EU threatens Microsoft with new fines

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EU warns Microsoft of possible further fines

The European Union (EU) threatened Microsoft Corporation with new fines on Thursday, claiming the software giant had failed to live up to legal promises to provide competitors with updated, complete and reasonably priced information on work group servers.

Under a landmark 2004 antitrust ruling by the European Union, Microsoft had to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, allowing its competitors to interoperate with Windows PCs and servers.

Under a so-called 'statement of objections' released on Thursday, the EU's executive Commission said there was "no significant innovation" in the requested information.

"I would like to emphasise that the Commission does not want Microsoft to have to give away the fruits of its research for free," said EU Commission Spokesman, Jonathan Todd. "However, the Commission decision does not allow Microsoft to charge for interoperability information based on its own dominant position in the PC software market," he added.

Work group servers are designed to let numerous users share and exchange information on projects so that groups of workers located near or far from their offices can collaborate on joint projects.

The Commission also rejected 1,500 pages of submissions by Microsoft over the past three months and said Microsoft's price proposals were unreasonable.

Four weeks to reply

Microsoft has four weeks to reply to the Commission after which the EU could impose fines going as high as four (m) million US dollars a day.

"If Microsoft does not satisfy the Commission that it is compliant, the Commission would have to consider imposing a fine," said Todd.

Microsoft is challenging the EU's original 2004 antitrust order at the EU's Court of First Instance.

The 2004 antitrust order found the company broke competition law for abuse of a dominant position and fined the software maker a record 657 (m) million US dollars.