REUTERS
BRUSSELS, Feb. 9 — The European Commission has started an investigation to assess whether some of the features of Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows 2000 operating system may breach European Union antitrust law, EU competition chief Mario Monti said on Wednesday. HE SAID THE probe followed allegations that Microsoft could extend its dominance to server operating systems and electronic commerce.
(Microsoft is a partner in MSNBC.)
“I have given the green light to start an examination into certain new features of Microsoft's next generation of operating system — Windows 2000,” Monti told a news conference.
According to allegations made to the Commission, Microsoft through Windows 2000 had bundled its personal computer operating system with its own server software and other Microsoft software products, known as middleware, “in a way which permits only Microsoft products to be fully interoperable,” he said.
“Microsoft's competitors, which do not have access to the interfaces, would therefore be put at a significant competitive disadvantage,” Monti said.
According to the allegations, this could ultimately allow Microsoft to extend its dominance in personal computer operating systems into server operating systems and middleware, he said.
“Customers would de facto be obliged to purchase Windows 2000 for servers and thereby it would shift outwards to the server market the technical barriers to entry which so far have afforded it its arguably strong position in the market for PC operating systems,” Monti said.
“Whoever gains dominance in the server software market is likely to control e-commerce too,” he added.
Asked whether Microsoft could be forced to delay the launch of Windows 2000, Monti said it was up to the company to decide.
It was “hugely premature” to speculate about sanctions which Microsoft could face if the allegations were proven, he said.
MICROSOFT CONFIDENT
‘We are confident the Windows 2000 desktop is fully interoperable with other server operating systems.'
— JOHN FRANK
Microsoft Corp. In response to the probe, Microsoft said it looked forward to providing information requested by the EU.
“We received the request for information. They have asked us to provide the information by the beginning of March and we look forward to doing that,” John Frank, Microsoft's European director of law and corporate affairs, said from Paris.
“We have shared a wide variety of technical information about Windows 2000 broadly with software developers, customers and competitors,” he said. “We are confident the Windows 2000 desktop is fully interoperable with other server operating systems,” Frank added.
Frank said the Commission's action followed a complaint filed last year by Sun Microsystems, which he said had complained that the advances on Windows 2000 would make it harder for Sun to compete.
“We have shared a great deal of information with Sun. We strongly support high quality interoperability,” Frank said.
FRENCH PROBE REOPENED
Monti also said on Wednesday that the Commission had reopened a probe into Microsoft's pricing policy in France.
An EU court ruled in December that the European Commission had been wrong to dismiss a complaint against Microsoft by a French software wholesaler, Micro Leader Business.
Micro Leader Business had alleged that Microsoft had abused a dominant position by preventing it from buying cheaper software in Canada for resale in France.
Frank said Microsoft was not a party to the Micro Leader case. “We will supply the Commission with information.”
“There are very good reasons why we are concerned about gray market imports because they are principally used as a guise for bringing in counterfeit disks,” he said
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