Probably not. If you, as an outsider you see that Microsoft is sold as a bundle of software.
- The kernel
- The GUI
- Firewall
- Media Player
- Browser
- …
The major difference between this setup, and one from Linux. Linux is A LOT more modular. For example if you take a look at Windows’ Help (just press F1 when you are on your desktop.).
It actually IS an Internet Explorer window, with customized properties.
So you can’t just remove Internet Explorer’s engine (Trident) and replace it with Firefox, since Internet Explorer is a lot more versatile, it’s not just a browser to display internet pages, a lot more components in windows depend on that engine to display text and pictures!
It’s not that easy to replace that component, because Firefox does not accept that API.
So I think that the EU should first decide what they want: do they want the icon to be removed, or the whole engine.
If it is the second answer they should force Microsoft to create an API, where other components can plug into so they can have their replacement for the Trident engine.
But they need to do a lot more research before they start screaming that IE has to be removed from Windows.
Just one point. What about Apple bundling Safari and Linux bundling Firefox?
I don’t think they can force Linux to do it, because Opera can just make Opera Open Source and build their own distro for it.
But you’re right for Apple. But Apple isn’t considered evil (while it should be considering their iTunes <> iPod (it’s very hard to manage it with another app.)).
If they force Microsoft to separate IE they should force Apple to do the same with Safari. Though I think that Mac OS X is a bit more modular as compared to Windows Vista & Windows 7. So separating should not be that hard (if I recall correctly you can just remove Safari by dragging Safari.app to the recycled bin.)