Hey, Microsoft! The EC heard you wanted to make a concession yesterday and were considering stripping IE8 from Windows 7 in Europe. Well, they've got two words for you: Nice try.

The Commission's press release this morning states "As for retail sales...the Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of web browsers. Instead Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less."

Oddly, though, they also minimize the importance of the retail channel, noting that it accounts for a paltry 5% of sales.

On the OEM front, it's a another story: "As for sales to computer manufacturers, Microsoft's proposal may potentially be more positive. It is noted that computer manufacturers would appear to be able to choose to install Internet Explorer – which Microsoft will supply free of charge - another browser or multiple browsers."

Would appear to be able to choose? How would they not be able to choose which browser to load on an OS that ships browser-free? They choose to load plenty of other bloat right now, so dumping a browser or four on their PCs really shouldn't be too tough.

As for the beef with retail, Microsoft can't win that one. If they ship no browser, users have no way of downloading an alternative. If they choose to list some browsers, the companies who are passed over will cry foul - and there are a lot of people developing web browsers (see Wikipedia). The EC, of course, is pushing a 'ballot screen' though I've seen no mention of which browsers will appear on it or how they will be selected in a fair and impartial manner.

What it boils down to is that the EC wants to decide how bad a boy Microsoft has been since 1996 and what kind of penance it needs to do.

Pro tip, EC: Windows 7 is due to ship soon, and Microsoft is making an effort here (gasp!). Maybe it's time to come to a consensus already.

There are plenty of things I'd love to quit reading about, and the EU's continued moaning about unfair browser bundling is pretty high on the list.

We get it. You (and a number of competitors) think Microsoft needs to do something more substantial than allow users to uninstall/disable/burn down Internet Explorer. Your latest fabulous idea? A download dashboard, which will present a number of browsers from which the consumer is free to choose. How Utopian!

So I presume this dashboard will include all kinds of browsers, like Maxthon, Flock, Arora, Lunascape, SRWare Iron, Kmeleon, and QTWeb, right? After all, including only big non-IE names like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera isn't really fair to the little guys. There's a big ol' list at Wikipedia if you need to see all the options the dashboard should include.

I'll also assume that this dashboard will be mandatory for all operating systems. Apple and Linux users probably need to be told they have a choice, too.

Oh, and devices like cell phones, PDAs, and MIDs usually only have one browser out-of-the-box, so make sure you put a stop to that as well.

You'll also need to tell Apple that they have to allow non-Webkit browsers on the iPhone and iPod touch, because that's unfair to browsers based on other rendering engines.

Because really, if you're not going to do all those things, it's time to shut up about this issue and quit singling out Microsoft.

[via Slashdot]

European regulators have approved Google's plan to buy online advertising giant DoubleClick. The acquisition, which has been in the works for the better part of a year will solidify Google's dominance in the advertising field. Right now Google makes most of its money through its lucrative contextual advertising system. The DoubleClick acquisition will help Google move into display ads, an area where the company is currently not as strong.

Google competitors including Microsoft, Yahoo! had filed anti-trust complaints, claiming that the deal would give Google an unfair advantage in the online advertising marketplace. But EU regulators basically gave Google a pass and said the deal could go forward as is. Of course, if Microsoft manages to buy Yahoo!, (a company that has been playing hard to get), that might give Microsoft the tools to level the playing field. You know, assuming EU or US regulators don't nix the deal.

Update: According to the Official Google Blog, Google today completed its acquisition of DoubleClick.

[via TechCrunch]

After nine years, Microsoft has given up its fight against European Union regulators. Essentially, the EU says Microsoft is a monopoly, and as such should take certain measures to give consumers more options and open up its source code a tiny bit to enable interoperability with third party software.

Microsoft has decided not to appeal the latest EU court ruling, which means the company will fork over $705 million which had been sitting in an escrow account since since the fine was levied in 2004.

Other highlights of the agreement include:

• Microsoft will allow third party companies to license non-patented technology to ensure interoperability with Windows
• Companies will only have to pay a one-time €10,000 fee for that intellectual property, not an ongoing royalty
  

In return, the EU is removing its hit from Microsoft's head. In other words, no more fines against the company until the next time it tries to do something incredibly anti-competitive, like (hypothetically) engineering an operating system that plays well with Microsoft Office but not so well with competing software suites like OpenOffice.org.