EU ruling unlikely to cripple Microsoft&#39;s Media Player
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SAN JOSE, California - Microsoft Corp. has strategically nurtured its Windows Media Player, making it by far the world&#39;s most dominant program for playing digital music and video on computers.
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The world&#39;s software giant Microsoft Corp. said it would comply with the European Commission (EC) &#39;s orders if it fails this week to persuade the European Court of Justice to suspend the EC&#39;s decision.
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The European Commission's 2004 antitrust decision has done little to change the competitive landscape for media players in Europe.
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European Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said he is &quot;confident&quot; the European Union&#39;s second-highest court will dismiss an attempt by Microsoft Corp.
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A European Union court on Wednesday confirmed it had upheld curbs imposed by the EU&#39;s executive on Microsoft, dismissing the software giant&#39;s appeal for a suspension.
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(InfoWorld) - MicrosoftÂ has filed an appeal against the latest antitrust fine imposed on it by the European Commission, a Microsoft spokesman said on Tuesday. The Commission, Europe's top competition authority,Â fined the software maker â¬280.5 millionÂ in July failing to comply with its 2004 antitrust ruling. "Microsoft filed the appeal yesterday, as it said it would back in July," said Tom Brookes, Microsoft's spokesman in Brussels. The Court of First Instance in Luxembourg is already considering Microsoft's appeal of the 2004 ruling, which ordered it to sell a version of Windows in Europe without its media player software, release some of its server protocols to competitors, and pay a fine of almost â¬500 million. The court is likely to rule on the first appeal towards the end of this year or in the first half of next year. A conclusion to the latest legal challenge is likely to be years away. Microsoft has claimed from the beginning that it is committed to honoring the Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling. It paid the fine promptly and has offered a second version of Windows XP without Windows Media Player, although sales of that version have been almost nonexistent. The Commission has been more concerned about what it sees as Microsoft's failure to submit the required protocol information. In July its patience ran out. Announcing the â¬280.5 million fine, the European Commissioner in charge of competition, Neelie Kroes, said the documentation the company had submitted "fell significantly short of what was required". MicrosoftÂ submitted new informationÂ to the Commission shortly after that, which the Commission is still studying. Kroes has said she is confident that Microsoft's "foot-dragging" is over. "They are making constructive efforts now," she said, adding: "It's a shame they didn't do so two years ago." To deter any further deliberate delays in complying with the 2004 ruling, the Commission has increased the future fines for failing to comply. The â¬280.5 million fine was calculated using a daily fine of â¬1.5 million from Dec. 16 last year to June 20, the day on which Microsoft made a more concerted effort to comply, according to the Commission. Meanwhile, European antitrust officials have beenÂ busy studying Windows Vista, the next version of Microsoft's operating system due to go on sale later this year and early next. They are concerned that some new features in Vista may break the same antitrust laws that formed the backbone of the 2004 ruling. Microsoft has warned that Vista's launch could be delayed in Europe due to problems with European regulators.
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A European Union court on Wednesday upheld curbs imposed by the EU&#39;s executive on Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , dismissing the software giant&#39;s appeal for a suspension, according to a document obtained by
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The European Commission&#39;s formal objections to the ContentGuard deal centered on the joint control that Microsoft and Time Warner would enjoy over an important player in the digital rights management industry.
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Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it  would not appeal a European Union court order to immediately  implement antitrust sanctions, but it remained optimistic of  eventually prevailing in its main case.
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Microsoft prepara la versione senza Media Player destinata al solo mercato europeo. Disponibile da gennaio, costerÃ  come la versione standard. Obbligata dall&#39;Unione Europea a rendere disponibile una versione
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Don't count your chickens... A landmark court ruling which last year backed the European Commission's last competition action against Microsoft may not be as helpful in its current action as has been widely thought, according to a competition lawyer.â¦
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Lawyers speak Microsoft today lost the majority of its appeal against the European Commission anti-trust decision. Microsoft will have to open up access to its server protocols, continue selling a version of its Windows operating system without Media Player, and pay a fine of at least â¬497m.â¦
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Microsoft has decided not to appeal&#160;last month&#39;s appeal ruling&#160;against it from the Court of First Instance (CFI) and has finally&#160;agreed to comply&#160;with the European Commission&#39;s&#160;2004 antitrust ruling&#160;that sparked the company&#39;s appeal.The decision to accept the CFI&#39;s ruling will dispel any lingering uncertainty facing software and hardware developers over how to plan future product development.&quot;We will not appeal the CFI&#39;s decision to the European Court of Justice and will continue to work closely with the Commission and the industry to ensure a flourishing and competitive environment for information technology in Europe and around the world,&quot; the company said in a statement Monday.Last month the Luxembourg-based CFI threw out Microsoft&#39;s appeal, siding with the Commission on the two essential elements in the antitrust case: Microsoft&#39;s failure to share necessary interoperability information about its Windows operating system with rivals and its strategy of tying its media player to Windows to the detriment of rival players.The Commission declined to comment officially on Microsoft&#39;s decision not to appeal.
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The court said Apple&#39;s refusal to license FairPlay was not anti-competitive. It also pointed out the availability of other devices that are compatible with Virgin&#39;s download site.
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A European Union judge will weigh on  Friday whether Microsoft should be forced to remove its music  and video player from its Windows operating software, in a  second day of hearings at the EU's second-highest court.
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Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it would not appeal a European Union court order to immediately implement antitrust sanctions, but that it remained optimistic it would eventually prevail in its main case.
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p2pnet.net News:- Europeans will be able to buy a leaned-down version of Microsoft Windows, stripped of its music and video player, and the company will have to license out secret information to its competitors.