European Union Advances Antitrust Charges

The European Commission (EC) has asked Microsoft to respond to charges that it has used its dominance in PC operating systems to dominate the market for server operating systems. The new charges are the most serious Microsoft has ever faced in Europe, and they could influence both Microsoft’s antitrust case in the United States and its competitive position in Europe.

The EC Charges

The EC’s concerns relate to charges, made by unnamed European firms and by Sun Microsystems, that Windows 2000 desktop systems are only fully interoperable with Windows 2000 servers, and proprietary Microsoft features prevent other server operating systems from tapping all the features of the desktop operating system.

In February the EC said it would investigate the allegations, and the latest charges are contained in a strongly worded “statement of objections” released Aug. 3. A statement of objections is a more formal procedure than an investigation, and is issued when EC believes its competition law has been infringed.