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EU cool on Microsoft promise to share

EU regulators were skeptical on Thursday on Microsoft Corp's offer to share more information about its products and technology, saying it has seen four similar statements before.

The company's announcement doesn't touch on possible monopoly abuse in the past, it said, nor does it touch on allegations that it illegally gives away its Internet Explorer browser with the Windows desktop operating system to damage rivals.

The European Commission is investigating a complaint from rivals that Microsoft does not share essential information on the Office word processing program to help create compatible products.

It said it would check if the company's offer complies with antitrust rules as part of that probe it launched last month, five months after an EU court upheld European regulators on Microsoft's legal challenge against a US$613 million antitrust fine.

``The Commission would welcome any move toward genuine interoperability,'' the EU executive said. ``Nonetheless, the Commission notes that today's [yesterday's] announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability.''

The EU's new probe into how well Microsoft's products work with others was triggered by a complaint from the European Committee for Interoperable Systems -- a group representing IBM, Nokia Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc, RealNetworks Inc and Oracle Corp.

It will examine whether Microsoft withheld information from companies that wanted to make products compatible with its software -- including Office word processing, spreadsheet and office management tools, some server products and Microsoft's push into the Internet under the name of the .NET framework.

Since Microsoft supplies the software to the vast majority of home and office computers, rivals complain that refusal to give them interoperability information shuts the door on a huge potential market.

ECIS was also doubtful on the Microsoft offer.

"The world needs a permanent change in Microsoft's behavior, not just another announcement," it said. "We have heard high-profile commitments from Microsoft ... but have yet to see any lasting change in Microsoft's behavior in the marketplace."

It said a real test for Microsoft would be a meeting of the International Standards Organization next week when the company could choose to back an existing industry standard supported by IBM or push on with its own Windows-dependent Office OOXML.

The other part of its investigation was triggered by a complaint from Norway's Opera Software ASA that calls on the EU to strip Internet Explorer out of Windows or carry alternative browsers.

The EU is building on its March 2004 decision that found Microsoft had violated EU antitrust rules by trying to damage rivals for server and media player software. Microsoft delayed obeying the order, launching an appeal to the European Court of Justice that it lost on Sept. 17 last year.

Although Microsoft dropped further appeals and promised to abide by September court ruling, the EU's antitrust chief Neelie Kroes warned that a precedent had been set for future behavior in other areas.
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