EU warns Microsoft about new operating system
Microsoft has long been embroiled in an anti-trust standoff with the EU’s competition watchdog but so far the dispute has not focused on products in development.
In a new twist to the row, the competition commissioner sent Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer a letter on March 20 containing a "simple warning" about Vista rather than something more formal, spokesman Jonathan Todd said.
"We expect that Microsoft will design Vista in a way which is in line with European competition laws," Kroes told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published today.
"It would be rather stupid to design something that is not," she added.
The newspaper said that Kroes? letter had warned Microsoft that it would not be allowed to sell Vista if it came with features such as internet-search software included in it.
The commission is already at pains to force Microsoft to respect a March 2004 anti-trust ruling, in which the company was fined 497.0 million euros ($590m) for abusing its dominant market position.
Microsoft was ordered to sell a version of its widely used Windows operating system unbundled from its Media Player software and to divulge information on its operating system needed by manufacturers of rival products.
Brussels has grown increasingly impatient for evidence that Microsoft will comply and in December threatened to slap a fine, back-dated to December 15, of up to two million euros a day on the company.
In February a group of Microsoft’s rivals, including technology giants such as IBM, Nokia, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, opened a new front against the software behemoth by filing a new complaint with EU anti-trust regulators.
The group raised competition concerns not only over "Microsoft’s existing monopolies" but as well over plans to "extend its market dominance into a range of existing and pre-announced future product areas".
Amid growing concerns about Vista, a Microsoft spokesman in Brussels said: "Consumers are demanding a more secure and functional operating system and Microsoft has designed vista to respond to that demand while respecting its legal responsibilities."
Earlier this month Microsoft said that it was pushing back the debut of its much-heralded Vista operating system until January, which means that the launch will miss out on the key end-of-year holiday sales.
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