Microsoft Relents, European Union Leads 2 - 0

The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft will be complying with the request of the European Union, once again, and will make certain parts of its source code available to those who are trying to market competing products.

The anti-trust demands being met means that products such as antivirus, antispyware, and media playback software will be able to be better integrated into the user’s desktop, as the programming hooks into the operating system which facilitate efficient programming of these third party products will be available to the developers of those applications.

This, the European Union believes, will put those third party products on an even footing with the products Microsoft is so fond of including in the Windows operating systems.

from the Journal

“Under the agreement, Microsoft will license all of its intellectual property, except patents, necessary for competitors to work with a version of Windows used on business servers. Competitors will now pay only a one-time fee for the license of 10,000 euros, rather than royalties. If they believe they need to license patents from Microsoft, Microsoft is required to do so at the rate of 0.4% of the competitors’ revenue from the product, well below the 5.95% rate originally suggested by Microsoft.

“Mrs. Kroes, for her part, stopped the clock on daily fines of up to €3 million per day against Microsoft and declared the U.S. software giant was – at least for now — in Europe’s good graces.”

Although this is technically compliance, and it stops the daily fines, all that has been asked for is not yet delivered, and once again, Microsoft will probably drag its heels on full compliance.

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out, as Microsoft has once again held on to things long enough to make things convenient for itself, and when the items are released to the third parties, it almost seems too late. It hardly seems a victory for the consumer, knowing that the cost of the fines paid was most likely worked out to the penny in the added cost of Vista.

from Mary Jo Foley on ZDNet

Does this mean there is now a new deadline for Microsoft to comply fully? Beyond Samba, who still cares about this interoperability documentation and protocols? In both cases, I’m not sure. And — all the EC rhetoric to the contrary — I’m not sure how much it matters any more… especially to the consumers that this antitrust case was supposed to benefit.

After all, how much could Microsoft think it is giving up, as it also was reported that a calm dinner was had by Steve Ballmer and the European representative. Either Microsoft knew exactly how this was going to play out, or Mr. Ballmer is back on his full meds.

[tags] Microsoft, European Union, anti-competitive practices, daily fines, antitrust violations, Steve Ballmer, Netherlands, Vista, DOJ [/tags]