08.20.08
Breaking: Polish Competition and Consumer Protection Authority Blasts Microsoft
Forwards Case to European Commission
t the end of last week we mentioned similar actions in Hugary, China, and Taiwan. Thanks to an anonymous reader, we now know that something similar has just occurred in Poland. Here is the article/press release in Polish and an automated translation. This translates — however roughly — to:
Sales of laptops, software, Microsoft may restrict competition. This proposal, carried by the UOKiK President of the investigation. Given the global reach of the action case has been forwarded to the European Commission
The investigation was initiated in December 2007 was intended to pre-determine whether the rules for the sale of portable computers installed with Microsoft operating system did not violate antitrust law.
With the materials collected in the course of the proceedings shows that the Polish market in wholesale sales of laptops present is approximately 12 manufacturers, whose headquarters are located outside the country. In the Polish act only their subsidiaries, which occupy only distribution and advertising products.
If any of the readers can translate the text for us properly, that would be grand. We already have extensive coverage of the OOXML scandal in Poland right here. That too was passed for the European Commission to handle. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.