Microsoft in new Europe antitrust investigation

Following complaints from Opera and the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), the European Commission has launched two new antitrust investigations into Microsoft.

The first of these will focus on an allegation that the company "illegally refused to disclose interoperability information across a broad range of products, including information related to its Office suite, a number of its server products, and also in relation to the so called .NET Framework."

The second complaint focuses on the linking of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system, and the introduction of new technology which limits compatibility with open Internet standards, as well as some further allegations regarding search functionality and Windows Live.

No date has been set for the publication of the investigations' findings, although the previous case between the EC and Microsoft took six years, and resulted in fines for the software company of almost EUR 800 million.