Residual anger directed toward Microsoft might be driving the European investigation

The software giant lost friends in many nations when it instituted Licensing 6, an expensive upgrade program that savaged some IT budgets. The complaints are essentially the same, but the venue is different. Microsoft is under attack again for leveraging its monopoly and bundling its products, but this time its lines of defense are concentrated on the European front. The European Union Antitrust Authority has been pursuing an investigation into the software giant's business practices for three years. The case, which had been drawing to a close, gained additional steam recently when a new complaint was fired into the fray by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a U.S.-based trade group that was disappointed with the outcome of the U.S. antitrust settlement. In fact, it seems that so far, Europe's antitrust investigation has been more tenacious than the one in the United States. Why is that -- and how much muscle does Europe have to bring down one of the world's most powerful companies? Does Europe hate Microsoft? That might be too broad an assessment. But Ted Schadler, principal analyst with Forrester Research, told that Microsoft's succeed-at-all-costs mentality might engender more hostility across the Atlantic than it does in the United States. "Microsoft is not as naturally respected in Europe as it is here."