Brussels, 11/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has welcomed the ruling returned on 11 December by the General Court of the EU (T-79/12) confirming its decision of October 2011 to declare the acquisition of Skype (internet communications software) by Microsoft (software and IT services) compatible with the single market. With this decision, the General Court rejects the case brought by Cisco and Messagenet, rivals of Skype, calling for this decision to be cancelled on the grounds that the merger would have anti-competitive effects on the public and professional video communications markets.
In its ruling, the General Court takes the view that. even though its acquisition of Skype will give Microsoft a share of between 80 and 90% of the consumer video communications market, corresponding to the video communications carried out on PCs using the operating system Windows, this major presence in the segment does not reflect any market power which would allow Microsoft significantly to harm competition on the whole of the internal consumer video communications market. Market shares in this sector can prove extremely transient and Microsoft, which is extremely active on the PC software market, is much less present on this market for rival platforms (tablets, smartphones or PCs using other operating systems) which Windows PC users could turn to if Microsoft decided to increase the price of its communications. The General Court rejected the argument put forward by Cisco and Messagenet that the merger would allow Microsoft to distort competition by reserving preferential interoperability with Skype and its large user base for Lync, its product on the professional communications market. However: - the creation of interoperability between Lync and Skype and the successful marketing of the new product resulting would depend on a range of factors which may not all come about in a sufficiently near future; - the precise advantages of and actual demand for such a combined product remain vague; - Lync competes with other major players on the business communications market, such as Cisco, which alone has a larger market share than Microsoft. On these grounds, the General Court rejected the entire case brought by Cisco and Messagenet. (FG/transl.fl)