大象传媒

Bill v Brussels (Round Two)

• Rory Cellan-Jones
• 14 Jan 08, 18:36 GMT

You thought Microsoft鈥檚 long war with competition regulators was over? Wrong! Brussels is marching into battle with Bill Gates鈥� business again, having won a stunning victory last September over two issues 鈥� the way it bundles software like Windows Media Player with the operating system, and interoperability with rival products.

The EU is taking those same two issues as the basis of a into Office, Outlook, and Internet Explorer, following complaints from Opera (the Norwegian web browser) and the European Committee for Interoperable Systems.

And Microsoft鈥檚 opponents aren鈥檛 underplaying what鈥檚 at stake. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a case which might transform the whole software industry,鈥� was how Thomas Vinje, a lawyer for ECIS , described it to me. ECIS is not just a bunch of bearded Scandinavian open-source dudes 鈥� its members include Nokia, Adobe, Sun and Real Networks, and they are confident that the EU can make the charges stick.

What鈥檚 the issue? The old one about Microsoft鈥檚 dominance crowding out rivals in both new and old areas of software. So you keep using Outlook because everyone else does 鈥� and if you try to use open-source software to schedule a meeting with a colleague whose calendar is on Outlook, it just won鈥檛 work.

This is also a battle over Microsoft鈥檚 desire to promote its Office Open XML file format for documents. Bill Gates and his colleagues see this as an open standard which will promote that very interoperability which the EU has been demanding 鈥� but ECIS describes it as 鈥渃rafty game-playing鈥�, designed to appear collaborative while shutting out rivals from the open-source movement.

Microsoft has released a bland statement promising to cooperate fully with the investigation. When I reached a senior executive who鈥檚 had a lengthy involvement with the regulatory battle he sounded weary.

鈥淲e鈥檝e been in this for the past nine years,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檇 rather just focus on making good software.鈥�

The trouble is, Microsoft鈥檚 rivals believe that this 鈥済ood software" is designed to shore up its monopoly at a time when open-source operators are offering products that can be downloaded from the internet, often for nothing.

Time was when big corporations 鈥� especially American ones 鈥� laughed off the EU regulators as a minor irritant.

With Google, Apple and Microsoft all under the microscope in Brussels, they鈥檙e not laughing now.

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