The Consumers’ Foundation (消基會) yesterday urged the Fair Trade Commission (FTC ) to investigate whether Microsoft Corp’s decision to stop sales of Windows XP operating system violates the Fair Trade Law (公平交易法).
“Microsoft has a monopoly position in Taiwan with a nearly 98 percent market share. It is unfair for the company to use its monopoly power to force consumers to pay a higher price to use the Vista operating system,” foundation acting chairman Hsieh Tien-jen (謝天仁) said at a media briefing.
Windows Vista costs up to NT$2,000 more than Windows XP, which Hsieh said was an additional burden on the consumer.
The foundation conducted a survey last month which showed that 61 percent of Taiwanese consumers said they were bothered by the fact that they could not choose the operating system that they prefer when buying new computers.
Another 56 percent of respondents said they would like to reinstall Windows XP into their newly bought computers that come with Windows Vista, while 67 percent said they disagreed with the decision to stop selling Windows XP.
The foundation said the survey showed that consumers were not only unsatisfied with Windows Vista, but also unhappy with the way Microsoft conducts business.
It said Microsoft shouldn’t have stopped selling Windows XP until it had come up with a better operating system, and consumers should have the right to choose the operating system they prefer.
Among the four editions of Windows Vista currently available, only users of Business and Ultimate editions are allowed to legally downgrade the operating system of their computers to Windows XP. Users of Home Basic and Home Premium editions are not allowed to do so.
FTC Commissioner Chou Ya-shu (周雅淑) said yesterday that the commission had launched an investigation on Aug. 4 to determine whether Microsoft had abused its dominant market position in Taiwan, but that it would continue to respect the company’s management autonomy.
In response, Microsoft Taiwan Corp said by telephone yesterday that it would conduct a large-scale survey after three months to obtain consumer feedback and find out what support consumers need.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS