EU names trustee for Microsoft

The Washington Post reports that Neil Barrett was one of several candidates proposed by the US giant as a monitoring trustee and he was selected by competition authorities in Brussels to advise them. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said the Commission was \'absolutely determined to ensure that Microsoft complies fully with the (2004 anti-trust) decision.\' Last year, Brussels ordered Microsoft to change the way it sells software in Europe and to pay a fine of nearly 500m euros. The decision also foresaw the naming of a trustee to monitor compliance by the company. Microsoft is seeking to overturn the decision in court. Full report in The Washington Post

And in what may be the beginning of the next great public feud between technology giants, Yahoo has questioned whether the great minds behind Internet rival Google have any strategy at all. ITWeb reports that Yahoo\'s CE Terry Semel labelled Google as a glorified portal without a solid Web strategy. Google \'doesn\'t seem to have a real plan,\' he said at a Web conference in San Francisco. Semel\'s outburst ends a lengthy period of silence from Yahoo, during which analysts have increasingly been suggesting that the long-time darling of Silicon Valley has been caught in a slumber while Google tears a path of innovation through the industry. Google has been rolling out one new initiative after another, from plans to blanket San Francisco with wireless Internet access to powerful search tools geared to bloggers and mobile users. It\'s now mentioned daily as one of the biggest threats to Microsoft. Full ITWeb report