An EU VISTA Hybrid?

After having just read on the BBC site that there is to be a European version of VISTA (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6049580.stm) what does this hold for our security?

Whether you agree or not with Microsoft locking down the kernel of it's next operating system, you can't help but wonder if the EU has just created a problem, and a rather large one at that.

The whole of the VISTA kernel was designed to be locked down, which raised problems for Symantec and other security firms. But does one company automatically owe another the right to a business based on competitors products? Apparently so. Strange.

Anyhow, will this new VISTA, with its open Kernel, be as secure as originally envisaged? Probably not, since it goes against the philosophy it was designed to.

Will Microsoft take as much care over the millions of PCs in Europe (after being taken to court yet again), when the bulk of its market is in the US and other countries? Probably not.

Is this going to pose a long term problem for the coming years? Probably.

Will Microsoft get blamed for making insecure software, when it's the EU legal team that's designing its software? Probably.

Is this a shoddy state of affairs when a company (whether you like them or not) can't operate to market demands and decide its own future? Definitely.

What does this hold for the rest of us? Does every application written have to be open source? While this may be some peoples favourite, whatever happened to the right to choice?

Worrying times.