RSSMicrosoft Opens Court Docs in EU Fight
By Nate Mook | Published February 23, 2006, 3:30 PM
Microsoft on Thursday openly released confidential documents it used in its defense against the European Union. The documents were filed on February 15 in response to the Statement of Objections issued by the European Commission. Microsoft says the now-public evidence proves it "is in full compliance."
The December Statement of Objects threatened Microsoft with fines of 2 million euros per day for not complying with a March 2004 judgment against the company. Microsoft had been ordered to sell a version of Windows without its Media Player software, as well as divulge portions of Windows Server protocols.
A version of the operating system without Windows Media Player went on sale as Windows XP 'N' in June of last year, and the company opened up portions of the Windows Server source late last month. However, the EU said it never asked for the complete source code and Microsoft "should not consider this a solution."
The documentation posted Thursday highlights Microsoft's frustration with the process. "It also details numerous ways in which the Commission had ignored key information and denied Microsoft due process in defending itself," the company said. Microsoft made similar claims in public statements offered last week.
"When the Commission issued its Statement of Objections on December 21, 2005, the Commission and its experts had not even bothered to read the most recent version of those documents which Microsoft had made available on December 15, 2005," Microsoft said.
But the EU Commission disputed the Redmond company's version of the facts, stating, "In fact this documentation was actually supplied on 26 December to the Commission, 11 days after the 15 December deadline and 5 days after the Statement of Objection was sent."
The EU's specific objections have not been made public and the Commission says it has no plans to do so.
European Commission spokesperson Jonathan Todd says it is currently analyzing the 78-page reply from Microsoft, adding that "after they have had the opportunity to present their arguments at the oral hearing we will decide whether or not to impose a daily fine."
The date of that hearing has not yet been set, but officials have indicated it will be closed to the public.
If Microsoft is found not in compliance at that point, fines would be applied from December 15, 2005 and the date of the decision. The company could end up paying an additional 100 to 200 million euros in fines on top of the 497 million euros it was ordered to pay as part of the initial antitrust ruling.
Pull out, Microsoft.
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|Read 15 pages of it so far, makes the EU Commission look like a bunch of idiots, which seems likely to be true.
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|Spent 2 hours reading through the detail. Seriously looks like the EU Commission was lazy, wishy-washy, and jerks. I'm not saying that Microsoft couldn't have done a little bit better, but the evidence available so far seems pretty clear that Microsoft has been making much more than a reasonable effort to comply. It's especially interesting to see the idiotic quotes from Sun. Have they ever tried to read their own Java documentation?
Now the problem which Microsoft doesn't seem to grasp is: OK, so the politicians screwed up. Since when do politicians simply apologize and make amends? Proving the EU Commission wrong is justice, but justice doesn't work in the real world. Unless Microsoft can convince the court to replace the Commission's Directors, the Commmission is going to punish Microsoft hard for embarrassing them.
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|I believe they (microsoft) released this info for people like us, who are unsure of whether the EU is unreasonable or if MS is just being d***heads. Well--it appears you were convinced MS is not fully at fault here, so mission accomplished.
Sadley this will only infuriate the EU, now they will have no choice but to enforce the "2 million euro per day" fine. That's what I'll expect. I could be wrong.
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|Documents are quite lengthy, but from what I've read so far, it looks just like AMD's "slam-dunk" case against Intel. Even fewt, given he reads the documents, would point out at least that the EU are being pricks towards MS regarding compliance.
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|I haven't had time to read the docs so I can't comment yet.
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|The EU's not going to say that Microsoft is in compliance, they would lose a lot of money if they did.
Pretty soon MS will be open source ;-)
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|Agree with your first stament. The second one? Who knows...
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|Who cares? This is more useless crap cluttering the news. Everyone knows the EU Commission and Microsoft are full of it.
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|Everyone knows the EU Commission and Microsoft are full of it.
Some people live under rocks, ya know... Think of them once in a while, eh?
Insensitive clod.
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|"Insensitive clod"? :) Hardly not.... my brain is just numb from all the trival crap coming out of this case. It is a case of two giants in a play ground. It is all about them.... who cares about the little people below their feet.
Now back to our regularly scheduled power struggle.
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|Some people live under rocks, ya know... Think of them once in a while, eh?
Insensitive clod.
It's called sarcasm. :)
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|cutting language: remarks that mean the opposite of what they seem to say and are intended to mock or deride
Microsoft® Encarta® 2006. © 1993-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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Is this what you meant, Tool?
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|The date of that hearing has not yet been set, but officials have indicated it will be closed to the public.
The only reason I can see for this is so they don't look like complete assess to the general public.
Little late for that, IMHO.
Nice ploy by MS to get the EU to give it's objections up to public review, but it doesn't look like they're flinching.
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|I only learned HTML...what can I say Im old school :)
How do you italicize? Asking because (greaterthan)i(lessthan) codes do not work.
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|Use brackets instead.
i = italics
b = bold
u = underline (haven't yet used it myself)
I'm sure there are others.
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|Ahh, I see
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|careful with those itelic "i"s, they look like "/"s
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