http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4591561/
The EU also gave Microsoft 120 days to release “complete and accurate” information to rivals in the office server market so their products can work more smoothly with desktop computers running Windows.
MS should give out the same documentation to everyone. The SDK isn't different if you download it from a .microsoft.com, sun.com, java.com, or any other domain. If you can download the SDK you know as much as the rest of the world. If you want to find out if your product will work on Windows what does the rest of the world do? Download the SDK and test the product on the version of windows.
Monti said he limited the order to Europe in deference to regulators in the United States and other countries, but that doing so “will not unduly undermine the effectiveness,” given the size of the European market. Microsoft, which had $32 billion in revenue last year, does about 20 percent of its business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
32 billion / 20 % = 1.6 billion
1.6 billion / x % = 613 million
Total: x = 38.3125%
That's a pretty round number. Microsoft is basically being ordered to pay over 38% of it's earnings for EU of last year. Almost half of the money made by Microsoft in the year 2003 in the EU market is being 'refunded' to those EU countries.
Capitalism teaches us that when we don't like a particular company or product that we can 'choose' another product. If I don't think Windows is performing to my needs I'll choose something else. The problem with this is SalesLogix depends on Microsoft heavily to function. I can't use it any place BUT a Windows Server platform so until they make some kind of Linux/Unix/Whatever hybrid I'll be married to Microsoft for quite some time, or at least the company I work for will be.
The problem with this picture is they say that apparently 90 percent of the world's computers run Windows. Software companies have made the monopoly, not Microsoft. If SalesLogix would run on Linux we might possibly be using KDE as our Windows Manager instead of Microsoft. I could be blaming MS for SalesLogix insistent demanding of using all things Microsoft or I could point the finger at who I really think is at fault for that arrangement: SalesLogix.
I think the answer is not to penalize MS for anything. Sure they've done some underhanded stuff in the name of their product but that's no different than some telephone, electric, or other “big business” I see around. I don't think they make a crappy product which is why I use Windows. Do I like that everything on it ties it together in a web of all things MS? Not really but I've learned to live with it.
We need more operating systems, not more flavors of Linux or Unix (they're roughly the same damn thing too). We need more developers willing to step out on a limb to do development on different operating systems. The number of people in this world are growing so we should have a lot more choices for them to make, not simply grow the only choices into huge untouchable corporations.