Settlement Proposed in EU Case

In a proposed settlement to two antitrust investigations in Europe, Microsoft has offered to provide Windows users in Europe with an easy way to install browsers other than its own Internet Explorer (IE), and has offered more concrete help and legal commitments to competitors who seek to create software that interoperates with Microsoft products such as Office and Exchange Server. If approved, the proposal could spur usage of alternate browsers—as well as further fragment the browser market, complicating Web site design in the short run—and make competitors to some of Microsoft’s most widely used business products more viable.

Microsoft also announced that a previous plan to ship a special European edition of Windows 7 without IE preinstalled has been cancelled; all editions of Windows 7 will now include the browser.

Two Investigations

The proposed settlement addresses two investigations begun in Jan. 2008 by the European Commission (EC), which handles antitrust and fair competition enforcement for the European Union (EU). The first investigation is determining whether Microsoft violated EU competition law by bundling IE with Windows, and the second is determining whether certain Microsoft products, including Office, Windows Server, and Exchange Server, are sufficiently interoperable with formats and standards used by competing products.