Boston.com / Business / Technology / EU hurts itself in hurting Microsoft "There's something about Microsoft Corp. that makes smart people stupid. It's not the company's products, annoying though they can be. Instead, it's the aura of arrogant, absolute power emanating from the world's biggest software maker. It drives some people into a blind fury, a determination to hurt Microsoft, no matter the cost to consumers or the software industry.
Mindless Microsoft rage has shattered careers and companies. The once-great computer networking firm Novell Inc. nearly killed itself with an ill-considered billion-dollar crusade against Microsoft. The first judge in the company's epic US antitrust trial, Thomas Penfield Jackson, committed public self-immolation. Jackson came closer than anyone has to destroying MicrosoftIndeed, he ruled that the company should be smashed to bits. But his injudicious and insulting comments, made to a reporter during the trial, resulted in an humiliating smackdown by an appeals court.
The bureaucrats of Europe are too subtle and discreet to make Jackson's mistake. The full text of their ruling that Microsoft has violated European Union anti-monopoly law hasn't been released yet. But the published summary, complete with proposed remedies, is a calm and lucid document, composed by people who seem to have gone slightly nuts."
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