[January 25, 2005]

Microsoft Surrendering to European Demands?

BY JOHANNE TORRES

The software giant partially raised the white flag, as it surrendered to what seemed to be a never-ending battle in the European courts that mandated the company to make a version of its popular Windows operating system minus its Media Player to be released in the European market. Microsoft (quote - news - alert) announced this week that it gave up on disputing a European judge's denial to put off antitrust sanctions imposed by the European Commission.

The case began last March when the European Commission ruled that Microsoft used unlawful antitrust practices by giving RealNetworks and other media playing program creators difficulty to bundle-in competing programs with the Windows desktop PC operating system.

The commission also ruled that the software giant illegally slowed down Sun Microsystems, Novell and others from designing applications for the corporate market that are Windows server software-compatible, by ordering Microsoft to share more proprietary software code.

The company announced that it will continue to fight to keep the Commission from dictating how software companies such as Microsoft design products and services. The Commission, however, says that it will continue to rebut such petitions by preserving policies that protect businesses from anti-competitive practices.

It seems that users in Europe will be able to later download Microsoft’s Media Player software or any other media playing programs, even if Microsoft does not bundle-in the software—a fact that should not cause the company to lose much from the sanctions imposed by the European Commission.