Word: microsoft
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Perusing the list of the top 200 companies (with a market cap of at least $250 million) produces a number of surprises. There is Apple, but no Microsoft. The Boston Beer Company makes an appearance, but not market leader Anheuser-Busch. Tractor Supply lands on the list; Wal-Mart doesn't. Even with the economic crisis, a number of financial firms show up, including asset manager Blackrock, regional bank Iberiabank and homebuilder NVR (parent of Ryan Homes). The decade's best industry: oil and natural gas. A full 34 companies - 17% of the list - either drill, transport, refine or sell...
...comes as little surprise that Microsoft is one of the key complainants in the European Commission's current investigation into software giant Oracle's $7.4 billion planned takeover of hardware-maker Sun. Microsoft is also seeking to halt a Google takeover of mobile-advertising start-up company AdMob. (See pictures of work and life at Google...
...With technologies increasingly mashing up, Microsoft is also apparently starting to accept the fact that its fortunes are improved when rivals build software and services that fit with its own. "This is a victory for the future of the Web," says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera, the tiny Norwegian browser company that brought the case against Microsoft to the European Commission. "It is a celebration of open Web standards, as these shared guidelines are the necessary ingredients for innovation...
...course, regulators still need to ensure interoperability. Microsoft has a dire record of implementing rulings made by regulators - half its European Commission fines are for failures to abide by E.U. rulings - and some cynics warn the company might "accidentally" put bugs in its systems that cause rival browsers to crash. Thomas Vinje, a lawyer for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a group of technology companies that includes IBM, Nokia, Oracle and Sun, says regulators must keep a close watch over Microsoft to ensure it doesn't drag its feet. "Our emphasis on enforcement is based on years of familiarity...
...While some competitors remain cautious, Microsoft has pledged its full cooperation. If so, it could mark a new era as the company redirects its business strategy away from maintaining its crushing market dominance and toward something it had fought against for 10 years - greater cohesion with its rivals...