3 ms·

Honestly I chalk this one up mostly to just international trade mercantilism. The EU relatively weaker at developing international software, so slapping "antit

Honestly I chalk this one up mostly to just international trade mercantilism. The EU relatively weaker at developing international software, so slapping "antitrust fines" on Microsoft (which probably have nonzero merit) is a good way of "group negotiation" to get a bulk discount on Microsoft (US) products. The analogy is how the USA is relatively less good at making quality cheese and wine compared to the EU, so the USA allows any sparking wine to be labeled "Champagne" and any Emmental-style cheese to be labeled "Swiss". Trump got many things wrong, but got the trade negotiation right when he slapped back luxury wine tariffs on France in return for France fining US software companies -- bulk discounts in both cases.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Per the article, it seems that it's Slack that's been making the noise and pushing for this, and EU is just playing ball (perhaps because of the mercantilism you mention).
- idkyall 3y ago
  But Slack is owned by Salesforce, a US company
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    But both Slack and Microsoft operate in the EU market as well. Slack is trying to buy itself some breathing room by convincing the EU to go after Microsoft.
spacebanana7 3y ago
> a good way of "group negotiation" to get a bulk discount on Microsoft (US) products. More broadly - the EU has an interest in the terms of trade in software being more consumer friendly because it's a net importer of software products.