Microsoft should spank em'
 

Seriously, "give secrets to their competition" how stupid is that?
If they can't hang they don't belong in business.
I think Microsoft should start doing what Japan does to the US and start selling them shit that is five years behind & sell everyone else current software and hardware... idiots.

Microsoft hit by huge EU fine

Gates says they're trying to comply and have 300 people working on it. He may be bullshitting them, or not, but I agree he should tell them to pound sand.
I've a feeling they'll never be satisfied, even if he handed them the whole kit and caboodle on a silver platter. :mad:

No one's compelling him to operate in that market. If he doesn't like their laws, why doesn't he take his ball and go home? It *must* continue to be a net positive business decision. Mr Gates is many things, but a poor businessman is not one of them.

I do sympathize with MS's plight insofar as the difficulty of dealing with government entities. That can be unpleasant and painful. But just as I would expect foreign companies to obey our laws while operating in my country, I feel American companies should obey the laws of the countries in which they do business. If a foreign company wants to drive out the technology leaders, that's their misfortune. But you can't expect to take their money but not respect their laws. It's a package deal.

The EU also had Microsoft offer up versions of Windows without Media Player and such integrated software on it so as to give people a choice of which media player they'd want to install...

Now, almost a year or so after that, research has shown that the version without Media Player hardly sold. People like it when the Media Player and browser and such are included, it saves them work in finding software for themselves.

I agree with that, I wouldn't get a windows version without MP and others. Not to say that I use the Media Player a lot (I prefer WinAmp), but I like to have it for times when I do want to use it (I use MP to rip my cds onto the computer).

Same goes for browser. I use Firefox but want IE on my machine as a backup browser, just in case.

Meh. Just because you have software preinstalled on your computer doesn't mean you have to use it.

Unless it's the "Microsoft Genuine Advantage" software...

The computer market is hard to crack sometimes because it's often not the best product that sells best. The percentage of people who have any amount of computer savy is abysmaly low, so whatever people are used to is what they'll buy. For years after Windows 98 Microsoft released dud after OS dud and people bought them because that's all they were familiar with and couldn't be bothered to learn how to use a new and better one. I'm not really trying to defend either side here, just pointing out one persistant and frusterating nuance of that market.

So you feel if Coca Cola wants to sell in Europe they should be compelled to give their "secret recipe" to European competitors because of a rule passed to help the locals push out foreigners? :tinfoil:

Only if Coca-Cola were a platform upon which competitors were expected to build their products. I can't think of any non-monopolistic reasons to not publish the full API for an OPERATING SYSTEM in the first place.

I can.....it's called good business sense. :rolleyes:
Same reasons we have patent and copyright laws.

Most monopolistic acts make good business sense. You just can't do them once you've become a monopoly.

Anyone with an invention is a monoply... it's just silly. S-called envy.

What nonsense. That's only true in the presence of a patent system gone wild...including now widespread abuse of the DMCA.

You favor stealing people's hard work inventions and art?

Only so far as the government allows. Outside of government protection, there's no such thing as patents or copyright at all. If a company is found to have misused its powers, they can be reigned in. Microsoft has been convicted of abusing its monopoly in the US and the EU, and the EU is actually enforcing that conviction.