EU: Microsoft's Behavior 'Unacceptable'
section: microsoft, for your questions: KezNews forum, 22.3.2007
European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes hit out at Microsoft in comments to European parliamentarians today, saying it is "unacceptable" that the company continues to gain market share using tactics that were outlawed in the European Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against the software vendor.
Three years later Microsoft still hasn't complied with the main demand imposed by the European antitrust ruling: that the company share interoperability information inside Windows at a reasonable price to allow rival makers of workgroup servers to build products that work properly with PCs running Windows.
"Microsoft is constantly gaining market share and that is what is worrying in the workgroup server operating market," Kroes said, referring to server operating systems used to allow a team of people in an office to sign in, print and share files.
She told the parliamentarians that Microsoft's market share in this sector has continued to rise since the 2004 antitrust ruling. When the Commission began its antitrust investigation in 1999 Microsoft held between 35 percent and 40 percent market share. By 2004 it rose to around 60 percent and now it stands at between 70 percent and 75 percent.
"That's unacceptable," Kroes said.
2004 Fears Played Out
Withholding the interoperability information is an illegal competitive tactic, the Commission said in 2004. Offices full of PCs running Windows are easier to connect together using Microsoft's workgroup server, than using the server of a rival such as Sun Microsystems.
This unfair advantage would eventually result in Microsoft taking over the workgroup server market, the Commission predicted at the time of the ruling. The latest server market share figures appear to confirm that analysis.
Microsoft has repeatedly promised to comply with the 2004 ruling, even though it has appealed the decision to the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.
The software vendor has submitted documents on several occasions, but so far its submissions have been deemed incomplete by the Commission and an independent expert, picked by Microsoft and the Commission to oversee the company's compliance with the 2004 ruling.
Last July the Commission fined Microsoft €280.5 million (US$373.5 million) for failing to provide the interoperability information. This was in addition to the €497 million fine that accompanied the 2004 ruling.source:
pcworld.com
Send link 2 friend | Permalink
MORE RELATED ARTICLES:
Microsoft's Get Legal Program || Microsoft's .NET Poison Pill? || Microsoft's OneCare 2.0 due next week || Microsoft's CFO: Investment In Search Will Be Aggressive || Did Microsoft's Security Focus Hurt Vista Adoption?
Comments(7)
any time i hear the word "unacceptable" i disregard whatever else the person has to
say.
does any company help it's competitors to outsell it.
kroes needs to grow up.
well, 99.98% of the time
hang that monopoly!
the evil empire crushes competition, this is bad for everyone, microsoft and those
companies that are broken these actions.
what goes around - comes around. keep
screw the b'tards just as they have continued to do other technology companies. go google
go!
well done eu keep microsoft under check! no company should be allowed a monopoly!
so microsoft designed and implemented and created a marketing success called windows. i
can't stomach all the losers who are jealous, like kroes. kiss my white american a$$
b!tch. hats off to microsoft for being cleaver and inovative.
No new comments are allowed for this article.
For your questions use our KezNews Forum
liberal bitch vocabulary
By whiwhi on 22.03.2007 - 20:03