Harish Palaniappan's

An European court has ruled against Microsoft Corporation, for unhealthy competition, and fined them Euro 497 million.. it is 497 millions.. my god. If Europe wants money, they can ask, not pull a company by its tail like this, just because courts are in control by politics.

I also have my things against Microsoft..and their competition tactics.. but this is too much. You know what the fine was for... For packaging windows media player along with their Windows operating systems.. it seems because of this, people are demotivated to not buy any other media players made by European companies (stupid companies who can't make one better than microsoft probably), and Europe can't help them any other way but this.

Once a friend of mine, equated this to selling cars without seats and with seats and accessories. Will you file a case immediately on the car company saying they are crushing seat manufacturing companies because they are packaging seats with the car.

I don't know.. but please don't try buying Microsoft software in Europe.. The villians, they first got IE out of the package, now windows media player.. and what not.. if you buy Windows XP from Europe I think all it will say is windows booted...nothing else might be there.

Yes, Microsoft has sometimes tried to take upperhand of pushing their technology variations away from what standards organizations standardize, calling it new features, or either they stop supporting some technology (like IE still throws an error when java on the webpage tries to close the window when you have logged out of java-enabled websites).

But, it is simply their operating system, their package, their product, they are packaging their products free of cost with it... so that customers as soon as they install the system, can listen to music, browse websites and all that.

You can give a ruling recommending them to allow stuff to be uninstallable.. for example in first versions of windows XP that was shipped, msn messenger cannot be uninstalled, it was installed without asking users whether they require that.. they later released a service pack which made msn uninstallable or installable on user's selections.

Fining 497 million Euros is like taking advantage and having a cunning delight in pulling Microsoft by their shoes and celebrating with the money they pay up.

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While that news got my head popping for the harrasement Europe is showing towards Microsoft for wrong reasons, this other news got me wondering why Indian government agencies are all-out for wooing foreign indians leaving the people in india go unnoticed.

Sardar Patel award to be conferred on Sunita Williams

Sunita William no doubt has achieved a great milestone in her career.. but saying hey she is indian, i am proud..i am proud.. is like india begging for attention from around the world. The indian government bureaucrats are behaving very immatured in the way they ask for attention from the world.

First they organized pujas in temples and lined up school children on streets calling it a prayer for sunita's safe return, as if she and her crew were suffering and dying. Attention, attention .. they got even on BBC.. i was ashamed to see indian school children made to pessimistically pray for a proper landing of space shuttle to grab attention of world media for india.

All this looks like indians are vulnerable and pessimistic to the extreme extent. I don't buy the stuff that all those children really knew who sunita williams was and why they were asked to stand in lines and pray. It is bull shit methods of advertizing.

Now, sunita is visiting her place in gujarat.. probably she visited here before her being popular also. but now we want to cover the episode, give her a red carpet welcome. ok.. at least all that is fine, she deserves to be welcomed.. but giving her sardar patel award all of a sudden, is definitely an attention grabbing act. If they had genuine reasons, atleast they would have given the award quietly rather than promoting it on the press much before.

To Indian bureaucrats in the government:
Grow up guys.. there are much more sunitas and kalpanas in the country who you dont even care about, and we the people have to make a film like 'Chak de' to grab "your" attention to get you sponsor them playing for "your" country.
A little fund and a little optimistic talk on indian talent by you guys can do much better attention grabbing than running behind every foreign indian celebrity, right from Mittal, to sunita.