WorldCom, Microsoft cases before EU court
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Two of the European Union&#39;s landmark antitrust decisions against US companies are in court this week as WorldCom Inc. seeks a moral victory and Microsoft Corp.
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The European Commission has opened two new antitrust investigations of Microsoft&#39;s activities.The first case is in response to a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a Brussels-based trade group of which Opera Software is a member, and concerns the interoperability of Windows with other software, the Commission said Monday.The second investigation is looking into Microsoft&#39;s tactic of bundling software products with its Windows operating system. This follows a complaint to the Commission by Opera, a Norwegian browser developer.Both issues featured in the Commission&#39;s landmark March 2004 antitrust decision against Microsoft, which the company unsuccessfully challenged in court.(More to come.)
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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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Secret meeting last month The European Court of First Instance could deliver its verdict on Microsoft's appeal of its anti-trust ruling before the summer recess.â¦
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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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A European Union court is set to rule this week on a &#36;120 billion deal MCI-WorldCom made during the height of the go-go years that still resonates today.
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A European Union court is expected to rule Wednesday on whether it will temporarily suspend a sanction requiring Microsoft to alter its flagship product.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Court of First Instance will give its long-awaited verdict in Microsoft's antitrust appeal on Sept. 17, people involved in the matter said Tuesday. It is by far the biggest antitrust case ever referred to the European Union's second highest court. The outcome of the appeal, which will have taken more than three years, will influence the future shape of the software industry and be a reference point for future antitrust cases, especially those in the fast-changing world of information technology. The European CommissionÂ ruled in 2004Â that Microsoft had abused the dominant position of its Windows OS to muscle in on other sectors of the software market. By bundling Windows Media Player, its audio and video playing software, into Windows, Microsoft competed unfairly against rivals such as Real Networks and Apple, the Commission ruled. And by failing to share technical information about how to interoperate with Windows PCs, Microsoft managed to steal a march in the market for low-end server operating systems. Microsoft appealedÂ both threads of that ruling, and in April last year the court held a three-day hearing at which the Commission and Microsoft, together with their respective software industry allies, tried to convince the judges of their arguments. There are four possible outcomes of September's decision, two of which are clear cut but unlikely, and the other two mixed and more probable. First clear-cut but unlikely outcome: the court sides with the Commission on both parts of the case -- media player and server interoperability. It deems Microsoft an obstacle to innovation in the software industry and orders the immediate break-up of the company, effectively appropriating the Windows operating system and making it a public utility. Second clear cut but unlikely outcome: the court sides with Microsoft on both counts. It declares that the break-neck speed of change in the IT industry is defined by a string of monopolies and that one monopoly is inevitably overtaken by another in time. Therefore, regulators should not apply antitrust laws too strictly, and should allow dominant operators such as Microsoft to use all means to prolong and expand their dominance of a market. More likely, the court will give a mixed ruling. It may side with the Commission on interoperability but uphold Microsoft's appeal of the bundling ruling. Microsoft is ordered to release all interoperability information to rivals immediately. The result would be growth of Microsoft's largest direct rivals, at its expense, and a flattening of the software market as we know it today, with Microsoft brought slightly more into line with the likes of Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and IBM. It would also open up Microsoft Office to open source software rivals, who until now have been marginalized in the lucrative desktop application market. However, Microsoft would no longer need to sell a second version of Windows with the Media Player stripped out, which it has been forced to do in Europe today, and it would most probably bundle more and more features with Windows in future, to the likely detriment of any halfway successful innovation from a software developer such as Google. In a nutshell, this outcome would restore fair competition in the software markets that existed in the 20th century but it would do nothing to impede Microsoft from muscling in on new markets that have already started to emerge this century. Alternatively, Microsoft could lose the bundling argument but win on the interoperability side. The Court orders Microsoft to set up a separate company to sell a completely unbundled version of Windows, a turbo-charged "edition N," if you like (the name for its version of Windows without Media Player). This separate entity would be free to compete with the fully bundled version, and free to strike partnerships with any other software developer. However, Microsoft could still withhold information about Windows from rivals to handicap them in some markets, such as the low-end server operating system market. This would allow Microsoft to dominate the traditional, office-based computing environment, at the expense of rivals such as Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Oracle. Put simply, this outcome would secure Microsoft in all the fat, but mature markets connected to the office environment, but would limit its ability to fend off challenges in new fields linked to the Internet. The third of these outcomes is the likeliest, according to lawyers following the case, although none would be quoted predicting the court's decision. Â
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A top European Union judge  challenged the EU executive's reasoning in its antitrust court  battle with Microsoft Corp. on Friday, questioning why it  opposed the U.S. software giant's setting industry standards.
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A legal row between Microsoft and AT&T about overseas patents heads to the US Supreme Court.
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The European Commission was wrong to  bar the takeover bid by U.S. telecoms firm WorldCom for rival  Sprint, a European Union court said on Tuesday, annulling the  action taken four years ago.
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A European court confirmed on Tuesday that it will rule on September 17 on whether software giant Microsoft  broke European Union antitrust regulations.
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A European court confirmed on Tuesday  that it will rule on September 17 on whether software giant  Microsoft  broke European Union antitrust regulations.
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This morning's ruling from the European Court of First Instance dissects both Microsoft's and the European Commission's arguments with logical, plain-spoken precision. It makes the point that Microsoft doesn't get to decide what "interoperability," "bundling," and "evolution" mean. But neither does the EC.
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Microsoft Corp.'s five-year legal battle in Europe moves into a public courtroom for the first time as the software giant tries to get the European Union's landmark antitrust ruling against it lifted.
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Microsoft was expected to show up at a closed-door hearing before Europe's Court of First Instance in Luxembourg today to push for suspension of an order requiring the software giant to alter its flagship product.
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Microsoft Corp. said in court Thursday that it had been prepared during settlement talks to share more software code with its rivals than the European Union demanded.