Microsoft Corp is formulating a proposal in a bid to resolve unfair-business-practice allegations, Fair Trade Commission vice chairman Chen Chi-yuan (陳紀元) said yesterday.
The world's beiggest software maker is expected to present the deal to the commission today, Chen said.
The commission is scheduled to hold a meeting on Thursday to decide whether the Microsoft offer is acceptable, he said.
Negotiations were concluded over the weekend on Microsoft's request for a settlement on the dispute which centers on its alleged manipulation of pricing in an effort to dominate the local market.
The commission began its probe last May, with the investigation originallly focusing on the allegation that Microsoft had been forcing local customers to buy accompanying products with some purchases.
The commission has also sought to investigate whether Microsoft has abused its near monopoly position for PC operating systems to ramp up local prices.
"During negotiations with Microsoft, both sides had showed a sincere desire to resolve the dispute," Chen said. "But, whether the case will be settled depends on the results of Thursday's meeting."
Chen said that the commission will only be considering what is in the public's best interest.
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But she confirmed that Will Poole, senior vice president of the company's new media division, is scheduled to visit Taiwan today. Poole is likely to meet with representatives of the local information-technology sector, she said.
Poole's visit to Taiwan has nothing to do with the commission's probe, Cherng ssaid.
"The visit is just part of Microsoft's routine operations," she said.
During the probe, Microsoft has said that it would set up a technology center here. Local lawmakers had criticized the US-based corporation for attempting to use the center offer as a way to influence trade-commission officials.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained