PC makers and distributors are holding back from buying the new alternative version of Windows XP that Europe’s competition commissioner ordered Microsoft Corp. to offer as part of the punishment in the software maker’s long antitrust battle with the European Union.Source: CNN
One thing i dont quite understand is why everybody is fuming over microsoft’s success in the operating system market. Besides that we can’t ignore to mention the numerous policies that have been passed over the past years to make sure they are punished for their success. One of the recent one, is in relation to the above quoted that was passed by EU antitrust regulators, which led to microsoft to re-produce a new version of its Windows Xp to contain european languages.
Now Microsoft went ahead to reproduce a version to meet the regulators requirement besides the fine which was a whopping record of euro497 million ($608 million). The product reproduced was the Windows XP N which was released to distributors last week in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish and will be available to the public in the next few weeks.
Now the punishment hasnt just ended. Distributors and Manufacturers are showing little interest. They said and i quote that “We’ll continue to sell the old version because it’s obviously better value for our customers,” .
Poor Microsoft. :(. Whats up with Europeans? i cant really understand why they are doing this? Is it because of open source alternatives such as Linux?
I really do not know.