Microsoft just can't win in the EU browser row

Nick Farrell
21 August 2009

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SOFTWARE ALCHEMIST MICROSOFT seems to have done its best to satisfy rivals and the EU over providing alternative browsers in Windows 7.

When you install Windows 7 you get a list of browsers and you just click on the one you want.

So now there is no way anyone can complain that Microsoft is using its monopoly to force Europeans to use Internet Exploder, is there?

But nooo, apparently someone can. This week a big cheese from the Mozorella Foundation claimed that the way Microsoft has proposed to get users to chose their browser was all wrong.

Mitchell Baker said that a "ballot screen" giving Windows 7 punters the option of setting up Firefox, or another browser instead, was not enough to level the playing field.

Apparently Internet Exploder will continue to be used elsewhere in the Vole's latest operating system, including on the desktop and the taskbar. Well, yes, it is an intrinsic part of the OS. Is the Vole supposed to replace that functionality with bits from whatever browser the user chooses?

If you chose another browser as a 'default', the IE logo or 'shortcut' still remains unchanged on the desktop and the logo of any alternative browser the user has selected does not replace this.

However Baker's comments show really how stupid the whole web browser argument has gotten and how slanted it has become against the Vole. True, Microsoft is an evil convicted monopolist and it needed a righteous spanking in Europe that it managed to escape in the US.

But now the whole matter has reached such a level of that it almost amounts to parody, and it looks like whatever Microsoft does will be doomed to attract criticism and perhaps even another hefty EU fine.

Baker's comments were in response to Microsoft's suggestions to the European Commission about how it can best comply with the lawmaking body's demands.

The Vole had knocked up a few screenshots to show the EU Commission what its proposed solution will look like. Like most screenshot presentations it would not have every cough and spit of the details in it.

Rather than accept that this will put Firefox as the number two browser choice on the installation menu, Baker whinged that something that wasn't included in the presentation would not be fixed by the move.

One of those screenshots as presented publicly by Microsoft itself does show an Internet Explorer logo adorning the title bar of the window where the browser screen appears. The screenshot surely does not necessarily depict how the end result of Microsoft's work might appear.

It seems that Baker and company would only be happy if Microsoft were to list Firebadger as the number one browser and recommend it instead of IE. Even then it seems she might only approve if Microsoft were to stick "IE smells of Nintendo and will explode your computer if you're dumb enough to install it" on the screen. Perhaps changing the name from "Windows 7" to "Mozilla Windows 7" would also help.

All this is showing the mountain that Microsoft has to climb before some people will be convinced that it is remotely willing to be a reasonable little Vole.

After this, any small Microsoft competitor can claim that they are hard done by and the EU will add a few zeros onto a settlement.

One of the complaints against the draft menu that the Vole has knocked up is that it fails to list many rival browsers. It just gives us the choices of IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome. What about the other browser makers? What about SlimBrowser [who he? - Ed], Flock and even Netscape? [I remember that one - Ed]

But you reach a point that you wonder, how much does Microsoft have to do get the EU to leave it alone. Asking its rivals what to do is like asking the turkeys to vote against Christmas.

And is the EU being as nasty to other evil IT monopolies out there? Google with its near monopoly in Internet search and Apple with its Itunes dominance of legally downloaded music tracks are curiously left alone.

When Apple broke something as basic as European warranty laws by insisting that its products should die a year after you bought them, the EU was curiously silent. If Microsoft had done the same thing, it would have been in hot water.

As a result, Microsoft seems to be getting no options. It either has to get out of Europe or try and work with every piddling 'rival' to make sure it is 100 per cent happy. The EU has ceased being fair when even we can say that Microsoft is being hard done by. µ