Brussels, 04/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 4 March, the European Commission announced an adaptation in the procedures used for ensuring that the US Microsoft group sufficiently communicates technical information necessary for allowing software interoperability. The culture of secrecy flourishing at Microsoft led to the Commission ruling against the company in 2004. The Commission then appointed a monitoring trustee to assess the group's compliance on providing this information. Microsoft is in a very dominant position and its Windows software is used by 90% of all end-users in the world. The Commission stated that it no longer requires a full time monitoring trustee to assess Microsoft's compliance. Monitoring still remains necessary but in future, the Commission intends to rely on the ad hoc assistance of technical consultants. The Commission said that there had been a change in Microsoft's behaviour and there was now more opportunity for third parties “to exercise their rights directly before national courts and experience gained since the adoption of the 2004 Decision”. This was confirmed in September 2007 by the European Court of Justice, following several years of showdowns between the Commission and Microsoft.
Since then, the US group says that it wants to cooperate. Hostilities have not, however, finished between the Commission and US group. In January, the latter was again accused of abusing its dominant position by systematically incorporating Windows into its Internet Explorer browser and therefore keeping competitors out of this market. (L.C./transl.rh)