Intellectual Property Law

More Microsoft Woes

By Posted by Alan Wexelblat

The EU has been remarkably persistent in going after Microsoft for what the EU sees as anti-competitive and antitrust issues. Last year the EU had its earlier antitrust case upheld. According to Business Week, the first case "ended up costing Microsoft billions of dollars".

But the new case may be an even bigger deal from a business perspective. Now the EU are looking into "addresses core aspects of its business model and the preservation of its core monopolies," again quoting Business Week. The issues once again are bundling and interoperability, but this time looking at desktop and server OS. In specific, the complaint alleges that Vista and Office 2007, Microsoft is deliberately holding back information in order to hamper interoperability.

Well, um, no duh. This is what they've always done - it's just being extended to the Internet and services at this point. So far Microsoft is promising cooperation with the investigation. My guess is that they'll try to drag things out and keep it out of court for as long as possible without making any actual changes.

Full post as published by Copyfight - The Politics of IP on January 15, 2008 (boomark / email).