The EU has recently announced two new anti-trust investigations against Microsoft. The first is the result of a complaint by European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) in which ECIS alleges that Microsoft has illegally refused to provide interoperability information relating to a number of its products – including Office, .NET and several of its server platforms. The Commission’s announcement goes on to state ;
The Commission’s examination will therefore focus on all these areas, including the question whether Microsoft’s new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors’ products.
The second complaint, in which the browser company Opera is cited as the company making the allegations, Microsoft is (once more) being investigated for “tying” the explorer browser to its operating system. The Commission goes on;
In addition, allegations of tying of other separate software products by Microsoft, including desktop search and Windows Live have been brought to the Commission’s attention.
No doubt this announcement will bring more joy to Microsoft’s opponents – but that’s not really the point of the European Commission, the key question is whether the commission’s actions will actually result in greater choice, better products and lower prices for consumers.
And given the Commission’s record thus far…. I’m not sure that it will.
In the interests of disclosure, I should say that I’ve been very critical of both Microsoft and the EU throughout my coverage of the anti-trust saga – One one hand, I think that it was right to require Microsoft to open up its protocols (and I’ve spent hours trying to explain to Microsoft how doing so would actually benefit them). On the other, I think that the EU’s management of the process has been shamefully shambolic and arrogant. Like another analyst – the wonderful James G I feel obliged to add a picture of a donkey whenever the EU is mentioned (Mr G got there first with the donkey pic I should add).
I should also disclose that Microsoft has been a client in the past, and may well be one in the future.
