Microsoft is under growing pressure to comply with the European antitrust ruling within a matter of weeks, an EU spokesman said on Wednesday.
The European Commission's competition spokesman said that if the matter is not resolved soon, it may fine Microsoft a significant sum of money.
"Our patience is in terms of weeks rather than months," said the spokesman. "They've had over a year now. Microsoft knows that if they don't comply to our satisfaction we can fine them up to five percent of their [daily global] turnover every day."
He said that Microsoft was aware of the specific date by which it must comply with the ruling, but the EC has decided not to publicise the date, as a "negotiation tactic".
The initial antitrust ruling on March 24 2004 demanded that Microsoft disclose information to rival makers of server software to enable their products to be interoperable with Windows and that it offer a version of Windows without Media Player.
The EC rejected Microsoft's proposed solution to the server interoperability in March this year, due tofour concerns. One of its main objections was the high level of royalties that Microsoft had proposed, said the spokesman. "The level of royalties should reflect the degree of innovation in the product, rather than [Microsoft's] monopoly power," said the spokesman.
Although Microsoft announced last month that they had addressed the majority of the EC's concern in this area, the EC spokesman said it was still talking to the software giant "concerning the proper implementation of the interoperability remedy." There are also issues regarding the version of Windows without Media Player that are yet to be resolved, said the spokesman.
A Microsoft spokesman was unable to comment on the deadline that the EC has imposed or its work towards complying with the ruling.
"I wouldn't want to talk about timing or what the dialogue is about," said the Microsoft spokesman. "We continue to work diligently and quickly to resolve the outstanding issues."
The EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes met Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the end of April to discuss the software giant's failure to comply with the ruling. Kroes said Microsoft must comply with the decision 'urgently and in full'.
Talkback
Finally. I was beginning to wonder if the EC was just all talk and no balls. On the other hand, I'll first have to see things happening before actually believing them. Currently, we're still in the talking stage and both sides have shown little to no concrete actions.
The EC is hardly 'talking tough'. Microsoft have been found guilty of commiting extremely serious acts of coproate illegality that are still going on.
Yet Microsoft continue to do business in an illegal fasion and for the next few weeks atleast it seems ok for them to keep on breaking the law.
My bet is that Microsoft recognise (as they have known for the past decade) that what they are doing is illegal and I bet they have already found ways around the rules imposed on them.
They just want to wait until the very last day before implementing them because every day before they implement them rakes in the company and extra £x million pounds for its multi-billionaire shareholders..
There is no mystery. The EU will fold.
Microsoft will end up handing the EU their @ss. Of all the groups of people in all the world, the EU are the most cowardly. They will drop like a dead parrot.
Where the metal meets the meat, Microsoft could simply turn off the lights in Europe- Pull out entirely and crush their economy overnight. This is the reality. The EU has no power. And if you use Microsoft products, instead of GPL'd software, neither do you.
End.
A large organisation has been convicted of massive instances of several different criminal acts in a number of different top layer courts across the world.
If these crimes were drug smuggling or such, the remedies would not be subject to "Conversations" with agents of the courts. Their property would be seized by the courts and they would be prevented from operating inside the scope of that court.
Either their crimes matter and the courts should make their decision stick, or they don't and we should just scrub these crimes from the statute books.
So far they have been given MASSIVE leeway by the EU and the US and they are still messing everyone around.
EU ? Put up or shut up !
The outcome of this dispute is a foregone conclusion.
The EU will bluster around the edges with great stamping of feet and clouds of intimidation. Microsoft will calmly agree to disagree and the EU will implode on it's own frustration.
If the EU cannot get France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Portugal to obey there own diktats on financial irregularities, what hope of the moral high ground against a more powerful foe.
Any restraint of trade against Microsoft will bring the house down on the EU and they know it.
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level
of awareness that created them."
Albert Einstein
Force (=Money) is the only way to deal with MS, so use it, EU.
Well, with the upcoming vote on the EU (in this part of the world anyway) the EU better be quick with taking real actions about this, Software Patents and a bunch of other things or my conclusion will be that the EU is nothing but a rich boy club to make rich boys even richer at the expense of small guys and thus rightly deserves a NO.