[Alpine]

Volish Monopoly player


CONVICTED MONOPOLIST Microsoft is in trouble with the Justice Department over its forthcoming operating system Vista.


The Department says that it has had shedloads of complaints about Vista, mostly focused on its introductory "first-boot" screen.

Apparently, it is dead difficult to customise the initial process of booting up Vista. PC makers who use those initial screens to offer broadband Internet access, antivirus and other PC-related services and software are a bit miffed. According to the Wall Street Journal, on Tuesday a small printer ink maker called HP had a few words with Vole over the screens and was one of those which ratted Microsoft to the Justice Department.

The complaints have been revealed by the DoJ report into Volish compliance of its 2001 antitrust settlement with the federal government. Meanwhile Google is also miffed with Vole about the way its Internet Explorer 7 Web-browser software handles searches. Google wants Microsoft to ask consumers which search service they want as a default when upgrading from older versions of Explorer. Vole says that would be rude and it was a lot more polite to just give them MSN instead.

The INQuirer