Microsoft Under Third EU Investigation for OOXML

The Wall Street Journal and Information Week reported this morning that EU regulators have announced a third investigation into Microsoft's conduct on the desktop. This latest action demonstrates that while the EU has settled the case against Microsoft that ran for almost a decade, it remains as suspicious as ever regarding the software vendor's conduct, notwithstanding Microsoft's less combative stance in recent years. The news can be found in a story reported by Charles Forelle bylined in Brussells this morning. According to the Journal, the investigation will focus on whether Microsoft 'violated antitrust laws during a struggle last year to ratify its Office software file format as an international standard.' The article also says that the regulators are 'stepping up scrutiny of the issue.'

Comments

How does that work?

[reemul]

Can someone please explain how submitting a standard to a standards board is anti-competitive? Even if OOXML is accepted as a standard, no-one is obliged to use/support it. I know that folks hate Microsoft, but this is just silly. Yes, they gamed the voting. Of course they did, it was in their interest to do so. Did that show magical monopolist powers? No. Every other software vendor or customer in the world is still perfectly free to ignore OOXML, just as MS is free to ignore anyone else's standard when writing their software. The US still uses a standardized foot for measurements, but the rest of the world is permitted to use a meter if they so desire, despite the big mean American's power.

I'd be much more impressed with EU anti-trust efforts if they weren't pretty much aimed at non-EU companies. They're mostly a trade barrier rather than a legitimate regulatory body.

Re:How does that work?

[Vapula]

Their way of "gaming the voting" is called bribery... and, as far as I know, it's a criminal offense in most countries (including USA and most european countries).

So, basically, they are criminal (it's not about anti-trust, patent violation or other business-related misdeed anymore but about something that would lead you to prison in most democratic countries).

The reason why they care so much about getting OOXML an ISO standard is quite easy to understand :

Now that there is a document standard defined in ISO, many governments (and school, companies, ...) will be or feel compelled to switch to that standard (with a phase in period). If OOXML don't get the ISO certification, it means that the lock-in will disappear. In other word, the monopoly over Office application would be dead and Microsoft will have to follow the market laws (which means lower prices, no more worldwide version change every second year, and lots of other compatible applications available).

To go further, if they lose their Office monopoly, their OS monopoly would also be in a bad condition. Right now, companies have to buy MS Windows to be able to run MS Office... Should Office application be available with other (cheaper) OS, companies would be able to switch away from MS windows... At least, every computer which is only used for Office application, Java application (no wonder MS tried to kill JAVA), Web applications (plain HTML, DHTML or AJAX) and other cross-platform programs.

>>> "I'd be much more impressed with EU anti-trust efforts if they weren't pretty much aimed at non-EU companies."
Well, if the US had been caring more about trust problems creating by US companies, EU would not have to care so much about US companies... US courts have found Microsoft guilty of misusing their monopoly... But the reactions were more a slap on the wrist than something that would stop the infringement.