EU Responds to MSFT's Antitrust Case Solution

The European Union has responded to earlier new that Microsoft will ship Windows 7 without the brower to European customers.

However it seems European regulators are unhappy with Microsoft's efforts, and in a statement issued soon after the Redmond company’s plans hit the wire, the EU has said the company has gone in the wrong direction completely and limited the user’s choice of browser even further.

"As for retail sales, which amount to less than 5 percent of total sales, the Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of Web browsers," the Commission said, according to CNet. "Instead Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a Web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less," the statement concluded.

Microsoft’s plan to offer PC makers the choice isn’t much of a change from old practices of shipping the browser with its operating system. Opera believe that the company’s endeavor to remedy the situation by not offering it at all is, “too little, too late” and detailed that it preferred the European Unions solution of providing users with a ‘ballot screen’ and allowing them to choose before they connected to the Internet.