Seriously. I've noticed this too, lately, as I work for a small Verizon Wireless store in our local mall. More and more phones are coming with the big PDA-type screens preloaded with MS's PocketPC software with a myriad of other Microsoft exclusives. Kyocera, Samsung, Sony, Broyhill, Nokia, all of the major cell phone brands have begun releasing PocketPC and Palm based PDA/phone combos.
This is fine for competition, except Microsoft has been known to leverage their monopoly power to expand it to other businesses. What gives them the right to prepackage their PocketPC software on other companies' phones? It's absolutely dispicable.
What the EU claims is that Microsoft is using their .NET Passport authentication to tie customers into a spiralling frenzy of tie-ins and products, such as Excel and Age of Empires. More and more of our consumers are being forced into purchasing these telephones and using them to converse with their cohorts while Bill Gates and Co. can listen in on their conversations. These consumer terrorists are forced to browse their email through Microsoft's scrupulous Pocket Outlook for their telephones and MSN Messenger for their SMS replacements.
In short, I just hope that the EU can finally bring down the Micro$oft empire that threatens competition in a market trying to be free. Their behavior is absolutely disgusting and unwarranted in a free market system, which is exactly why the EU must do everything they can to bring them down, because Ashcroft won't.
