MICROSOFT WANTS COURT TO DETERMINE HOW IT HANDLES FUTURE INNOVATIONS
Whatever decision emerges March 24 from the European Commission (EC) in its antitrust investigation of software giant Microsoft will be “immediately enforceable,” an EC spokeswoman said Fri. However, she said, the company will have about 2 months to appeal to the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, and it can seek a stay of the decision. Microsoft indicated some time ago it would appeal if a compromise wasn’t reached, a company spokesman said.
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Among the key issues is Microsoft’s Media Player for streaming content. Last Thurs., talks aimed at settling the dispute broke down, with both sides saying they couldn’t agree on future commitments. The decision is likely to require Microsoft to offer PC manufacturers competitors’ media players. Competition Comr. Mario Monti said in a March 18 statement that negotiations had been cooperative but that he intended to do “what was best for competition and consumers in Europe” via a “decision that creates a strong precedent.” RealNetworks, whose software could be one of the “must-carry” media players, strongly supports a ruling “that will give PC makers, enterprises and consumers a choice of media players,” a spokeswoman said. Apple, whose media software program could also be a must-carry, wouldn’t comment Fri.
The European ruling could have “big implications” for VoIP integration with Windows, Legg Mason said. Microsoft’s dominance in the operating-system market means a Windows- based VoIP feature could create a “ubiquitous voice network that does not use -- but could drive significant revenues away from -- the public switched telephone network.” If Microsoft intends, as some believe, to put VoIP software in its next-generation Windows system, an EC decision ordering the software giant to unbundle Windows’ features “could have a profound effect on the U.S. voice market,” the analysts said.
Traditional telephony bundles transmission and services, while VoIP is provided by an entity that’s indifferent to transport, said Legg Mason’s Blair Levin. Because there are few people who don’t use some kind of Microsoft operating system, he said, the company is a “huge, disruptive force” in telecom. In the U.S., He said SBC acknowledged that when, at the end of the federal Microsoft antitrust trial, it filed one of “the most curious filings of all time” seeking to have the court impose what several states had been seeking -- a stripped-down version of Windows to allow others to place their own versions of various software into the operating system. SBC saw VoIP coming, Levin said. Looking forward, he said, “whatever Microsoft decides to do is a really big deal.”
This is “an amazingly complex industry,” said the Microsoft spokesman. Two “intensive months of negotiation” narrowed the issues to the point where Microsoft sensed it could reach agreement with the EC on those matters strictly related to the case at hand, he said. Addressing new technologies, products and innovations proved impossible, he said, so a court will decide on rules, principles and formulas for new technologies and integrations.