News Releases

No. 07/06
January 25, 2006

EU COMMISSION REACTS TO LATEST MICROSOFT MOVE IN ANTITRUST DISPUTE

Microsoft announced today that the US software company would give rivals access to some of its software source codes in a bid to comply with antitrust requirements. In reacting to the move, the European Commission issued the following statement:

"The European Commission will study carefully the announcement made by Microsoft on 25th January once it has received the full details.

"The Commission is looking forward to receiving, no later than 15th February 2006, Microsoft’s reply to the Statement of Objections sent by the Commission on 21st December 2005. The Commission sent the Statement of Objections because of Microsoft’s failure to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation to allow non-Microsoft workgroup servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers, despite its obligation to do so under the terms of the Commission’s March 2004 decision that Microsoft was abusing its dominant market position.

"The decision concerning full and accurate compliance by Microsoft with the European Commission’s March 2004 decision rests with the Commission."

In this long-standing antitrust dispute, the European Union in March fined Microsoft 497 million Euros for abusing its market position and ordered it to change its business practices.

The ruling required Microsoft to develop a version of its Windows operating system that would be unbundled from their Media Player software and give information about their operating system to rival software manufacturers.

The European Commission in December found that Microsoft had not provided the required documentation to its rivals and the software company was faced with a daily fine of up to 2 million Euros.

For further information, please visit:

http://www.eurunion.org/newsweb/HotTopics.htm#Microsoft

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