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The European Union Competition Commission today dropped their Web browser antitrust case against Microsoft after final agreement was reached on Microsoft providing a Web browser choice to EU Windows users:
The European Commission has adopted a decision that renders legally binding commitments offered by Microsoft to boost competition on the web browser market. The commitments address Commission concerns that Microsoft may have tied its web browser Internet Explorer to the Windows PC operating system in breach of EU rules on abuse of a dominant market position (Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union -TFEU). Microsoft commits to offer European users of Windows choice among different web browsers and to allow computer manufacturers and users the possibility to turn Internet Explorer off. Microsoft is also publishing today an undertaking whereby it commits to make far-reaching interoperability disclosures.
I haven’t yet seen the Microsoft "interoperability undertaking" which is supposed to be published today, but that harks back to the previous EU Microsoft antitrust case where interoperability disclosures were a perennial source of contention. As for the browser choice, here’s how the EU says it will work if you are a EU Windows user:
- [Affects] More than 100 million European users of Windows operating systems (XP, Vista, 7, and successors) and many millions more in the future.
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- You will be offered a ‘browser Choice Screen’ where you can freely choose one (or more) of the 12 most popular web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera.
- Each browser will be accompanied by information from the producer, to help you – the customer – make a free and informed choice.
- If you have Microsoft’s web browser set as your default browser and have chosen to ‘automatically accept Windows updates’, you will be automatically directed to the ‘Choice Screen’. If updates are not automatically installed, you will be offered an option to confirm you want to receive the Choice Screen update.
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- The browser Choice Screen software update will start in March 2010.
- The Choice Screen update will be available for 5 years.
This strikes me as a smart move on Microsoft’s part. Butting heads with the Neelie Kroes has proven to be be a no-win strategy and offering the choice screen is cheap and more cynically, will likely not discernibly affect the market share of Internet Explorer. Yes IE’s share is dropping in Europe and elsewhere, but my impression is that any PC user savvy enough to want another Web browser can already find it without a choice screen. So, the Eurocrats are now happy and Microsoft has dodged another expensive legal bullet.
UPDATE: Microsoft’s Brad Smith, Senior Vice President and General Counsel has issued a statement and besides discussing the choice screen, details the "interoperability undertaking":
The second measure is a “public undertaking” that covers interoperability with Microsoft’s products—the way our high-share products work with non-Microsoft technologies. This applies to an important set of Microsoft’s products—our Windows, Windows Server, Office, Exchange, and SharePoint products. We believe it represents the most comprehensive commitment to the promotion of interoperability in the history of the software industry. Under this undertaking, Microsoft will ensure that developers throughout the industry, including in the open source community, will have access to technical documentation to assist them in building products that work well with Microsoft products. Microsoft will also support certain industry standards in its products and fully document how these standards are supported. Microsoft will make available legally-binding warranties that will be offered to third parties.
Our interoperability undertaking reflects the policy outlined by the European Commission in a major policy speech given by Commissioner Neelie Kroes in June 2008. At that time, the Commissioner said that companies offering high-share software products should be required to (i) disclose technical specifications to enable interoperability; (ii) ensure that competitors can access complete and accurate information and have a remedy if not; and (iii) ensure that the technical specifications are available at fair royalty rates, based on the inherent value of the technology disclosed. Our interoperability undertaking, developed through extensive consultation, implements this approach in full.
As we’ve said before, we are embarking on a path that will require significant change within Microsoft. Nevertheless, we believe that these are important steps that resolve these competition law concerns.
Click through for a host of Microsoft documents including the Microsoft Public Undertaking (Word file) itself. This is being overshadowed in the news by the browser choice screen, but I suspect the interoperability agreement is more important. I have not read the fine print yet or seen the Open Source reaction, but I hope that the EU Competition Commission and Microsoft really and truly understand each other on this topic or things could get quite unpleasant.
Microsoft’s investigation into allegations that the code for the new MSN China Juku social networking feature was stolen has ended with an admission by the contractor that it was "copied" apparently from a startup called Plurk. As a result, MSN China will be suspending Juku indefinitely. Michael Arrington at TechCrunch gets the best line award for:
Fiirst, Microsoft is standing around with their pants around their ankles looking pretty ridiculous right now. And second, this is the best thing to happen to Plurk, ever.
Reports surfaced yesterday that MSN China’s new Juku social networking feature bore more than a passing resemblance to a small social network site named Plurk. MSN China’s Juku feature has now been put on hold while Microsoft investigates:
Here’s what we know at this point. Our MSN China joint venture contracted with an independent vendor to create a feature called MSN Juku that allowed MSN users to find friends via microblogging and online games. This MSN Juku feature was made available to MSN China users in November and is still in beta.
Because questions have been raised about the code base comprising the service, MSN China will be suspending access to the Juku beta feature temporarily while we investigate the matter fully.
And yes, MSN China is a joint venture between Microsoft and a near-governmental entity, Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd., which is the investment company of Jiang Mianheng, the son of a former president of China.
The European Competition Commission announced today that have reached tentative agreement with Microsoft over their concerns about Web browsers and provision of interoperability information for Microsoft server software. Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith explains it more succinctly:
Today’s announcement addresses two sets of measures. The first covers the inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows and the way this will work in the future in Europe. This proposed measure ensures that PC manufacturers will continue to be able to install any browser on top of Windows and make any browser the default. It also ensures that PC manufacturers and users will be able to turn Internet Explorer on and off. And it ensures, that for the next five years in Europe, PC users who are running Internet Explorer as their default browser will receive a ballot screen that will enable them to easily download and install another browser if they would like. This ballot screen will be displayed automatically. PC users can make any other browser the default if they prefer. They can even turn Internet Explorer off, although there’s no need to turn off Internet Explorer in order to use a different browser or make another browser the default.
The Commission stated today in its formal notice that, subject to market testing, it intends to adopt a decision that makes the understanding described above legally binding on Microsoft in Europe for the next five years.
The second measure is a “public undertaking” that covers interoperability with Microsoft’s products—the way our high share products work with products from our competitors. This applies to an important set of Microsoft’s products—our Windows, Windows Server, Office, Exchange and SharePoint products—and represents the single biggest legal commitment in the history of the software industry to promote interoperability. Microsoft’s proposed undertaking will ensure that developers throughout the industry, including in the open source community, will have access to technical documentation to assist them in building products that work well with Microsoft products. Microsoft will also be required to support certain industry standards in its products and to fully document how these standards are supported. Microsoft’s proposed undertaking will make available legally-binding warranties that would be offered to third parties.
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The Commission stated in its announcement today that it welcomes the company’s interoperability initiative. For reasons relating to European legal procedure, this interoperability undertaking follows a different procedural path from the web browser proposal. However, Microsoft will adopt the proposed undertaking in final form upon the Commission’s final adoption of the Internet Explorer commitments.
Public comment is invited and I can see possibilities for the settlement to still go awry before the EU Competition Commission makes its final decision, but it is clearly a step in the right direction for Microsoft who has gained nothing from the pitched battle they have fought in Europe.
