Michael Dolan Dot Com

Monday, September 24th, 2007

EU Globalization Institute: “Unbundling Windows”

I haven’t had time to read the full report yet, but if the report is as good as the abstract, I like what I see.

From the website: 

Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market.

The submission comes after the Commission won a ruling supporting its existing antitrust action against Microsoft in the European Court of First Instance. The Institute argues that cheaper competitors are unable to benefit from their lower cost because consumers have already been forced to buy Windows. Windows’ dominant position both has slowed technical improvements and prevented new alternatives entering from the marketplace.

Operating systems, it says, are not a natural monopoly, requiring just one supplier. Instead, in a competitive market, there would be a broad compatibility between different supplier’s products. “Competition would encourage open standards and interoperability as vendors would, for competitive reasons, want their products to interact with other vendors’ products,” the submission says.