Microsoft started this past decade in the midst of a fight over whether Internet Explorer (IE) was part of Windows (in U.S. antitrust courts in the U.S. Department of Justice vs. Microsoft case). The company ended it the same way in the European Union — but deciding this time to settle rather than fight.

On December 16, the European Commission announced it had agreed to Microsoft’s concessions in the Opera vs. Microsoft case. By agreeing to offer Windows users a ballot screen of browser choices, the Softies were able to avoid fines or other EC-imposed remedies. The outcome: European PC users running XP, Vista and/or Windows 7 will be getting ballot screens, listing a total of 12 browser choices, one of which will be IE. (The top five — IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera — will be listed more prominently than the other seven, AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser.)