It must be recognised that at least potential hazards exist if companies are allowed to have monopolies on the technologies which we use to do business, communicate and share data and ideas. The decision of the court to uphold the fines and judgements on Microsoft will be hailed by many as a victory for the concepts of open competition in business. However, it is not solely commerce which is at stake – it is the concept of being able to decide what is best for consumers in their use of computers – a medium which has become essential to our ability to communicate and share ideas.

The issue at hand had started up back in 1998 when Sun Microsystems, a Microsoft competitor in some markets, raised the issue that the Windows manufacturer had not supplied information required for Sun’s software to interoperate with Microsoft’s. Interoperability is a concept which allows the ability for software systems produced by different vendors to work with each other – to communicate and share information.

Sun complained to the European Commission that Microsoft was abusing it’s near monopoly of Windows and refusing to reveal technical details – in effect pushing competition for server software out of the market. Further complaints arose that Microsoft was anti-competitive by tying Windows Media Player to it’s Windows operating system – either forcing or providing cheaper licence fees to hardware manufacturers who would include Windows Media Player with the sale of each new PC.

A simple example of interoperability could be seen as being this web page. The information contained within this page is relatively standardised, which makes it easier for a wide range of hardware and software manufacturers to produce systems that can access this page. Sun’s complaint was a bit more complicated. The company alleged that Microsoft was not providing information which would allow competitors to develop server software that could fully communicate with Windows PC’s. The complaint continued to state that without the disclosure of this information individuals or organisations which owned computers that ran Microsoft Windows and who wanted to connect their computers to a server would be obliged to use Windows server software to guarantee full interoperability.

In 2004 the European Commission ruled against Microsoft ordering it to “… disclose within 120 days, the interfaces required for their products to be able to ‘talk’ with the Windows OS”. Microsoft was also required to provide a version of Windows to hardware manufacturers without Windows Media Player bundled in – and finally it imposed a fine of 497 million euros as punishment for abusing it’s market position in Europe.

Microsoft paid the fine into an escrow account in 2004 pending it’s appeal against the ruling.

What did the court decide?