[Ecommerce] International Herald Tribune: In slight to Microsoft, EU competition chief backs open software

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

In slight to Microsoft, EU competition chief backs open software
By James Kanter
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

BRUSSELS: The European Union's competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes,
delivered an unusually blunt snub to Microsoft on Tuesday by
recommending that businesses and governments use software based on
open standards.

Kroes has fought bitterly with Microsoft over the past four years,
accusing the company of defying her orders and fining it nearly =801.7
billion, or $2.7 billion, for violating European competition rules.
But her comments were the strongest recommendation yet by Kroes to
jettison Microsoft products, which are based on proprietary standards,
and to use rival operating systems to run computers.

"I know a smart business decision when I see one - choosing open
standards is a very smart business decision indeed," Kroes told a
conference in Brussels. "No citizen or company should be forced or
encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one."

Kroes did not name Microsoft in advance copies of her speech, but she
made her meaning clear by referring to the only company in EU
antitrust enforcement history that has been fined for refusing to
comply with European Commission orders - a record held by Microsoft.

"The commission has never before had to issue two periodic penalty
payments in a competition case," she said.

The EU has previously ruled against Microsoft for abusing its
dominance in the markets for software to play music on computers and
to communicate with powerful server computers on a network. In recent
months, Kroes has opened new investigations against Microsoft after
complaints that it was competing unfairly in the market for Web
browsers by using the Explorer software. Kroes is also investigating
whether Microsoft is making it too hard for rivals to work with its
Office suite applications.

In her speech, Kroes said there were serious security concerns for
governments and businesses associated with using a single software
supplier. She praised the City of Munich for using software based on
open standards, along with the German Foreign Ministry and the
Gendarmerie Nationale, a department of the French police force.

Kroes, who is Dutch, encouraged the Dutch government and Parliament to
continue moving toward use of open standards. EU agencies "must not
rely on one vendor" and "must refuse to become locked into a
particular technology - jeopardizing maintenance of full control over
the information in its possession," she said.

A policy by the European Commission adopted last year to promote the
use of software products that support open standards "needs to be
implemented with vigor," she said.


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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
thiru@keionline.org


Tel: +41 22 791 6727
Mobile: +41 76 508 0997