EU judges are considering claims that Microsoft forced
its way past rivals in the media player market by bundling its own
player into its Windows operating system.
The EU's 13-strong Court of First Instance is hearing the
software giant’s appeal against a 2004 European Commission ruling
ordering the company to provide a version of Windows without Media
Player and to release documentation for its workgroup server
protocols. Microsoft faces a daily fine of £1.4m for failing to
comply with the ruling in full.
The court heard the commission claim that Microsoft had used its
dominance in the PC operating system market to push its own media
player ahead of rivals such as RealPlayer and Apple’s
QuickTime.
Commission lawyer Per Hellstrom asked: “How can you compete with
ubiquity?”
In turn, Microsoft has claimed that the commission’s
anti-monopoly regulators had forced it to put an unwanted product
on the market. Computer manufacturers had not shipped any PCs with
Windows XP N (the version without the media player), Microsoft’s
lawyers said.
Later this week, the court is to consider evidence from the
European Committee for Interoperable Systems – which includes IT
firms IBM, Oracle, Sun and Red Hat – in support of the commission’s
ruling.
The judges will also examine the actions taken by the commission
over Microsoft's failure to release its workgroup protocols in an
acceptable format.