bundled, Microsoft dont have to care about antitrust issues, and they can do what they want. Its feasible this might even drive up usages of some of this stuff.

I think, ironically, Opera is the big loser here. They dont have the means to flood retails with free CDs, and they dont have the means to pay OEMs to pre-installl it either. My guess is that Google will happily pay a couple of cents per PC to get Chrome re-installed.

I doubt Microsoft has avoided a significant fine. This case looks at the bundling situation over many years, and the EC will surely punish for that aspect, with a fine. If they demand an corrective action remains to be seen – I could imagine that they might be telliing the top tier OEMs that they need to ship, or offer a choice at time of purchase, of zero, or two or more browsers, but not one.