Microsoft's actions may hurt it with EU :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: Microsoft's actions may hurt it with EU

Posted by admin on Tuesday, June 08, 2004 - 12:28 AM

Microsoft Corp.'s aim to secure a temporary suspension of a Euro-pean antitrust decision that forces it to change the way it does business could be hampered by the software maker's own efforts to settle other disputes.
Microsoft will this week lodge an appeal at the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg against an order by Competition Commissioner Mario Monti. The decision requires it to license information to competitors on the inner workings of Windows and offer a version of the operating system without a video and music player. In April, the company settled a decade-long dispute with Sun Microsystems, the lead complainant in the antitrust case by the European Commission, paying Sun almost US$2 billion and licensing its technology. Now Microsoft has to convince the court that such deals could cause irreparable damage. "Microsoft's unexpected settlement with Sun raised a few eyebrows in Brussels, and maybe in Luxembourg too," said Jacques Lafitte, a regulatory consultant who previously worked for Microsoft. "One could be forgiven for wondering whether this agreement and the huge payment to Sun were really needed, given that Microsoft has consistently stated there is no interoperability shortcoming beyond natural technological bar-riers," he said. Microsoft will appeal to the court to suspend the sanctions until the case is resolved, a process that may take as long as four years. The commission will argue that a delay in implementing the sanctions could render them worthless. "If they can get an injunction and delay any action, then they haven't really been punished," said Ken Auletta, author of World War 3.0 -- Microsoft and its Enemies about the company's battles with US antitrust regulators. Competitors have argued that Microsoft unfairly withholds software protocols used by smaller, or so-called workgroup servers running Windows. The commission found that Microsoft abused its dominant position in Windows by restricting that information. The European regulator said Microsoft had no objective reason for denying access to the data. Microsoft was given 120 days to start licensing its protocols and 90 days to provide a version of Windows without a media player. To win a suspension of the remedies, Microsoft must demonstrate that the order would cause "irreparable harm." This story has been viewed 1381 times.

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