2004: The war starts
One of the main reasons that the European Commission started looking into this issue is the changes in the server market that occurred during the end of the 90’s. Microsoft’s Active Directory proprietary technology preinstalled in all its desktop operating systems allowed them to work better with Microsoft Server while other similar solutions such as Novell’s Netware – a leader in the market at that time – failed to interoperate mainly due to the lack of documentation. As a result, Novell lost its dominant position of the market and Microsoft quickly captured the biggest share of this huge financial pie. Today this is one of the most important sources of revenue for Microsoft.
In March 2004, the European Commission found Microsoft guilty of abusing the dominant strength of the Windows operating system by restricting interoperability with software from rival companies and fined Microsoft $613 million. The Commission ruled that Microsoft had failed two cases:
To provide rival software makers information that they needed to compete fairly in the market for server software and
That the company has been offering Windows on the condition that it come bundled with Windows Media Player, stifling competition.
The same ruling ordered Microsoft to:
Reveal in 120 days, enough information about Windows to allow rival makers of server software, such as Sun, Oracle and Linux distributors to design server systems that interoperated as well with PCs running Windows as Microsoft’s own server operating system.
Put on sale a copy of Windows without Media Player software.
These conditions will apply to all future versions of Windows, including Vista.
Microsoft managed to respond to the second part of the ruling by releasing a version of Windows without Media Player, ignored by most of the customers. The first part of the ruling is still open.
2006: This war comes to an end?
Microsoft was fined $360 million in 12th of July 2006 after failing several deadlines to hand over complete and accurate server API documentation to the Commission.
At the end of July 2006, Microsoft handed the required documentation (2600 pages long) to the European Commission. The Trustee’s team of seven technical experts examined the documentation in details and reported the lack of important technical information.
End of November 2006, the European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, expressed growing impatience with Microsoft when she imposed the 23rd of November (2006) deadline, which coincided with the Thanksgiving Day holiday in the United States. She described the dossier submitted in July as incomplete and warned the company that it faced daily fines.
2007: Vista?
Similar concerns have been raised in the past for the upcoming new version of Windows, codenamed Vista but some of them have already been answered. Until now, Microsoft has proved to be a good source of income, through fines, for the European Commission and this case is still open.
