IBM (IBM) has become a target of antitrust regulators in the European Union. Several media sources say that a US company called T3 Technologies claims that IBM refused to offer its software on IBM hardware.
At almost the same moment, the antitrust watchdogs in Europe are after Microsoft (MSFT) again. The officials have an old concern, which is that Redmond gets market share for its Internet Explorer web browser by packaging it with other Microsoft software. If IE was not bleeding market share to competing products, that charge might make sense.
It is odd that similar charges and investigations are not popping up in the US, China, India, or any other large country or region in the world.
What appears to be the case is that the EU is more zealous in its tracking down of antitrust targets, but that may put it out of sync with the practices everywhere else. Protectionism? Maybe. More likely it is bureaucrats who have nothing better to do.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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