From the beginning of a legal dispute between Microsoft and the European Union in 2009--the unresolved conflict to enable European Windows users to easily download other web-browsers has resulted in a steep fine that was excused once by the former E.U. competitive commissioner, and has not yet been resolved.
Current E.U. competitive commissioner Joaquín Almunia, believes it was foolish to leave Microsoft solely responsible for fixing the issue and faithfully pursuing the agreement that was made back in 2009. All Almunia is requesting from Microsoft is that they come to a mutual settlement and efficiently fix the problem, so no drawn-out legal battles continue in the future.
"We trusted Microsoft's reports on the agreement to the settlement," says Almunia.
Since the end of 2011 Microsoft stated they were assuming control and a resolution was at hand, however, the failure to add a browser ballot system remained and it effected over 15 million trusty European Windows users, restricting them to only Internet Explorer--Microsoft's very own search engine. Microsoft states they take full responsibility for any inconveniences, technical support errors and any other problems that are attributed from the web ballot system.
Almunia's office is also in a negotiation process with Google, regarding the way the company operates and controls its search engine. Almnuia believes that the severity of the fine will keep other software businesses in line and Microsoft being an example of what could happen to other businesses that do the same.
