Complaint against Microsoft withdrawn
Group of large rivals tells European Commission that Microsoft has addressed competition concerns.
A group of leading technology companies announced today (11 June) that they were withdrawing an antitrust complaint that they had filed with the European Commission against Microsoft.
The group, called the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), includes Adobe Systems, IBM, Oracle, RealNetworks, and Sun Microsystems.
It had complained to the Commission that Microsoft had refused to disclose interoperability information across a broad range of products, including information on Office suite and server products. It said that this refusal threatened to restrict the choice of competing software products on the market.
The Commission followed up ECIS’s concerns and launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft in January 2008.
The group said in a statement, however, that, following detailed analysis, it had decided that a decision by Microsoft in December 2009 to disclose some interoperability information, and follow interoperable technical standards, did address its concerns.
“We will monitor Microsoft closely, keeping the Commission apprised of the effectiveness of Microsoft’s implementation of its obligations,” Thomas Vinje, ECIS’s spokesman, said.
A spokesperson for Joaquín Almunia, the European commissioner for competition, said that the Commission “took note” of ECIS’s decision, but had no further comment at this stage.
The Commission said in December that it welcomed Microsoft’s decision and would “carefully monitor” its impact on the market.
Click Here: NRL Telstra Premiership
The Commission in December closed a separate antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s practice of bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with its Windows operating system. The investigation was closed after Microsoft agreed to offer PC users a ballot screen allowing them to select which web browsers they wanted on their computer. Opera, an ECIS member, was the original complainant in that case.