“…Kirsten Ludvigsen, an analyst at IDC Research, agreed that the
EU is right to ask whether Microsoft could be more liberal with
information about its operating system. “If you leave out a third
of the ingredients, the final meal won’t taste as good,” she said.
“We think that Microsoft might be able to do a better job of
writing API specifications.”
“On the server side, there is no doubt about Microsoft’s
intention to bundle its different products and services together in
a way that is difficult to separate,” said Colin Tenwick, European
vice president for Linux vendor Red Hat Inc.. “What we have seen
continually is a business model that tries to leverage new
technology based on a dominance in the marketplace,” he said.”
“Without some sort of action, Microsoft could end up taking
over the server market as it has done in the client space, despite
an inferior operating system, said Rudiger Berlich, UK managing
director for Germany’s SuSE Linux. “Certainly a ruling against
Microsoft would weaken it and help companies gain more ground,” he
says. “It would help Microsoft users because there would be more
competition and innovation.”