Microsoft cleared--in Brazil

As Bill Gates and company prepare to take their appeal to the EU, the Brazilian government has found the software company not guilty of stifling software competition after six long years of investigation.

The case originally opened following claims by a Brazilian software house, Paiva Piovesan, that Microsoft had harmed the competitiveness of one of its financial programs.

The Brazilian government itself is a demonstration of open competition in the operating systems market--it's the biggest public sector user of Linux in South America and the country has seen open-source technology make serious inroads into the financial sector.

The decision by the Brazilian government to adopt open-source software drew criticism from the president of Microsoft Brazil, Emilio Umeoka, saying it would hold back the country's economic development.

"If the country closes itself off again--as it did when it protected its information technology, 10 years from now we will wake up and be dominant in something insignificant," Umeoka told Reuters last week. "I don't know if this is the best way to attract investment into the country," he added.