European Commission sceptical on Microsoft interoperability pledge

The Commission is compiling a competition case against Microsoft based in part on its belief that the company's software is not interoperable enough with competing firms' products.

Microsoft said last week that it would increase the amount of information that it would make available about its technology to developers of other products. But the Commission expressed scepticism about how much the company would change.

"The Commission notes that today's announcement follows at least four similar statements by Microsoft in the past on the importance of interoperability," said a Commission statement.

"In the course of its ongoing interoperability investigation, the Commission will therefore verify whether Microsoft is complying with EU antitrust rules, whether the principles announced today would end any infringement were they implemented in practice, and whether or not the principles announced today are in fact implemented in practice," it said.

Microsoft last week said that it would give away information that it used to charge for, including some computer code and documentation instructing programmers how to make software work with its Windows operating system and Office productivity software.

It said it would charge royalties on the sales of software built using the information, rather than an upfront fee.

The Commission won a major court victory against Microsoft last year when a court backed its 2004 competition law ruling against the company in which it fined Microsoft a record-breaking €497 million.

That fine was for abusing its dominant position in the software market, and in part for not making its technology interoperable enough.

"In its Microsoft judgment of 17 September 2007 the Court of First Instance established clear principles for dominant companies with regard to interoperability disclosures and the tying of separate software products," said the Commission statement.

Microsoft chose not to appeal that court ruling, and the Commission launched a new, very similar, case in January, alleging that Microsoft was again flouting interoperability rules and tying its own software to its operating system in a way that stifled competition.

"One of these investigations focuses on the alleged illegal refusal by Microsoft to disclose sufficient interoperability information across a broad range of products, including information related to its Office suite, a number of its server products, and also in relation to the so called .NET Framework and on the question whether Microsoft's new file format Office Open XML, as implemented in Office, is sufficiently interoperable with competitors' products," said the Commission.