Microsoft v. European Commission: a victory for innovation & for the consummer

Implications: By restricting Microsoft's ability to bundle unrelated features (such as media players, server software) to Windows, the EU ruling will bolster competition & innovation in the software industry.   The judgement further asserts that companies may not unfairly prevent rival products from functioning properly with their offerings.   More generaly, the ruling confirms the EC legal power to pursue abuses of market dominance.

Analysis:

Lest one would be swayed by intemperate remarks from publicity-seeking politicians, three facts must be borne in mind:

1 Windows has a market share of about 90% of operating systems;  this makes its attitude towards rivals (& its ability to stymie them) uniquely significant.

2. The basic competition principles the EC fought on, & that were vindicated by the Court, were interoperability and no extension of monopoly power into new markets.    Whatever the industry, in the absence of such rules, innovation & the emergence of rival firms are smothered.

3. This ruling should not be misconstrued as a transatlantic rift.    Many of the parties that spoke against Microsoft were unimpeachably US companies, such as Adobe Systems, IBM, Linspire, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems.   A very similar ruling might have been handed down by American courts, had the DoJ & FTC under their current leadership not adopted a rather lenient view of abuses of market power by dominant companies.