| | By John Daly in Germany @ Monday, February 23, 2009 4:49 PM
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| | Website Euractiv.com has reported the European Commission (EC) will try to order Microsoft to unbundle its browser Internet Explorer (IE) from the Windows operating system. The EC issued a statement of objections to Microsoft early January this year.
Microsoft has still to file an answer to the EC's statement. Should the commission decide Microsoft is a bad boy and see no sound arguments objecting its preliminary conclusions, then Windows will be forced to design Windows in a way which will let consumers choose which browser they want to use, said EC spokesperson Jonathan Todd. Another possibility would be to allow PC and device makers to bundle their gadgets with a different browser. It would be the first time the EC would directly force Microsoft to change its OS.
 The case came about after Norwegian browser maker Opera had filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission in December 2008. Opera accused Microsoft of bullying all the browser makers in the world except itself by tying IE with Windows.
Locking out the competition has lead to a second Microsoft monopoly, namely in the browser market. Euractiv cited a lawyer for Opera as saying that the main question is how the EC will define the other browsers eligible as options.
“On behalf of all Internet users, we commend the Commission for taking the next step towards restoring competition in a market that Microsoft has strangled for more than a decade,” commented Opera's CEO Jon von Tetzchner in January, after the EC had declared it had sent the statement to Microsoft.
Opera has so far hardly made any inroads in the PC browser arena, in stark contrast to being a major player in the embedded and handset markets. The original browser Netscape Navigator went down the drain after Microsoft rolled out its own browser and tied it to Windows. X
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