Microsoft is offering unlimited technical support to
companies using its workgroup server documentation, as it attempts
to persuade the European Commission that it is complying with the
anti-trust judgement against it.
Microsoft will attend a final compliance meeting with the
commission in Brussels at the end of this month. If it cannot
persuade the commission that it is complying with the judgement it
faces a daily fine of £1.4m.
While welcoming Microsoft’s move, the commission said the
documentation Microsoft has so far supplied for its workgroup
server protocols is not adequate to enable the company to comply,
but Microsoft disputes this.
Microsoft had previously offered 500 hours of technical support
with the documentation for any company that used the product, but
it now says documentation licensees will get unlimited support as
well as on-site assistance.
Microsoft was asked to make its workgroup server protocols
available to rivals to allow them to more easily build rival server
platforms that worked in a Windows environment.
No companies have so far licenced the 12,000 pages of
documentation Microsoft has made available.
The commission says the format of the documentation supplied
does not comply with its ruling, as it is too confusing for
Microsoft's rivals to use.