The EU's New Heat on Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| On top of fines and new inquiries, Microsoft is in danger of EU governments
| effectively banning its software to create documents
|
| [...]
|
| Compatibility Advantage
|
| The new European investigations come as Microsoft finds itself in danger of
| seeing EU governments effectively ban its software to create documents. The
| European Commission and its member states have been mulling a mandate that
| all government documents be created in the Open Document Format (ODF), an
| open source competitor to the proprietary format used in Microsoft Word.
`----
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2008/tc20080227_967982.htm?campaign_id=yhoo
"If you flee the rules, you will be caught. And it will cost you dearly,"
-- Neelie Kroes (about Microsoft), February 27th, 2008
Related:
European regulator fines Microsoft $1.35 billion
,----[ Quote ]
| In addition, Microsoft recently acknowledged that the commission is also
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| looking into lobbying efforts for its Open XML file format, which has been
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| derided by critics as insufficiently accessible. Microsoft unsuccessfully
| sought last year to receive approval from the International Organization for
| Standardization, or ISO, to have Open XML declared an international standard.
`----
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/european-regulator-fines-microsoft-135/story.aspx?guid=%7B4421D497-DECC-41BF-9C86-E4C815C25241%7D
Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format
,----[ Quote ]
| Is this just a random coincidence? The median of the CPI index of the above
| mentioned 70 countries is 3.95. Of the most corrupted half (CPI index less
| than 3.95) 23 or 77% voted for approval (approval or approval with comments)
| and 7 or 23% for disapproval; 5 abstained. Of the least corrupted half (CPI
| index more than 3.95) 13 or 54% voted for approval and 11 or 46% voted for
| disapproval; 11 abstained - see the table below.
`----
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
Microsoft accused of more OOXML standards fiddling
,----[ Quote ]
| However the 11 new countries are refusing to say how they will vote. These
| include Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Malta, Pakistan,
| Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela. Most people seem to think
| that these have been put there by Vole to make sure the standard gets pushed
| through.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=42106
|
|
