A hollow victory (Microsoft)

In a soundbite, EuroNews told it like this: “EU defeats mighty Microsoft”

The full story 

Microsoft will now have to open its protocols to its rivals. Server applications written for different operating systems will be able to inter-operate with Microsoft ones (for a small fee and royalties). This will allow outside developers to compete with Microsoft on their own turf and (hopefully) lower prices across the board.

But is it really “a victory for consumers”,  as Kroes was saying?

This is total fantasy. The market looks like this, as of October 2007:

Apache (Linux) 47.73%
Microsoft 37.13%
Google 5.44%
Sun 1.58%
lighttpd 1.08%

As we see, Microsoft barely has more than a third of the market. The fact is, Open Source has won this battle, sitting at the top of the pack. Microsoft has NEVER been the dominant server software provider. It seems the EU Commission cannot distinguish between desktops and servers.