Microsoft's lawyer Brad Smith said in a conference call a few minutes ago that removing the Windows Media Player would harm consumers by delivering them less value and a lower quality, less functional product that would not work properly with many programs and Web sites. Consumers would be better off, he argued, if the EC had accepted Microsoft's offer to ship three media players with Windows instead. "I think today's decision is not just a setback for Microsoft but for for the entire industry, and for consumers.
Smith also said that the Commission was "ordering the compulsory licensing of our intellectual property". This "infringes our rights in Europe," he said, and "runs afoul of" the EC's obligations to the World Trade Organisation.
Microsoft will now take the battle to court, a process that Smith expected would take four or five years.
Comment: Microsoft's offer to ship three media players would have applied worldwide, which is a solution that Microsoft rejected in the US anti-trust case, where I seem to recall that Gates compared it to forcing Coke to ship bottles of Pepsi. However, it seems that only Europeans will be forced to accept broken copies of Windows.
