Microsoft Monopoly Mercilessly Mangled

Microsoft loses appeal on EU Commission competition ruling

by Rupert Sharp
of http://www.oyster-web.co.uk

Last updated: 19 Sep 2007

"The Court of First Instance essentially upholds the Commission's decision finding that Microsoft abused its dominant position," said the court’s statement.

Microsoft has been in a spot of bother with the law, since Mr.Microsoft has such a large portion of the software market it has abused its power and got caught snubbing other companies out of its operating system with applications such as media players and word processors.

Microsoft has tried to squeeze companies out of the new operating system, Vista, previously. In a earlier article I was talking about how Google was filing a formal complaint against Microsoft because of the lack of choice on its new desktop search capability whose set default was MSN search, this Google claimed was a breach of the anti-trust agreement accepted by Microsoft in 2002 but now it seems that Microsoft is still trying to monopolise the market completely and finally someone has stuck their foot in it.

The EU fines (£393million) that Microsoft will pay also seem intended to be an example to all large companies that in the interest of fairness and variety this will not be tolerated.

Michael Reynolds, of law firm Allen & Overy, said the important thing was "that these principles of the judgement will not just apply to the Microsoft case".
"They will apply to any dominant company that engages in the same behaviour. It's not just about Microsoft," said Mr Reynolds.

Microsoft has two months in which to appeal to the European Court of Justice, but their lawyer stated that they had not yet decided on their future legal plans.