Color us non-surprised

The EU hasn't got a clue about economics and business:

LUXEMBOURG – The European Commission forced the world's largest software maker to offer a product no one wanted and no one bought, Microsoft Corp. told a European Union court today as it began trying to overturn a landmark antitrust ruling.

Microsoft lawyer Jean-Francois Bellis said in his opening statement that the Commission made
"fundamental errors of fact and reasoning" in its decision two years ago that the company abused its dominant market position to muscle into media software.

The Commission's order that Microsoft offer customers a version of its Windows desktop operating system without Media Player — intended to give people a free choice of media software — has been a spectacular failure, he said.

In its core market, no computer maker had shipped a PC or laptop with the media-free Windows XP N version. "Not a single one," Bellis told the 13 judges. Some 90 percent of Windows sales come from being pre-installed on computers when they are sold.

XP N sales represent 0.005 percent of overall XP sales in Europe, Microsoft told the court, and many of the ones produced may remain unsold, it said.

French retailer FNAC, the single largest retailer to order XP N accounting for 46 percent of the orders, has said that it sees no consumer demand for the product, Microsoft said.