I was on Yahoo, checking my stock in Apple, when I saw this:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040324/tech_microsoft_eu_21.htmlAs you can probably tell by my investment choice, I am not a big Microsoft fan. I think they consistantly fail to provide quality, care little about intellegent users, release buggy products, punch security holes in everything, blah blah blah. But this is ridiculous.
I look around each day and see all these small inconviniences the government causes, little laws, stupid things you can\'t do. But it\'s not that bad. On a corperate level, however, everything is different, it seems. What gives the Europeans the right to do this?
It sounds stupid enough when you are reading it, but think about this: Microsoft has released a competitive product, and therefore, they are violating anti-trust laws. Stupid. And being legally obligated to reveal their source code, for \"compatability purposes\", the most secret of trade secrets? They\'ve already been forced to give their competitors confidential information.
Look at this quote from another article:
RealNetworks Inc. (NasdaqNM:RNWK - News), which makes the digital media software at the heart of the EC\'s ruling, applauded the EC decision, with deputy general counsel Dave Stewart calling the decision \"fundamentally significant because the Commission has clearly ruled that Microsoft\'s strategy of bundling Windows Media Player into its software is illegal.\"
Yes. Of course it should be illegal to put your own software in your own operating system. Tomorrow it\'s going to be Pinball.
Only now does it occur to me that Microsoft used to be a great company, and maybe all this interference from various world governments is what has ruined them. Bill Gates had a vision, and he made it reality. Why is everyone so afraid of that?