Rivals attack Vista as illegal under EU rules

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft
Corp.'s new Vista operating system coming out next week will perpetuate
practices found illegal in the European Union nearly three years ago....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5

There's a suprise!!!!

Mike wrote:

> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that
> Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista operating system coming out next week
> will perpetuate practices found illegal in the European Union nearly
> three years ago....
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5
>
> There's a suprise!!!!

LOL!

The first of many. Microsoft may be able to bully in North America, but
not over here. Makes the bloke running one pirated version of XP look
small fry compared with the billion-dollar illegal practices Microsoft
inflict on the rest of the world.

--
Paul-B

When isn't some Euro country crying about MS.
MS should just stop selling their products over there.

Concentrate on the Chinese market... lots more customers.



"Mike" <mike@home> wrote in message news:...
> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista
> operating system coming out next week will perpetuate practices found illegal in the European
> Union nearly three years ago....
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5
>
> There's a suprise!!!!

JP wrote:
> When isn't some Euro country crying about MS.

Erm, because they are breaking the law, why else?

> MS should just stop selling their products over there.

LOL! Never happen. There are millions more consumers here than the USA
will *ever* have.

> Concentrate on the Chinese market... lots more customers.

The Chinese don't pay for Windows, haven't you heard? What good would
MS' concentration be?

Alias
>
>
>
> "Mike" <mike@home> wrote in message news:...
>> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista
>> operating system coming out next week will perpetuate practices found illegal in the European
>> Union nearly three years ago....
>>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5
>>
>> There's a suprise!!!!
>
>

Ever?

Of course, if one included the whole trading bloc of North America (NAFTA),
Europe's numbers aren't so impressive/overwhelming.

"If current forecasts prove correct, then the US - which currently has 160m fewer people than
the EU - will have equaled it by 2050."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4768644.stm

Birth rates in the European Union are falling fast.

Europe's working-age population is shrinking as fertility rates decline. In a fit of gloom, one
German minister recently warned of the country "turning the light out" if its birth rate did
not pick up.

With fewer, younger workers to pay the health and pension bills of an elderly population,
states face an unprecedented fiscal burden.


The dependency ratio of those aged 65 and over to those of working age looks set to double from
one-to-four to one-to-two in 2050.

How can Europe, which increasingly sees itself as a counterweight to US hegemony, claim equal
status when it is being outpaced by American population growth?


If current forecasts prove correct, then the US - which currently has 160m fewer people than
the EU - will have equaled it by 2050.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in546441.shtml

European Birth Rate Declines

Population Growth In E.U. Has Flipped From Positive To Negative

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...?from=storyrhs

Economists warn that Europe is in danger of becoming a backwater if labour market reforms are
not achieved. Tim Colebatch reports.

Thirty years ago, the European Union produced 25 per cent of the world's output. Today, it
produces 18 per cent. And on current trends, EU economic modellers estimate, by 2050 its share
of the world economy will shrink to just 10 per cent.

As you read this, bells will be ringing throughout Europe to celebrate 10 countries joining the
Union today. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and seven others will increase the world's
largest common market to 25 countries, more than 450 million people, and a real GDP almost 15
per cent bigger than that of the United States.

But Europe's lead will not last. Its own researchers in Brussels are warning that without
radical reforms, it risks becoming a backwater in a global economy, while the action is
elsewhere: in the US, and the developing countries that will see far greater growth in
working-age population.

Its central problem is very low fertility. Between them, every two Europeans on average now
create 1.5 children. By 2050 this will create a Europe with 12 million fewer children, 41
million fewer workers, but 41 million more retirees. By contrast, in the US, higher fertility
rates coupled with high immigration will expand the potential workforce by 60 million, and lead
to startling differences in growth between what are now the two dominant entities in the world
economy - with huge implications for financial markets.

Between 1950 and 2000, according to a new book by EU economists Kieran McMorrow and Werner
Roeger, Europe and the US grew on average by similar rates, and in both, the size of the
economy grew four or five times over. But while Europe outgrew the US in the century's third
quarter, in the final quarter it was the US that pulled away, as demographic trends drove
investment out of the old continent, into the new.

And in the half-century ahead, without reforms in Europe, their paths will diverge completely.
The US economy would grow to three or four times its present size, and expand its share of the
world economy. But Europe's output would not even double in size, while Japan's output would
grow by barely 50 per cent.

A shrinking workforce is the most obvious problem. Less obvious is the impact on investment.
With fewer people and little growth, European investment would flow overseas, like Japanese
investment in the past decade. Low returns and Europe's shrinking weight in the world economy
would see its own investors put money in faster-growing regions as Europe becomes an aged
economy.

Productivity too would suffer. Less investment would mean less new equipment, reducing
productivity growth. And arguably, fewer people between 20 and 50 would mean fewer drivers of
innovation, further reducing productivity growth.

With reforms, the problems would be greatly reduced. By lifting workforce participation,
reducing structural unemployment, making pensions less generous and ultimately shifting to an
Australian-style capital-funded superannuation system, the modelling by McMorrow and Roeger
shows, European governments would lift growth rates, reduce pension costs, hold down taxes and
create an environment where European pension funds would mostly invest at home.

This scenario is widely accepted by European leaders, who in Lisbon four years ago adopted a
reform agenda aimed at ending the tradition of early retirement on generous pensions, reining
in the cost of welfare, freeing up labor markets, firing up research and development and making
Europe the world leader in innovation by 2010.

But four years on the Lisbon agenda has made little progress. For the sense of crisis shared by
leaders and analysts has yet to get through to Europe's voters. In Germany and France, Poland
and Spain, voters have sharply rejected governments that have implemented reforms that reduce
pension entitlements and other welfare benefits, or require people to work longer before
retiring.


http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7493/692-a
Brussels
The European Union is facing unprecedented demographic change, according to the European
Commission, which is so concerned at the implications of a falling population that it has
issued a consultation paper on the subject.
The native population of the EU's 25 member countries grew by only 0.04% in 2003, and of the 10
countries that joined the EU last year, all except Cyprus and Malta saw their populations
decline. Across the EU the fertility rate is below the threshold needed to renew the population
(around 2.1 children per woman), and in 16 countries it has fallen below 1.5. This contrasts
with the situation in 1960, when the average fertility rate of the EU's current 25 members was
just over 2.5 children and only Hungary and Latvia were below the renewal threshold.
The consultation paper indicates that the EU's current population of 458 million people will
grow by just 2% by 2025-and only because of immigration-and thereafter will start to decline.
In contrast the number of people living in the United States is set to increase by 26% over the
next two decades.


"Alias" <aka@masked&anonymous.es> wrote in message news:epd9h9$78l$...
> JP wrote:
>> When isn't some Euro country crying about MS.
>
> Erm, because they are breaking the law, why else?
>
>> MS should just stop selling their products over there.
>
> LOL! Never happen. There are millions more consumers here than the USA will *ever* have.
>
>> Concentrate on the Chinese market... lots more customers.
>
> The Chinese don't pay for Windows, haven't you heard? What good would MS' concentration be?
>
> Alias
>>
>>
>>
>> "Mike" <mike@home> wrote in message news:...
>>> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft Corp.'s new
>>> Vista operating system coming out next week will perpetuate practices found illegal in the
>>> European Union nearly three years ago....
>>>
>>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5
>>>
>>> There's a suprise!!!!
>>

In article <#>, JP says...
> When isn't some Euro country crying about MS.
> MS should just stop selling their products over there.
>
It isn't the Euro countries bitching. It's the no hoper companies who
can no longer hide the fact they can't write software properly.


--
Conor

The United States, increasing quality by lowering standards since 1776.

Conor wrote:
> In article <#>, JP says...
>> When isn't some Euro country crying about MS.
>> MS should just stop selling their products over there.
>>
> It isn't the Euro countries bitching. It's the no hoper companies who
> can no longer hide the fact they can't write software properly.
>
>
Regardless of what the companies you cite can or cannot do in terms of
writing software, the eu has spoken on the matter as to what ms can and
cannot do. MS has not followed rules (and was fined for doing so-
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news...le.php/3330341), and as far as
the eu is concerned, ms allegedly is outside the lines again. It has
been stated in these very groups that if we have a grievance as to how
ms does things, to get congress to change the rules under which ms
operates. The eu has set the rules and if ms has a gripe, they can set
about getting the eu to change the rules instead of ignoring them.
--
norm

So you're saying that the EU needs to get off of their PCs and find
alternative recreation, huh? Maybe I should move to the EU.

Dale

"MICHAEL" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Ever?
>
> Of course, if one included the whole trading bloc of North America
> (NAFTA),
> Europe's numbers aren't so impressive/overwhelming.
>
> "If current forecasts prove correct, then the US - which currently has
> 160m fewer people than the EU - will have equaled it by 2050."
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4768644.stm
>
> Birth rates in the European Union are falling fast.
>
> Europe's working-age population is shrinking as fertility rates decline.
> In a fit of gloom, one German minister recently warned of the country
> "turning the light out" if its birth rate did not pick up.
>
> With fewer, younger workers to pay the health and pension bills of an
> elderly population, states face an unprecedented fiscal burden.
>
>
> The dependency ratio of those aged 65 and over to those of working age
> looks set to double from one-to-four to one-to-two in 2050.
>
> How can Europe, which increasingly sees itself as a counterweight to US
> hegemony, claim equal status when it is being outpaced by American
> population growth?
>
>
> If current forecasts prove correct, then the US - which currently has 160m
> fewer people than the EU - will have equaled it by 2050.
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in546441.shtml
>
> European Birth Rate Declines
>
> Population Growth In E.U. Has Flipped From Positive To Negative
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...?from=storyrhs
>
> Economists warn that Europe is in danger of becoming a backwater if labour
> market reforms are not achieved. Tim Colebatch reports.
>
> Thirty years ago, the European Union produced 25 per cent of the world's
> output. Today, it produces 18 per cent. And on current trends, EU economic
> modellers estimate, by 2050 its share of the world economy will shrink to
> just 10 per cent.
>
> As you read this, bells will be ringing throughout Europe to celebrate 10
> countries joining the Union today. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and
> seven others will increase the world's largest common market to 25
> countries, more than 450 million people, and a real GDP almost 15 per cent
> bigger than that of the United States.
>
> But Europe's lead will not last. Its own researchers in Brussels are
> warning that without radical reforms, it risks becoming a backwater in a
> global economy, while the action is elsewhere: in the US, and the
> developing countries that will see far greater growth in working-age
> population.
>
> Its central problem is very low fertility. Between them, every two
> Europeans on average now create 1.5 children. By 2050 this will create a
> Europe with 12 million fewer children, 41 million fewer workers, but 41
> million more retirees. By contrast, in the US, higher fertility rates
> coupled with high immigration will expand the potential workforce by 60
> million, and lead to startling differences in growth between what are now
> the two dominant entities in the world economy - with huge implications
> for financial markets.
>
> Between 1950 and 2000, according to a new book by EU economists Kieran
> McMorrow and Werner Roeger, Europe and the US grew on average by similar
> rates, and in both, the size of the economy grew four or five times over.
> But while Europe outgrew the US in the century's third quarter, in the
> final quarter it was the US that pulled away, as demographic trends drove
> investment out of the old continent, into the new.
>
> And in the half-century ahead, without reforms in Europe, their paths will
> diverge completely. The US economy would grow to three or four times its
> present size, and expand its share of the world economy. But Europe's
> output would not even double in size, while Japan's output would grow by
> barely 50 per cent.
>
> A shrinking workforce is the most obvious problem. Less obvious is the
> impact on investment. With fewer people and little growth, European
> investment would flow overseas, like Japanese investment in the past
> decade. Low returns and Europe's shrinking weight in the world economy
> would see its own investors put money in faster-growing regions as Europe
> becomes an aged economy.
>
> Productivity too would suffer. Less investment would mean less new
> equipment, reducing productivity growth. And arguably, fewer people
> between 20 and 50 would mean fewer drivers of innovation, further reducing
> productivity growth.
>
> With reforms, the problems would be greatly reduced. By lifting workforce
> participation, reducing structural unemployment, making pensions less
> generous and ultimately shifting to an Australian-style capital-funded
> superannuation system, the modelling by McMorrow and Roeger shows,
> European governments would lift growth rates, reduce pension costs, hold
> down taxes and create an environment where European pension funds would
> mostly invest at home.
>
> This scenario is widely accepted by European leaders, who in Lisbon four
> years ago adopted a reform agenda aimed at ending the tradition of early
> retirement on generous pensions, reining in the cost of welfare, freeing
> up labor markets, firing up research and development and making Europe the
> world leader in innovation by 2010.
>
> But four years on the Lisbon agenda has made little progress. For the
> sense of crisis shared by leaders and analysts has yet to get through to
> Europe's voters. In Germany and France, Poland and Spain, voters have
> sharply rejected governments that have implemented reforms that reduce
> pension entitlements and other welfare benefits, or require people to work
> longer before retiring.
>
>
> http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7493/692-a
> Brussels
> The European Union is facing unprecedented demographic change, according
> to the European Commission, which is so concerned at the implications of a
> falling population that it has issued a consultation paper on the subject.
> The native population of the EU's 25 member countries grew by only 0.04%
> in 2003, and of the 10 countries that joined the EU last year, all except
> Cyprus and Malta saw their populations decline. Across the EU the
> fertility rate is below the threshold needed to renew the population
> (around 2.1 children per woman), and in 16 countries it has fallen below
> 1.5. This contrasts with the situation in 1960, when the average fertility
> rate of the EU's current 25 members was just over 2.5 children and only
> Hungary and Latvia were below the renewal threshold.
> The consultation paper indicates that the EU's current population of 458
> million people will grow by just 2% by 2025-and only because of
> immigration-and thereafter will start to decline. In contrast the number
> of people living in the United States is set to increase by 26% over the
> next two decades.
>
>
> "Alias" <aka@masked&anonymous.es> wrote in message
> news:epd9h9$78l$...
>> JP wrote:
>>> When isn't some Euro country crying about MS.
>>
>> Erm, because they are breaking the law, why else?
>>
>>> MS should just stop selling their products over there.
>>
>> LOL! Never happen. There are millions more consumers here than the USA
>> will *ever* have.
>>
>>> Concentrate on the Chinese market... lots more customers.
>>
>> The Chinese don't pay for Windows, haven't you heard? What good would MS'
>> concentration be?
>>
>> Alias
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Mike" <mike@home> wrote in message
>>> news:...
>>>> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that
>>>> Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista operating system coming out next week will
>>>> perpetuate practices found illegal in the European Union nearly three
>>>> years ago....
>>>>
>>>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5
>>>>
>>>> There's a suprise!!!!
>>>

Paul-B,,

Why did you neglect sharing the names for the “rivals� from that URL? was is
simply convenience ?

The “rivals� remain the same within the US as your EU region.

The -difference-, the “rivals� own and control the EU Government, what’s new
about that “old� news.

Below, the “rivals� revealed; article excerpt taken from the URL Posted by
you:

“The group, which includes IBM, Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Oracle and Red Hat,
said its complaints made last year are yet to be addressed just days before
Vista is due for release.�

*Question, who factually is complaining; the trouble instigating “rivals� or
others…

--
Life is Wonderful while using Vista solo !

Posting & Painting
"Painting, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and
exposing them to the critic."

Ambrose Bierce
**********



"Paul-B" wrote:

> Mike wrote:
>
> > BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that
> > Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista operating system coming out next week
> > will perpetuate practices found illegal in the European Union nearly
> > three years ago....
> >
> > http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5
> >
> > There's a suprise!!!!
>
> LOL!
>
> The first of many. Microsoft may be able to bully in North America, but
> not over here. Makes the bloke running one pirated version of XP look
> small fry compared with the billion-dollar illegal practices Microsoft
> inflict on the rest of the world.
>
> --
> Paul-B
>

Who cares about the birth rate. Really, who cares?

If anyone here had any sense, they wouldn't be saying things like "just pull
out of a country". With such ignorance about business practise in general,
you know pulling out of a country (or a whole continent) is not a simple
thing to do.

Besides, why would Microsoft pull out of a region that makes them so much
profit? Obviously they make more money than the fines they get handed from
the EC so what a stupid thing to say about pulling out of the EU!

"MICHAEL" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Ever?
>
> Of course, if one included the whole trading bloc of North America
> (NAFTA),
> Europe's numbers aren't so impressive/overwhelming.
>
> "If current forecasts prove correct, then the US - which currently has
> 160m fewer people than the EU - will have equaled it by 2050."
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4768644.stm
>
> Birth rates in the European Union are falling fast.
>
> Europe's working-age population is shrinking as fertility rates decline.
> In a fit of gloom, one German minister recently warned of the country
> "turning the light out" if its birth rate did not pick up.
>
> With fewer, younger workers to pay the health and pension bills of an
> elderly population, states face an unprecedented fiscal burden.
>
>
> The dependency ratio of those aged 65 and over to those of working age
> looks set to double from one-to-four to one-to-two in 2050.
>
> How can Europe, which increasingly sees itself as a counterweight to US
> hegemony, claim equal status when it is being outpaced by American
> population growth?
>
>
> If current forecasts prove correct, then the US - which currently has 160m
> fewer people than the EU - will have equaled it by 2050.
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in546441.shtml
>
> European Birth Rate Declines
>
> Population Growth In E.U. Has Flipped From Positive To Negative
>
> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...?from=storyrhs
>
> Economists warn that Europe is in danger of becoming a backwater if labour
> market reforms are not achieved. Tim Colebatch reports.
>
> Thirty years ago, the European Union produced 25 per cent of the world's
> output. Today, it produces 18 per cent. And on current trends, EU economic
> modellers estimate, by 2050 its share of the world economy will shrink to
> just 10 per cent.
>
> As you read this, bells will be ringing throughout Europe to celebrate 10
> countries joining the Union today. Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and
> seven others will increase the world's largest common market to 25
> countries, more than 450 million people, and a real GDP almost 15 per cent
> bigger than that of the United States.
>
> But Europe's lead will not last. Its own researchers in Brussels are
> warning that without radical reforms, it risks becoming a backwater in a
> global economy, while the action is elsewhere: in the US, and the
> developing countries that will see far greater growth in working-age
> population.
>
> Its central problem is very low fertility. Between them, every two
> Europeans on average now create 1.5 children. By 2050 this will create a
> Europe with 12 million fewer children, 41 million fewer workers, but 41
> million more retirees. By contrast, in the US, higher fertility rates
> coupled with high immigration will expand the potential workforce by 60
> million, and lead to startling differences in growth between what are now
> the two dominant entities in the world economy - with huge implications
> for financial markets.
>
> Between 1950 and 2000, according to a new book by EU economists Kieran
> McMorrow and Werner Roeger, Europe and the US grew on average by similar
> rates, and in both, the size of the economy grew four or five times over.
> But while Europe outgrew the US in the century's third quarter, in the
> final quarter it was the US that pulled away, as demographic trends drove
> investment out of the old continent, into the new.
>
> And in the half-century ahead, without reforms in Europe, their paths will
> diverge completely. The US economy would grow to three or four times its
> present size, and expand its share of the world economy. But Europe's
> output would not even double in size, while Japan's output would grow by
> barely 50 per cent.
>
> A shrinking workforce is the most obvious problem. Less obvious is the
> impact on investment. With fewer people and little growth, European
> investment would flow overseas, like Japanese investment in the past
> decade. Low returns and Europe's shrinking weight in the world economy
> would see its own investors put money in faster-growing regions as Europe
> becomes an aged economy.
>
> Productivity too would suffer. Less investment would mean less new
> equipment, reducing productivity growth. And arguably, fewer people
> between 20 and 50 would mean fewer drivers of innovation, further reducing
> productivity growth.
>
> With reforms, the problems would be greatly reduced. By lifting workforce
> participation, reducing structural unemployment, making pensions less
> generous and ultimately shifting to an Australian-style capital-funded
> superannuation system, the modelling by McMorrow and Roeger shows,
> European governments would lift growth rates, reduce pension costs, hold
> down taxes and create an environment where European pension funds would
> mostly invest at home.
>
> This scenario is widely accepted by European leaders, who in Lisbon four
> years ago adopted a reform agenda aimed at ending the tradition of early
> retirement on generous pensions, reining in the cost of welfare, freeing
> up labor markets, firing up research and development and making Europe the
> world leader in innovation by 2010.
>
> But four years on the Lisbon agenda has made little progress. For the
> sense of crisis shared by leaders and analysts has yet to get through to
> Europe's voters. In Germany and France, Poland and Spain, voters have
> sharply rejected governments that have implemented reforms that reduce
> pension entitlements and other welfare benefits, or require people to work
> longer before retiring.
>
>
> http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7493/692-a
> Brussels
> The European Union is facing unprecedented demographic change, according
> to the European Commission, which is so concerned at the implications of a
> falling population that it has issued a consultation paper on the subject.
> The native population of the EU's 25 member countries grew by only 0.04%
> in 2003, and of the 10 countries that joined the EU last year, all except
> Cyprus and Malta saw their populations decline. Across the EU the
> fertility rate is below the threshold needed to renew the population
> (around 2.1 children per woman), and in 16 countries it has fallen below
> 1.5. This contrasts with the situation in 1960, when the average fertility
> rate of the EU's current 25 members was just over 2.5 children and only
> Hungary and Latvia were below the renewal threshold.
> The consultation paper indicates that the EU's current population of 458
> million people will grow by just 2% by 2025-and only because of
> immigration-and thereafter will start to decline. In contrast the number
> of people living in the United States is set to increase by 26% over the
> next two decades.
>
>
> "Alias" <aka@masked&anonymous.es> wrote in message
> news:epd9h9$78l$...
>> JP wrote:
>>> When isn't some Euro country crying about MS.
>>
>> Erm, because they are breaking the law, why else?
>>
>>> MS should just stop selling their products over there.
>>
>> LOL! Never happen. There are millions more consumers here than the USA
>> will *ever* have.
>>
>>> Concentrate on the Chinese market... lots more customers.
>>
>> The Chinese don't pay for Windows, haven't you heard? What good would MS'
>> concentration be?
>>
>> Alias
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Mike" <mike@home> wrote in message
>>> news:...
>>>> BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that
>>>> Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista operating system coming out next week will
>>>> perpetuate practices found illegal in the European Union nearly three
>>>> years ago....
>>>>
>>>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/...rosoft_eu_dc_5
>>>>
>>>> There's a suprise!!!!
>>>