Microsoft rivals scorn Microsoft's web browser move

BRUSSELS: Several rivals of Microsoft raised doubts on Friday about the merit of the US software giant's plans to strip the Internet Explorer web browser from its ubiquitous Windows operating system in Europe.

Microsoft said on Thursday that it would ship its Windows 7 operating system in Europe without Internet explorer in hope of avoiding a new antitrust showdown with EU competition regulators.

"I don't think it's enough. It's too little, too late," Opera Software chief technology officer Hakon Wium told journalists after Microsoft's announcement.

The European Commission, Europe's top competition watchdog, filed formal antitrust charges against Microsoft in January for allegedly squashing rival web browser makers by bundling its Internet Explorer into Windows.

"The interesting thing is that Microsoft has been saying for years that removing Internet Explorer is impossible, and suddenly it's really very easy," said Opera chief executive Jon S von Tetzchner.

Thomas Vinje, a lawyer representing anti-Microsoft lobby European Committee for Interoperable Systems, said that the US software company's announcement "is essentially an acknowledgement by Microsoft that it has been breaking the law."

He said that Microsoft's move "seems almost purposely designed to make fun of the commission and to make it unnecessarily look bad", hurting consumer interests by forcing the sale of computers without web browsers ready to surf the Internet.

Instead of offering no web browsers, Opera wants computers to display a window when they are first booted up that would give consumers a choice of browsers.

"It remains absolutely essential that the commission proceeds with the case as it intended to proceed and that it impose a remedy including a ballot screen," Vinje said.