[A2k] Vista Illegal in EU, Charge Microsoft Rivals

[Malini Aisola]

Vista Illegal in EU, Charge Microsoft Rivals

By Chris Maxcer
January 26, 2007

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/55412.html

"A coalition of Microsoft competitors, the European Committee for
Interoperable Systems, has accused the software giant of employing
unlawful tactics in connection with features and functionality of its
new Vista operating system. "With Vista, Microsoft has clearly chosen to
ignore the fundamental principles of the Commission's March 2004
decision," said ECIS Chairman Simon Awde."

Despite losing an antitrust case in the European Union (EU) nearly three
years ago, Microsoft is releasing its new Vista operating system in
Europe with features similar to those found illegal by the European
Commission (EC) in 2004, charged a coalition of Microsoft rivals.

Microsoft, of course, is still appealing the ruling by the EC, which
imposed a fine of more than US$600 million on the company and ordered it
to change its business practices.

The latest charges come from the European Committee for Interoperable
Systems (ECIS), a group of companies including IBM, Sun Microsystems,
Red Hat, RealNetworks, Oracle, Adobe Systems, Corel, Linspire, Nokia and
Opera.

The ECIS Charges

"With Vista, Microsoft has clearly chosen to ignore the fundamental
principles of the Commission's March 2004 decision," said ECIS Chairman
Simon Awde in a statement released Friday.

"Vista is the first step in Microsoft's strategy Barracuda Spam Filter =96
Free Evaluation Unit to extend its market dominance to the Internet," he
added.

More specifically, ECIS charges that Microsoft's XAML (Extensible
Application Markup Language) is positioned to replace HTML and is
"designed from the ground up to be dependent on Windows, and thus is not
cross-platform by nature."

In addition, Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 will also employ the Office
Open XML file format (OOXML), which is designed to displace ODF (Open
Document Format), the existing ISO (International Organization for
Standardization)-approved, truly open document file format.

Unlike the ISO ODF file format, which operates on multiple vendor
platforms, Microsoft's Office Open XML file format only runs seamlessly
on the Microsoft Office platform, according to ECIS.

"With XAML and OOXML, Microsoft seeks to impose its own
Windows-dependent standards and displace existing open cross-platform
standards which have wide industry acceptance, permit open competition,
and promote competition-driven innovation," said Thomas Vinje, counsel
to ECIS. "The end result will be the continued absence of any real
consumer choice, years of waiting for Microsoft to improve -- or even
debug -- its monopoly products, and, of course, high prices."

More of the Same

 From Microsoft's perspective, the ECIS complaint is simply more of the
same maneuvering it has encountered from the organization in the past.
The basic ECIS complaint was filed almost a year ago, Microsoft
spokesperson Guy Esnouf told the E-Commerce Times, and there's really
nothing new about it.

"We have come to expect that as we introduce new products that benefit
consumers, particularly with the kind of breakthrough technologies in
Office 12 and Windows Vista, a few competitors will complain," Microsoft
recently stated.

"ECIS is a front for IBM and a few other competitors who constantly seek
to use the regulatory process to their business advantage," the company
argued. "When faced with innovation, they choose litigation."
Baseless Claims?

Microsoft acknowledged on Friday that it has received the complaint from
the EC and will respond "in due course," Esnouf said.

Some of the ECIS allegations appear to be factually incorrect, noted Rob
Enderle, president and principal analyst for the Enderle Group.

"They refer to Longhorn and Vista as if they were different -- they
aren't. 'Longhorn' was the code name for Vista," he told the E-Commerce
Times.

"XAML is for Windows only, but it's primarily to reduce the amount of
code you have to create for Windows .NET applications Get the Facts on
BlackBerry Business Solutions, and I can't see a situation where it ever
could replace HTML -- they have different purposes," Enderle explained.

"Even Corel doesn't like ODF and will be using the new Office document
format," he added. "The document appears to be an attempt to stop Vista,
but it isn't very well done, and it's hard to imagine anyone in the
business taking it seriously. ... Chances are, this is just noise -- but
the EU isn't particularly happy with Microsoft, so you never know."

In the meantime, Microsoft plans to make Vista generally available to
consumers worldwide on Tuesday.

Previous Vista Complaints Addressed

Microsoft has already made changes to Windows Vista in response to
guidance the company received from the EC, as well as changes to satisfy
Korean law.

Most notable among them are better interoperability with independent
software vendor security applications and a more open search function.




--

Malini Aisola

malini.aisola@cptech.org

www.cptech.org


Consumer Project on Technology

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