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| UPDATED: 2006-07-12 |
 EU Preps Antitrust Fines For Microsoft 
By: David Utter 2006-07-12 The $634 million Microsoft forked over to the European Union over antitrust violations has turned out not to be the last one it will pay in the EU over its business practices.  Antitrust issues and Microsoft (MSFT) have been hand-in-hand for years. Both the US government and the European Commission have chastised the company over anticompetitive practices.
The latest rebuke will come from Europe, as its Competition Commissioner, Nellie Kroes, has asked for additional fines against Microsoft. Kroes will disclose the amount this morning, Bloomberg reported. (Commissioner Kroes did reveal the fines this morning; the BBC reported a new fine of $357 million has been imposed.) Microsoft is in this latest situation due to its alleged intransigence on disclosing how the Windows operating system communicates with computers. The company has been appealing the original ruling against it, which was made in 2004. They have also released some 12,000 pages of technical information, and offered to license the underlying Windows source code to third party developers who want to craft applications that can interoperate with Windows. Microsoft has claimed it has satisfied the requirements set down in the original antitrust ruling. A version of Windows minus its media player and instant messaging client, called XP N, has been available in Europe. That was created to address complaints of other media and IM software companies being shut out because users just stuck with those programs instead of possibly considering a competing product. Microsoft has until July 18th to deliver the documents that would satisfy antitrust complaints. With the date being a week away, the Wall Street Journal offered an opinion that Kroes is rushing things along: The most plausible explanation is that Ms. Kroes has said all along that she wanted the fine issue settled by summer. And after next Wednesday -- still five days before the July 24 deadline -- the Commission won't meet again until after its lengthy August holidays. Nothing makes the EU bureaucracy get down to business like an impending vacation.
That's no justification for proceeding with a fine for uncompleted work before the work is due to be completed. It may have been more than two years since Ms. Kroes's predecessor, Mario Monti, issued the ruling against Microsoft. But if anyone has dragged its feet in this case it's Brussels. The Journal's editorial writers contend that the EU took its time in explaining what it wanted from Microsoft, and foot-dragged on appointing someone to review the documents. Plus, Microsoft's appeal of the original ruling won't be heard until 2007; any fines announced today may end up being reversed. --- Tag: Microsoft Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Yahoo! My Web |  Furl
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View All Articles by David Utter About the Author: David Utter is a staff writer for InternetFinancialNews and WebProNews covering technology and business. |
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