First official reply from the European Commission ref. complaint on illegal forced selling of Windows

[Laurent GUERBY]

On Sun, 2006-07-02 at 22:28 +0200, Alessandro Rubini wrote:
> > namely the consumer demand powers the fact that Microsoft has a virtual
> > monopoly.
> 
> I understand that manufacturers want to preinstall windows on every
> laptop instead of doing that on demand in 95% of them.

Just packaging with an easy way for the vendor to remove the Microsoft
sticker and Certificate of Authenticity if the client doesn't want to
pay Microsoft Windows is enough, and of course the vendor present the
software price tag (as already required by law in most countries but
not enforced).

Then Microsoft might or might not want to sue people that use Windows
without a valid certificate, but Microsoft does know their IP address
and can get to the real people easily in most (if not all) countries.

No one asks for on-demand configuration in a mass market like laptops.

(Dell already produces it ... for brazilian customers, not for european
ones.)

Laurent
http://guerby.org/blog/