EU threatens new fines against Microsoft
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The European Union on Thursday threatened Microsoft Corp. with fines of up to $4 million a day, claiming the software giant had failed to live up to promises for providing affordable and useful information that could help rivals make software for workgroup servers compatible with its Windows system.
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Penalties imposed on Microsoft by the European Union are unlikely to rein in the software giant and could result in higher costs for other software developers, regulators said on Friday.
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Microsoft will be ready to comply with European Commission demands for changes to its Windows operating systems if a European court does not suspend the antitrust remedy, a company spokesman said today.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Commission has again criticized Microsoft's response to a 2004 antitrust ruling, opening up the possibility of further fines for the company. In March 2004,Â the Commission fined MicrosoftÂ and ordered it to provide its competitors with information allowing them to develop workgroup server software interoperable Windows desktop operating system. It thenÂ fined the company againÂ last July for failing to provide that information on time. The Commission has sent Microsoft another statement of objections, saying it considers the interoperability information Microsoft has offered is still incomplete, said Jonathan Todd, Commission spokesman on competition issues. In addition, Microsoft is charging its competitors too much for that information: it does not justify the price tag put on it because it is not innovative, he said. Microsoft has four weeks in which to respond to the statement of objections, after which it may face further daily fines for noncompliance with the antitrust ruling. Even as Microsoft and the Commission dispute whether Microsoft is in compliance with the ruling, another court is considering whether Microsoft should have to comply at all. The European Court of First Instance, in Luxembourg, is still considering Microsoft's appeal against the Commission's March 2004 ruling that Microsoft abused its monopoly in desktop operating systems to exploit markets for workgroup server and media player software. At that time, the Commission ordered Microsoft to pay a fine of â¬497 million (then around $600 million), ship a version of Windows without media player software, and publish the server software interoperability information disputed in today's announcement. (Peter Sayer, in Paris, contributed to this report.)
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Microsoft said Tuesday it has appealed a July fine by the European Commission with the Court of First Instance, the European Union's second highest court. It also called the additional fine unfair, and blasted the EC for being vague.
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The European Commission said that Microsoft has met a key deadline in its antitrust standoff with the US software giant, staving off the threat of further fines.
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European Union regulators fined  Microsoft  280.5 million euros (&#36;357.3 million) on  Wednesday for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling, and warned the  company to comply or face bigger fines from next month.
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Microsoft lost on Monday a landmark EU antitrust case at Europe&#39;s second-highest court, which upheld a record 497-million-euro (690-million-dollar) fine imposed by the European Commission in 2004.
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BRUSSELSâRegulators are set to argue that the European Union needs to take a tougher stand against Microsoft Corp. because its antitrust rules are different from those that allowed the company to avoid making
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The European Union Court of First Instance has upheld the US$665.4 million fine on Microsoft imposed by the executive European Commission in March and will now force the company to offer European computer makers a version of the Windows operating system
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A European Union court will rule Sept. 17 on Microsoft's challenge to an order that that imposed hundreds of millions of dollars of fines on the world's biggest software company for what the regulators said was anti-competitive activity, the court said Tuesday.
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(InfoWorld) - Four European Parliament members warned the European Commission that its actions toward Microsoft could endanger the competitiveness of European businesses by delaying the release of Vista, Microsoft's next operating system. In a strongly worded letter submitted Thursday to Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, the legislators said Microsoft regards the E.U.'s regulatory actions as a "risk factor." Microsoft used the terminology in its annual report filed Aug. 25 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). "This effectively means that the Commission's actions are endangering the ability of European business to compete globally," the legislators wrote. The letter is signed by U.K. representatives Chris Heaton-Harris, Sharon Bowles and Peter Skinner, plus Michal Kaminski of Poland. Microsoft wrote in the SEC filing that its ongoing appeal of European Commission's March 2004 antitrust decision means there's uncertainty over the legal principles regarding product design in the European market. "These uncertainties could ... delay release dates for Windows or other products," the SEC filing read. Microsoft has provided copies of Vista to the Commission along with technical information, said spokesman Tom Brookes. The Commission, he said, has raised concerns regarding complaints by competitors. In March, the Commission sent a letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, saying it was concerned about certain functions in Vista and how compatible the OS would be with products from other software companies. European Commission representatives were not immediately available for comment regarding Thursday's letter. Brookes said Microsoft was unaware of the letter until this morning. Two of the legislators said their letter is based on information contained in the company's SEC filing. Heaton-Harris referred questions to Microsoft, regarding why the company thought the E.U. might cause a delay Vista's shipping date. Microsoft has said Vista will be ready for corporate customers in November and consumers in January. Bowles said she has participated in informal sessions where Commission members have acknowledged they are watching Microsoft's development of Vista closely. She said she had no specific information on what the Commission is currently doing, as few details are publicly released. However, the Commission's actions have prompted concern among small to medium-size businesses in Europe, worried that the E.U. could potentially delay Vista's release, putting them at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world, Bowles said. "That climate of uncertainty caused through competition policy and actions already taken ... are meaning that Europe is being deprived," Bowles said. Europe is in the middle of a 10-year plan, called the Lisbon Agenda, to increase the continent's competitiveness in technology. The legislators wrote that they are concerned the Commission's actions toward Microsoft are undermining Europe's moves to become a knowledge-driven economy. Microsoft and the Commission have locked horns over how the company is complying with the March 2004 antitrust decision. TheÂ Commission fined MicrosoftÂ â¬280.5 million ($357 million at the time) in July for failing to provide technical documentation for certain protocols used by its server products. The Commission required disclosure of the protocols to allow competitors to develop compatible products.Â Microsoft is appealing. Microsoft is also appealing the entire March 2004 decision, in which it was fined â¬497 million ($613 million at the time), before the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.
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The European Union levied a second massive fine on Microsoft and threatened greater penalties in the future unless the world&#039;s largest software company obeys a 2004 antitrust order to share technical details of its Windows operating system with rivals.
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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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The European Commission warned  Microsoft on Thursday it faced further fines in its antitrust  case for seeking unreasonable prices from software makers for  interoperability information.
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Computer giant Microsoft loses its legal appeal to delay a fine and anti-competitive penalties set by the European Commission.
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Microsoft has lost its appeal to delay a fine and anti-competitive penalties set by the European Commission.