EU’s Microsoft Case Gains Support of 5 Firms

Five leading technology companies are supporting European Union regulators in their antitrust battle with Microsoft Corp., a lawyer for the group said Wednesday.

IBM Corp., Oracle Corp., Red Hat Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and Nokia have applied to intervene against Microsoft in its court appeal of an EU ruling made last year, lawyer Thomas Vinje said.

Vinje said the companies’ stance countered Microsoft claims that the European Commission’s case was without industry support.

“The commission does not stand naked,” Vinje said. “It has solid support from the information technology industry. The bottom line is that we think the commission’s position is correct.”

The intervention against Microsoft by these companies -- except for RealNetworks, which has sued Microsoft separately -- is noteworthy because they have tended to be reluctant to take such a public stand.

Red Hat is a distributor of the open source Linux operating system, which IBM also widely promotes. Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison is a longtime nemesis of Microsoft, and Nokia faces a growing threat from the company in mobile software.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., didn’t immediately return calls for comment Wednesday.

The company has asked an EU court to invalidate the March 2004 ruling in which the commission fined the company $640 million and obliged it to share technology with competitors that make server software so their products could better communicate with Windows-based computers.

The regulators also ordered Microsoft to produce a Windows version minus its multimedia player to provide a more level playing field for competitors such as RealNetworks.

Microsoft shares rose 20 cents Wednesday to $24.67 on Nasdaq.