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Microsoft may want to leave Windows XP behind, but Taiwan
actively refuses to do so. It may sound strange at first, but it appears that
the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission doesn’t approve of the company’s way of “forcing”
people to choose Windows Vista as their operating system.
The Commission began an antitrust investigation on a very
delicate matter: is Microsoft using monopoly to boost Vista sales? The first
arguments in their complaint involve customer dissatisfaction with Vista, which
makes them install Windows XP on Vista-enabled computers.
But do they really have a case against Microsoft? In fact,
what Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission is trying to do is make Microsoft continue
selling a product they do not wish to continue selling. Furthermore, even
though they accuse Microsoft of unfair market competition, is it fair to make
them re-sell the XP, now that the operating system has a successor?
According to experts in the field, the Taiwanese commission
doesn’t have a solid case against Microsoft. Since Microsoft continues to offer
XP support until 2014, and continues to offer Windows XP on low-cost computers, it appears they didn't "kill" XP afterall, they just retired it.
But officials with the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission, as well
as most users, represented by the nonprofit consumer’s foundation, believe
Windows X should stay. If Microsoft is to be found guilty of breaking the
Taiwanese antitrust law, they will have to pay fines.
Microsoft responded by saying they will comply with Taiwan’s
Fair Trade Commission investigation, as well as supply them with whatever
information they may require, highlighting that they continue to support fair
market competition.
Microsoft has had quite a hard time “integrating” Windows
Vista among customers, after dealing with petitions of indefinite availability
of Windows XP and a lot of resentment from users who didn’t want to get stuck
with Vista for two long years, until Windows 7 is expected to come out.
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