European Commission said a full investigation may follow
Just when we think that Blu-ray and HD DVD will start showing up in mass production, the two formats enter into more trouble, this time with the European Commission. According to reports, the European Commission believes that the companies that are backing each format may have licensing terms that breach European competition rules. The report said that the European Commission launched an unofficial antitrust probe this month.
Toshiba, the leading company behind HD DVD and Sony the leading company behind Blu-ray both received letters from the European Commission earlier this month. According to a European Commission representative, "we sent a letter earlier this month to the makers of HD DVD and Blu-ray to request information about licensing." Toshiba did not respond to inquiries but Sony confirmed that it did receive a letter from the European Commission.
The European Commission is still waiting for all replies to come back. It will then decide whether or not to pursue a full anti-trust probe. A representative from Sony told reporters that "there are no indications of any complaint, nor of any antitrust concerns on the part of the Commission or anyone else."
Sony's Blu-ray format has been facing a barrage of issues since the start of the year. Sony's own Blu-ray players have been suffering from continual delays. According to earlier reports, Sony will be shipping its first Blu-ray player will be shipping only slightly ahead of its PlayStation 3 console -- currently scheduled for November 17th. On the HD DVD side, Toshiba announced earlier that it would be shipping its HD DVD players at a loss to gain a head start.
"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine." -- Bill Gates
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