Microsoft meets EC deadline for disclosing software data
European Union regulators said Microsoft Corp. met a Thursday deadline for turning over information about its Windows operating software that should help other software companies.
The data will be tested to confirm that the company has finally complied with a 2004 antitrust ruling.
The European Commission, which fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros ($357 million) in July for not providing “complete and accurate” data to allow server software to interface with Windows, said the technical manual could now be reviewed by “potential licensees” -- companies that compete with Microsoft in software for work-group servers, such as Sun Microsystems Inc., Novell Inc. and IBM Corp.
“In parallel, the monitoring trustee will test the documentation in order to verify its accuracy,” the EC said. “The commission will decide in due course whether or not Microsoft is in compliance with the obligation to provide complete and accurate technical documentation, taking into account comments from the potential licensees and advice from the trustee.”
EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said this was likely to take “months rather than weeks.”
Regulators threatened new fines of 3 million euros a day last week if Microsoft did not patch up “the remaining omissions and deficiencies.” They said the company should have handed over a good set of documents explaining how server protocols work by an original July 2004 deadline.
The software maker was ordered to provide the information after the EU found it guilty of abusing its monopoly by deliberately withholding technical data from rivals, who alleged that Microsoft ended cooperation when it started making its own server software.
Microsoft challenged the immediate sanctions, but a judge ordered it to comply in December 2004. It also said the commission’s request was unclear and it had received a useful set of guidelines only when independent monitor Neil Barrett set out a work program earlier this year.
The company said Thursday’s decision was an important milestone.
“The trustee and Microsoft have now completed the technical review and edits to the more than 100 documents, totaling 8,500 pages, that we submitted in July of this year, in accordance with the deadline established by the commission,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We will continue to work closely with the commission and the trustee to ensure that we are in full compliance with every aspect of the commission’s decision.”
The EU fined Microsoft a record 497 million euros in March 2004 and told it to share interoperability information with rivals and put on sale a copy of Windows without Media Player software.
These conditions will apply to all future versions of Windows -- including the upcoming Vista operating system.
Regulators also highlighted other possible antitrust problems with Vista’s wide range of functions, fueled by comments from other information technology companies.
