Microsoft appeals against EU order to strip down Windows
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US software giant Microsoft insisted Friday that nobody would want to buy its Windows operating system without Media Player, in an appeal against an EU ruling that it had abused its market dominance.
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European Court rejects Microsoft's appeal in historic case. Court sides with European Commission on three significant areas.
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Microsoft Corp. isn't quite begging, but the company is hoping a European appeals court will cut it some major slack in its fight against the European Union's antitrust ruling, citing concerns that PC users will get the short end of the stick and that the mandate will hurt the marketplace.
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BRUSSELS -- Microsoft Corp. will be ready to comply with the European Commission's demands for changes to its Windows operating systems if a European court rejects its request for the measures to be suspended, a spokesman for the company said Monday.
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The European Commission ruled in March that Microsoft had indulged in anti-competitive behaviour with Windows and set a fine of Â£333mn plus orders to produce a version of Windows without the Media Player within 90 days or face further action.
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Microsoft's top legal advisor in Europe has urged the European Commission not to insist that key security features be stripped from its new Windows Vista operating system, amid an ongoing dispute.
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BRUSSELS: Microsoft will provide a stripped-down version of Windows from next month while it decides whether to appeal against a European Union court order, its general counsel said on Wednesday.
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A European Union (EU) court has ordered Microsoft Corp to change its business practices and immediately market a stripped-down version of Windows.
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Microsoft's attempt to win over new users with a cut-down version of Windows has come in for strong criticism.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft failed Monday in its bid to overturn aÂ European Commission antitrust rulingÂ against it, when the European Union's second highest court dismissed the company's appeal and ordered it to pay the bulk of the Commission's legal expenses. TheÂ long-awaited decisionÂ by the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg supports the Commission, the E.U.'s top antitrust regulator, on the two essential aspects of the case. The Commission was right to take action to prevent Microsoft from bundling in Windows Media Player into the Windows operating system, the court concluded. It was also right to force Microsoft to reveal interoperability information to makers of server operating systems. An order for Microsoft to pay a fine of â¬497 million (then around $600 million) also still stands. The only fault the court found in the Commission was the powers it granted to an independent monitoring trustee to oversee Microsoft's implementation of its 2004 antitrust ruling. Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, said: "We'll study this decision carefully and if there are additional steps that we need to take to comply with it, we will take them." European Commission President JosÃ© Manuel Barroso welcomed the ruling. "This judgment confirms the objectivity and the credibility of the Commission's competition policy. This policy protects the European consumer interest and ensures fair competition between businesses," he said. The Commission's allies also hailed the decision. "This is a great day for European businesses and consumers," said Thomas Vinje, who heads the legal team for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS). "This decision opens the prospect for dynamic competition in the software industry. No more user lock-in, no more monopoly pricing," he said. Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), said: "Through tactics that successfully derailed antitrust processes in other parts of the world, including the United States, Microsoft has managed to postpone this day for almost a decade. But thanks to the perseverance and excellent work of the European Commission, these tactics have now failed in Europe." Carlo Piana, FSFE's legal counsel, described the court ruling as "a milestone for competition. It puts an end to the notion that deliberate obfuscation of standards and designed lock-in is an acceptable business model, and forces Microsoft back into competing on the grounds of software technology." Software developer Jeremy Allison, co-author of the open source print and file server Samba, also approved the ruling. "This is a very important day for the Samba team: we hope to finally compete on a level playing field, without being denied access to interoperability information. Samba would then be able to offer consumers real choice, with the benefits of software freedom," he said. However, an industry group on Microsoft's side said the ruling was bad for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs). "The Commission just got a treat from the court, but SMEs and consumers will actually foot the bill. Microsoft did not win today, but it is European software developers and consumers that really lost," said Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for Competitive Technology. It will take several hours and days to get a true assessment of the implications, he said, suggesting that the detail of the ruling might yet contain a "silver lining" for SMEs. "Following today's judgment, consumers and developers are unlikely to see the technologies they are demanding -- like voice recognition and multitouch interfaces -- integrated into Windows," he said. The implications of Monday's historic court ruling are being assessed by lawyers on both sides of the case, but already some things are clear. On the bundling question, the court stood by the Commission's order to Microsoft to develop a version of Windows with the Media Player stripped out. "The court makes clear that Microsoft retains the right to continue to offer the version of Windows bundled with Windows Media Player and that it is required only to make it possible for consumers to obtain the operating system without that media player, a measure which does not mean any change in Microsoft's current technical practice other than the development of that version of Windows," the court said in a statement summarizing the lengthy appeal ruling. Meanwhile, there was little room for interpretation of the court's decision concerning the interoperability side of the case. The court agreed with the Commission's finding that "Microsoft's refusal [to share interoperability information] limits technical development to the prejudice of consumers." Regarding the trustee, the court said the Commission was out of order granting the trustee an automatic right of access to Microsoft documents, premises and employees. It also said the Commission was wrong to make Microsoft pay all the trustee's expenses. Microsoft was ordered to pay 80 percent of the Commission's expenses, as well as those incurred by the Commission's allies in the case, including ECIS, as well as 80 percent of its own expenses. The Commission must pick up the tab for the remaining 20 percent. Microsoft's allies, including the Association for Competitive Technologies have to foot the bill for their own legal expenses.
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US software giant Microsoft said it will abide by whatever ruling is handed down by a European appeal court hearing due to start this week against an EU condemnation for abusing its market dominance.
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Microsoft has dropped two outstanding appeals of European antitrust rulings, following the deal struck with the European Commission at the beginning of this week, the company said in a statement Wednesday.
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Microsoft (Quote, Chart) said it plans to offer a version of Windows in European markets with its media player stripped out by January, following a European court ruling that upheld antitrust penalties against the company.
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A European court swept aside Microsoft&#39;s objections yesterday and ordered it to offer a version of its Windows operating system without its software for playing digital music and movies on personal computers.
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Description: A European court says software giant Microsoft must share some trade secrets with its top rivals, and also ordered Microsoft to produce a stripped-down version of its Windows operating system.
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A European Court judge pressed Microsoft on Thursday to explain why it would suffer irreparable harm if it followed EU orders to share technology with competitors.
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Microsoft asked a European Union judge Thursday to freeze a European Commission order forcing it to share technology with competitors, but a rival said the software giant used to provide such information freely.