The European Union's top antitrust official, Neelie Kroes, told the European Parliament on Thursday that Microsoft continues to gain market share through "abusive behaviour".
The European Commission, the EU's antitrust watchdog, found three years ago that Microsoft had illegally abused the dominance of its Windows operating system in the workgroup server market. It slapped on a record fine and demanded that the company change its business practices.
"Microsoft is constantly gaining market share and that is what is worrying me in the workgroup server operating market," she said, referring to office servers used to print, share files and allow people to sign in.
"As a consequence of your abusive behaviour, you are getting positive results for the company — that's not acceptable in my opinion," she said, addressing Microsoft.
The Commission said Microsoft had a 35 to 40 percent share of the workgroup server market in 1999 when the EU executive began its investigation. Between 2001 and 2003 that grew to 60 percent, and now Microsoft has 70 to 75 percent of the market.
Workgroup servers connect to Windows desktop computers, and the Commission found Microsoft products work far more smoothly than the servers of competitors, giving Microsoft an edge.
The edge exists only because Microsoft refuses to share information with competitors, the Commission has held. Although Microsoft said it is now willing to share the information, the Commission said in March that Microsoft wants to charge too much for it and warned that it could face further fines.
Microsoft says that the interconnect information contains valuable intellectual property making the charges reasonable.
It has also challenged the Commission's original 2004 decision, and both sides are awaiting a decision by the Court of First Instance in that case. Kroes said she hopes the court will rule this year.
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EU official: Microsoft abuse continues
Author: Reuters
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