The very same practices the European Commission found to be illegal almost three years ago have now been implemented in Vista, Microsoft‘s new PC operating system. This will stifle competition on the PC and server markets, and extend its closed standards into the open standards based internet environment, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) warned today in a statement.
Microsoft still has not fulfilled its interoperability disclosure obligations under the European Commission‘s March 2004 Decision, which applies not only to existing but also to forthcoming Microsoft products, such as Vista, Office 2007 and Longhorn.
“With Vista, Microsoft has clearly chosen to ignore the fundamental principles of the Commission‘s March 2004 decision,” said Simon Awde, ECIS Chairman. The 2004 Decision found that Microsoft had abused its Windows PC operating system monopoly by withholding the interface information necessary for competing workgroup server systems to fully interoperate with Windows, and by bundling in its own media player.
“Vista is the first step in Microsoft‘s strategy to extend its market dominance to the Internet,” Awde stressed. For example, Microsoft’s “XAML” markup language, positioned to replace HTML (the current industry standard for publishing language on the Internet), is designed from the ground up to be dependent on Windows, and thus is not cross-platform by nature. In addition, Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 will also introduce the Open XML file format (OOXML), by which Microsoft seeks to displace ODF, the existing ISO approved, truly open document file format. Unlike the ISO ODF file format which operates on multiple vendor platforms, Microsoft’s Open XML file format today only runs seamlessly on the Microsoft Office platform.
“With XAML and OOXML Microsoft seeks to impose its own Windows-dependent standards and displace existing open cross-platform standards which have wide industry acceptance, permit open competition and promote competition-driven innovation. The end result will be the continued absence of any real consumer choice, years of waiting for Microsoft to improve – or even debug – its monopoly products, and of course high prices,” said Thomas Vinje, counsel to ECIS and spokesman on the issue.
Faced with this new and wider threat to competition, ECIS continues to support the European Commission in its efforts to force Microsoft to comply with its March 2004 decision, and also urges the Commission to take a decision as fast as possible regarding ECIS‘ own 2006 complaint and supplements. That complaint asks Europe‘s antitrust authority to put an end to practices that preserve Microsoft‘s existing monopolies and threaten to extend its market dominance into a range of other areas, including Web-based computing and servers.
The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (“ECIS”) welcomes the discussion
engendered by the Commission’s proposal for a Directive on Criminal Measures Aimed at Ensuring the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (“IPRED2 Directive”), which is intended to “strengthen and improve the fight against counterfeiting and piracy” by providing additional legal tools to “supplement Directive 2004/48/EC of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights.”
While ECIS supports the aim of the proposal, it is concerned that the scope of the current proposal is too broad, and creates a serious risk to innovation in the ICT industry, inter alia, by discouraging the development of interoperable new technologies. In order to ensure that the Directive achieves its intended aim, it is vital that the Parliament takes into account the following three key principles when proposing amendments to the Commission’s proposal:
- Patents should be excluded from the scope of the IPRED2 Directive;
- Only acts of counterfeiting and piracy should attract criminal liability; and
- Criminal sanctions for aiding and abetting should be either removed from the scope
of the Directive or limited to acts committed by criminal organisations.
Read the full position paper.
“ECIS fully supports today’s Decision by the European Commission finding that Microsoft has failed to comply with its legal obligation to end the abuse of its dominant position.
“It is now over two years since the Commission ordered Microsoft to make available complete and accurate interoperability information. This on-going failure to comply is unprecedented in the history of European anti-trust enforcement. No competition authority can or should tolerate such a direct challenge to its authority.
“Microsoft continues to profit in the market from every new day of non-compliance. We see exactly the same pattern of foot-dragging in the implementation of similar disclosure obligations under its U.S. anti-trust settlement. Moreover, Microsoft’s immediate decision to appeal these fines suggests that it will continue to try to impede EU anti-trust enforcement at every possible opportunity.
“The precedent set by this case will be vital for the viability of future software products likewise dependent on full interoperability with Microsoft’s interlocking monopoly systems. The Commission has now made clear that open-ended non-compliance with an order to disclose essential interoperability information will not be tolerated.
“There has never been any doubt about the precise nature and scope of Microsoft’s obligations under the Commission’s March 2004 Decision. Documenting specifications to enable interoperability is common practice in this industry. In fact, Microsoft provides excellent interoperability information in other areas when it suits its business interest.
“It is about time for Microsoft to fully comply with the Commission’s March 2004 Decision. With essential interoperability information, effective competition can be restored to the marketplace, giving consumer interest rightful priority over the business objectives of the dominant supplier.”
ECIS, a member of the ODF Alliance, is pleased to hear that the International Standards Organisation (ISO) has approved the OpenDocumentFormat (ODF) as an international standard.
ODF is an open XML-based document file format for saving and exchanging editable office documents (including memos, reports, and books), spreadsheets, charts, and presentations, and is utilised in an increasing number of applications on the market today. Because it is a completely open format, storing information in the ODF format ensures that it is accessible across platforms and applications, and removes the risk of a user being locked into a single vendor’s products.
ISO’s approval of ODF as a standard is a promising step potentially leading, amongst other things, to the development of interoperable personal productivity productivity applications, such as word-processors and spreadsheet applications. When all applications utilise the open standard as the file format of their choice, users can easily exchange data between each other regardless of whether they are using the same application or not.
For more information on ODF, see the ODF Alliance website.
The European Court of First Instance Hearing on Microsoft’s appeal of the European Commission’s March 2004 Decision is scheduled to conclude here this afternoon. ECIS is an Intervener in these proceedings and is giving evidence in support of the Commission’s Decision.
This morning the Court heard the Commission and ECIS/SIIA Advocate James Flynn sum up the case for requiring Microsoft to disclose interoperability information for work group servers.
Statement by Thomas Vinje
Legal Counsel, ECIS
“Interoperability in the IT world cannot be seen as some optional extra like airconditioning
in a car. Without interoperability there is no competition.”
“For each of the five core interoperability protocols used in work group servers, Microsoft has built on a public standard in undisclosed ways. That leaves rivals in the dark. In effect, Microsoft has expropriated these public standards.”
“The value to Microsoft of this secrecy is immense, because it locks competitors out of the market. As Bill Gates himself said, ‘What we are trying to do is use our server control to do new protocols and lock out Sun and Oracle specifically.’”
“This deliberate exclusion of rivals reduces consumer choice as to quality and price, and harms innovation. It is impossible to innovate around Microsoft’s monopoly. Its unassailable dominance on the desktop makes it an essential interoperability partner.”