Betting that European antitrust regulators will okay its proposal for a "ballot screen" and facing opposition from computer makers and corporate customers, Microsoft late Friday abandoned plans to ship Windows 7 without Internet Explorer (IE).

At the same time, a company executive said Microsoft wasn't happy with having to give equal time to rival browsers. "As you might imagine, it was not easy for Microsoft to accept the idea that we would essentially promote directly competing software from within our flagship product, Windows," said Dave Heiner, Microsoft's deputy general counsel and a company vice president.

More: http://computerworld.com/s/article/9136168/