This is one of the rules that heavily applies in the microsoft case.

In other words, microsoft is not allowed to use its monopoly on the OS market to gain a monopoly in the browser market, or the media player market, or the office-suite market, etc.

This implies that you cannot leave it to the dominant market players to talk about the rules where they will always favour the protectionist school (competiveness). Competition needs authoritarian enforcement to make a free competitive market happen.

Competition needs to be enforced by the authorities and this is what Kroes does. Von Hayek stressed that competition leads to the discovery of new facts, basically that only competition ensures innovation that would be inexistent otherwise.

Competition enforcement by competition law is just not enough. Competition law has a time lag that does not serve IT market needs. We need more political support for open web standards and have to overcome patented standards. We need the government to invest in Linux based national operating systems to overcome our joint dependencies on Microsoft products. We pay the monopoly price and make Microsoft profitable! This is like a license cost drain on the total European single market. Like an addict we have to license Office, have to support IE idiosyncracies, have to run the latest Windows even when Microsoft totally messes it up.

As a European citizen I don’t like the idea that the voice of citizens counts less than the lobby astroturfs from an American company that helds the EU markets hostage. We have to break free and have to kick their lobbyists out if they obstruct again EU interoperability policies or insult our competition authorities.

Also because the EU is late in the game of the browsers and there is no simple solution to this problem.

It feels more like a marketing problem. There are just to many people who don’t know what they are missing when using Internet Explorer (attention to security was one, which has improved some what).

The presure from other browsers has created a situation Microsoft is actually starting to put real work in their browser again.

I think the competition has been really helpful creating a better situation, but it also means new computer buyers may still stay with IE, because it might now be good enough by their standards after Microsoft had put some effort in IE.

If that happends we’re still stuck with the same IE marketshare. Which might mean Microsoft will slow down their development and stifle the web again.

The whole bundeling of PC, Windows and IE is the real problem and Microsoft’s power of the PC-vendors is the cause.

Maybe there should just be a public bulk discount percentage on Windows and products. So there is no way for Microsoft to favor one over the other.

But I doubt the EU has any power over that, as it’s an international market and the PC-vendors probably all have their asian and US offices.

Maybe the EU can force the PC-vendors to buy and install Windows only on request. The PC should enter the EU without Windows (or license equivalent).

Your argument is this limits consumer choice, but you fail to understand that this removes any choice the consumer has. If an operating system doesn’t come with a broswer, how is the regular consumer supposed to download one (say Firefox) to use it on his machine.

I’m completely disgusted by this.

The EU has vigorously intervened, much more recently, to force competition in the landline market, forcing unbundling for DSL. Result: broadband penetration has shot ahead of the US in most of western Europe.