The report by the ombudsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, has yet to be submitted, but the Wall Street Journal wrote on 8 August that a draft it had seen criticised the EU’s officials for not keeping minutes of a meeting with an executive of the computer-maker Dell that provided “potentially exculpatory” evidence in the case.

The Dell executive told EU officials in August 2006 that the company had opted for Intel semi-conductors in its computers because those of its principal rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), were “very poor”.

Seems to undermine the case against Intel and supports their counter-suit. 

Intel is currently seeking to overturn the fine at the European Court of First Instance. In July, it also filed a case against the Commission, alleging that it had violated its rights. Details of that suit have not been disclosed.

This case will likely go on for a long, long time.

“This would address an extremely wide swath of issues for us and the rest of the industry that have been there for the past decade,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said of the settlement proposal. Asked if it would end Microsoft’s tortuous and protracted fight with Brussels, he said: “You can never say never but if you look at the issues on the table, this would go very far.”

According to a Financial Times story, even Microsoft’s competitors consider the proposal adequate to settle many outstanding anti-trust issues.  The company the launched complaint regarding browers, Opera, seemed satisfied.

Hakon Wium Lie, chief technology officer of Opera, a Norwegian browser-maker whose complaint sparked the latest dispute in Brussels, said the Microsoft proposal appeared to go a long way to mitigating the impact of Windows’ dominance and would lead to a far more open market for internet browsers in Europe.

Maybe they are clearing the decks in Europe in order to prepare for a more aggressive anti-trust regulator in the U.S.

Yesterday, Intel appealed. Outside of claiming the charges are “wrong” and misunderstand the chip market, Intel has not launched any kind of communications program to support the lawsuit.