Rivals issue new Microsoft complaint to EU

By Steve Malone

Posted on 23 Feb 2006 at 10:18

In a surprise twist to the long running battle between the European Union and Microsoft, a number of the software giant's competitors have issued a new complaint to the Commission claiming 'anti-competitive Microsoft practices in a growing number of areas'.

The claim gives voice to long standing fears that Microsoft is merely spinning out the legal process with the European Union until it can move the goalposts with the introduction of new versions of Windows and surrounding applications. A different operating system with more advanced APIs would effectively make the EU existing ruling of academic interest only.

The organisation, The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), that filed the complaint, include long time rivals IBM, Oracle and Nokia, but also Sun Microsystems which made a $2bn settlement that led to Sun withdrawing from the EU case.

Although the submission to the Commission remains secret it is supposed to contain allegations concerning the new Vista version of Windows, which is due to be launched this year along with the new version of Office. The complainants allege that while the current EU case forces Microsoft to open up the existing version of Windows to competitors to allow them to compete with rivals to Office, no such agreement covers Vista and its relationship to Office 12.

Other members of ECIS include Real Networks, which like Sun also recently settled with Microsoft, and Corel, which publishes the rival WordPerfect Office suite. Others include Red Hat, which along with Sun, is a big supporter of the open source OpenOffice project.

Microsoft is unimpressed, claiming that the members of ECIS were merely using the legal process to further their business aims. In a statement the company said 'We have come to expect that as we introduce new products that benefit consumers, particularly with the kind of breakthrough technologies in Office 12 and Windows Vista, a few competitors will complain'.