Text 15682, 55 rader
Skriven 2007-01-26 20:44:48 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Oracle and Red Hat  say Vista is i
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From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@dontspamhotmail.com>


http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2087780,00.asp

A coalition of rivals charged on Friday that Microsoft Corp.'s new Vista
operating system coming out next week will perpetuate practices found illegal
in the European Union nearly three years ago.

The group, which includes IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems, Adobe, Oracle and Red
Hat, said its complaints made last year are yet to be addressed just days
before Vista is due for release.

The European Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft used its dominance to
muscle out RealNetworks and other makers of audio and video streaming software
and that it made its desktop Windows deliberately incompatible with rivals'
server software.

"Microsoft has clearly chosen to ignore the fundamental principles of the
Commission's March 2004 decision," said Simon Awde, chairman of the European
Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS).

Microsoft said it had no comment. The Commission was not ready to act.

"We are in the process of examining this complaint," a Commission spokesman
said. ECIS disclosed on Friday that the latest additions to its complaint were
made only last month, after it studied Vista.

"Vista is the first step of Microsoft's strategy to extend its market dominance
to the Internet," the ECIS statement said.

It said Microsoft's XAML markup language was "positioned to replace HTML", the
industry standard for publishing documents on the Internet. XAML would be
dependent on Windows, and discriminatory against systems such as Linux, the
group said.

It said a so-called "open XML" platform file format, known as OOXML, is
designed to run seamlessly only on the Microsoft Office platform. It governs
the way a document is formatted and stored.

"The end result will be the continued absence of any real consumer choice,
years of waiting for Microsoft to improve-or even debug-its monopoly products
and of course high prices," said Thomas Vinje, lawyer for ECIS, in the
statement.

Other complainants in the group include Corel, RealNetworks , Linspire and
Opera.

Microsoft has challenged the Commission's 2004 decision, which included a
record fine of nearly 500 million euros ($649.4 million) and orders to change
its business practices. It awaits a decision by the EU's Court of First
Instance.

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