Microsoft’s Mr Smith goes to Europe in quest to win Activision deal

Microsoft President Brad Smith has spent this week in Europe trying to convince EU and UK regulators - and a gaming rival - to support the company's $69 billion bid for Activision Blizzard. Regulators on both sides of the Brexit border are skeptical of the deal on antitrust grounds and Microsoft is on a charm offensive. Any …

[chuckufarley]

The eventual winners...

...cannot be the end users because the markets are rigged to reward stake holders first. Blocking this merger outright is the best chance the governments can give the end user. This is a classic case of a corporation that cannot tell the difference between `Too Much' and `Not Enough' and I believe that any expansions on the part of Microsoft without full public disclosure will do them a great harm in the long run. They need to be honest and open like the FLOSS ecosystem if they do not want another user revolt (github) to happen.

Anyone have a better point of view?

[Groo The Wanderer]

"We're not monopolists - until we buy Sony next. THEN you can claim we're 'monopolists.'" :(

[Anonymous Coward]

MS will not be happy until your entire paycheck is deposited directly into one of their accounts. And they'll charge you for the priviledge.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

"We're not monopolists, we just don't believe anyone should be allowed to compete with us"

Seriously, this is a deal that's good for Micros~1's profit margin and nothing else. No sensible antitrust or monopoly oversight body should even consider approving it.

[John Brown (no body)]

Enforced "sharing"

Back in the day, Sky and Virgin Media got into a spat over broadcast rights and the costs of sharing. Sky want to bump up the prices to VM. VM complained that Sky was raising the prices to cut VM out of the loop and become a monopoly. It went to court and Sky was told they must share their channels at a reasonable price so as not to become a monopoly and be subject to some very stringent oversight. They reluctantly agreed with the courts and regulators decision and a list of the channels and price points was drawn up. Very shortly afterwards, Sky created a new channel, Sky Atlantic, not in the sharing agreement and all the "good" stuff moved to that channel, gutting their so-called premier channel SkyOne to a Simpsons repeat channel. So VM got to re-broadcast the Sky owned channels at prices that keeps them in the game and Sky still got their exclusive content that VM only get on repeat a year or so later.

Dealing with and preventing monopolies is complicated and potential monopolist WILL use every trick in the book and then some to create advantage.

[Anonymous Coward]

There really should be a law that any company that does mass layoffs cannot acquire any other company for at least five years.