The software
giant is already facing €777.5 million in EU fines over
anticompetitive practices, and faces penalties of up to €3m a day
for what the European Commission says is its continuing failure to
comply with a previous order.
"Microsoft is constantly gaining market share and that is what
is worrying me in the work group server market," said Kroes,
referring to the kinds of servers which help individual computers
connect to one another and to printers in offices.
Addressing Microsoft, she said: "As a consequence of your
abusive behaviour you are getting positive results for the company
– that's not acceptable".
Kroes is concerned that Microsoft's already dominant share of
the workgroup server market in the late 1990s has grown even
further. Her office said that it had between 35% and 40% of the
market in 1999, but now controls 75% of that market.
In 2004 the EU fined Microsoft €497m in its antitrust case
against the company. It was given a deadline to comply with the
ruling. In July last year the EU fined it a further €280.5m for
failing to comply with the ruling by the deadline. It is also
threatening continuing fines of up to €3m a day.
Kroes's office claims that Microsoft gains an unfair
advantage in the workgroup market because computers running the
Windows operating system, which has a near-monopoly in offices,
work more smoothly with servers running Microsoft software.
It says that the reason for this is that Microsoft will not
release software source code which would allow third party server
makers to ensure that their machines and software worked as
smoothly with Windows-operated machines.
Microsoft says that its source code software is valuable
intellectual property and has now offered to make it available,
though at a price. The European Commission says that the price is
too high.
Microsoft is opposing the original 2004 ruling against it, and a
court decision on that ruling is expected later this year.
