BBC.com

Microsoft agreed to support other browsers on its operating system Microsoft has reached agreement with European Union anti-trust regulators to allow European users a choice of web browsers. The accord ends 10 years of dispute between the two sides. Over that time, the EU imposed fines totalling 1.68bn euros ($2.44bn, £1.5bn). The European Commission said Microsoft's legally binding agreement ended the dispute and averted a possible fine for the company. The Commission's concern was that the US computer giant may have broken competition rules by bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with its dominant Windows operating system. This is a victory for the future of the web Jon von Tetzchner, chief executive, Opera Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "Millions of European consumers will benefit from this decision by having a free choice about which web browser they use." Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said the company was "embarking on a path that will require significant change". "Nevertheless, we believe that these are important steps that resolve these competition law concerns," he added. Better browsers Ms Kroes said Microsoft's pledge was an incentive for web browser companies to innovate and offer better browsers in the future. Internet Explorer is used by more than half of global internet users, with Mozilla's Firefox at about 32% and Norway's Opera with 2%. It was the minnow operator, Opera, that brought the latest complaint about browsers in 2007.

The company's chief executive, Jon von Tetzchner, agreed the move would boost innovation.

"This is a victory for the future of the web. This decision is also a celebration of open web standards, as these shared guidelines are the necessary ingredients for innovation."

Nevertheless, we believe that these are important steps that resolve these competition law concerns."

Microsoft's commitments on web browsers will be valid in the European Economic Area for five years.

Dominant bundle

In preliminary findings released in January, the European Commission said Microsoft "may have infringed" a European Treaty by "abusing its dominant market position" by bundling the company's web browser with its Windows PC operating system.

In July, Microsoft proposed a consumer choice screen that allowed users to pick from a number of different browsers.

The Commission then asked Microsoft to improve the choice screen, which it has now done.

In 2004, the EU fined Microsoft and forced it to offer a version of its Windows operating system without Microsoft's own media player.

The company was also told to give rivals more information about how Windows works, so they could make their own software integrate better with the operating system.

Microsoft appealed against the decision but lost its case in 2007.

Outstanding concerns

There remain, though, unresolved areas of dispute between the two parties. Although here, too, progress has been made.

Microsoft has submitted an improved version of undertakings it made in July on interoperability.

These are designed to address EU concerns about improving the compatibility of third-party products with several Microsoft ones, such as Windows and Microsoft Office.

The Commission welcomed this move too, but said it would monitor its impact on the market. Any findings would be taken into account in a pending anti-trust investigation on interoperability, it said.

TheNewYorkTimes.com

This was the year when the frenzy to gain early admission to the nation’s most selective colleges seemed likely to subside, at least in part because a student admitted under a binding early program cannot seek competing financial aid offers as leverage to negotiate a better package.

But for many admissions offices, there appears to have been no letup.

Duke, Northwestern, Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and Dartmouth, among other highly selective colleges, received substantially more applications for their early decision programs this year than they did last.

Other colleges, including Wesleyan, Emory, Pomona and Grinnell, drew about as many early applications this fall as they did last fall, a time when the economic downturn was only just beginning. Each of those programs requires students to withdraw all other applications and attend if admitted.

“The fear of not getting in is a trump card,” said Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, a private school, and a former admissions officer at Stanford. “That fear is more powerful than any piece of factual information, such as, ‘Gee, colleges are having a hard time with financial aid, maybe we should cast our net fairly widely and not jump the gun and throw our eggs all in one basket.”’

Not all colleges held their ground, however. Yale and Williams saw a drop in early applications.

For the colleges themselves, which sent notifications to early-admission applicants this week, the calculus appears to have been more complicated. While early decision candidates are some of the savviest, most talented — and, yes, financially flush students — the increase in early decision applications did not necessarily translate into a surge of offers of admission.

Cornell, for example, received an additional 136 applications for its binding early decision program this fall, when compared to last, but accepted 103 fewer students than last year.

While nearly 40 percent of the seats in next year’s freshman class at Cornell are now reserved, the university has still allowed itself much flexibility for the main round of admission, when most students will apply. Moreover, colleges like Cornell are committed to assembling the most diverse classes possible — including racially and socio-economically diverse classes — and many of those who apply early tend to be white and of some means.

Johns Hopkins and Brown also received more early applications this fall, but accepted fewer students.

“Colleges are hesitant to go beyond a certain line when it comes to the percentage of the incoming class that they obtain through early decision,” said David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “They’re aware of the research, and the potential inequities they might produce if they cross that line.”

Still, it is difficult to find a clear theme in all the colleges’ application figures for this fall. Williams, which has a binding early admission program, received 73 fewer applications this fall, a drop of 13.5 percent. And Yale — which has a non-binding early program, but which requires that its early applicants apply to no other early programs — received nearly 300 fewer applications, a drop of 5 percent.

And yet, Stanford, which has a program similar to Yale’s, got 183 more applications than last fall, an increase of 4 percent. And early applications to M.I.T., another non-binding program, surged by 13 percent, the university said Wednesday night.

In the case of Stanford and M.I.T., early applicants had little to lose, for they have until May to decide whether they wish to attend, a period in which they can consider other colleges’ offers.

In response to criticisms of early programs in recent years as the province of the elite (and the plugged-in), Harvard and the University of Virginia are among a handful of schools that have discontinued their early programs.

Some college counselors — including Bill McClintick, a counselor at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, and a former president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling — said some students at his school had specifically bypassed any binding early programs this fall, in favor of non-binding, to preserve their financial options.

Mr. Reider said several of his students had made similar decisions to bypass early decision entirely for the main round.

“I have to write a lot of recommendation letters now,” he said.