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Microsoft threatened with €2m per day fines within weeks
Comply or get your chequebook, says EC

By Sylvia Carr

Published: Thursday 22 December 2005

The European Commission has knocked Microsoft for failing to comply with penalties set out in its antitrust ruling against the software company - and may impose a daily fine of €2m if Microsoft does not change its ways.

Microsoft has not supplied "complete and accurate specifications" which would allow competitors' workgroup servers to interoperate with Windows PCs and servers, according to the EC.

Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement: "I have given Microsoft every opportunity to comply with its obligations. However, I have been left with no alternative other than to proceed via the formal route to ensure Microsoft's compliance."

The software company has five weeks to respond - after which the EC could impose the €2m fine on a daily basis until it complies.

Microsoft has supplied the interoperability instructions in question but the EC said they are "incomplete and inaccurate". A report from the EC's monitoring trustee Neil Barrett, a computer scientist and silicon.com columnist, also found the information unsatisfactory.

The report reads: "Any programmer or programming team seeking to use the Technical Documentation for a real development exercise would be wholly and completely unable to proceed on the basis of the documentation... Overall, the process of using the documentation is an absolutely frustrating, time-consuming and ultimately fruitless task. The documentation needs quite drastic overhaul before it could be considered workable."

The penalties were handed down following the EC's March 2004 ruling, which found Microsoft to have abused its dominant market position for PC and server operating systems and media players.

Microsoft is believed to have sought help from several powerful companies and the US government with the ongoing antitrust case in Europe.

Earlier this month Korea fined Microsoft $32m for abusing its market dominant position in that country.