Microsoft rivals demand EU action on complaint

Microsoft Corp.’s rivals renewed their call Friday for European Union regulators to act against what they say are illegal practices, alleging that the new Vista operating system is the company’s attempt to extend its monopoly to the Internet.

They asked the European Commission to make a decision “as fast as possible” on a complaint they filed in February. It had accused Microsoft of working to keep its monopolies and trying to extend its market dominance into other areas, including Web-based computing.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft had no immediate comment beyond saying that the rivals, represented by the group the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, were not saying anything new. Microsoft has described the group as a front for rivals that have tried to use regulatory complaints to their business advantage.

The group said Microsoft’s XAML markup language -- which it said was positioned to replace the current Web page language HTML -- was designed “from the ground up to be dependent on Windows.”

A spokesman for the group, lawyer Thomas Vinje, said Microsoft was seeking to impose its own Windows-dependent standards and displace existing ones.

The group represents IBM, Nokia Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Oracle Corp., along with smaller software companies.