A group of technology companies led by IBM, Nokia and Oracle, has joined the European Commission's antitrust case against Microsoft and will testify against the company, which is accused of abusing its dominance in the internet browser market.
##CONTINUE##
Ecis, the technology industry group, yesterday said it had been accepted as a third party complainant in the case, joining Google and the Mozilla Foundation, the developers of the Firefox browser.
The addition of these technology heavyweights to the case highlights the rising importance of controlling internet browser technology.
More and more technology services are being accessed through the internet, including word processing programmes, productivity software and leisure activities, such as games. Companies are keen to limit Microsoft's dominance.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has 65.5 per cent of global market share, according to StatCounter, compared with just over 27 per cent for Firefox, its closest competitor.
The Commission suspects Microsoft of having broken European antitrust laws by tying the Internet Explorer browser to its dominant Windows operating system, thereby undermining rival products.
Some rivals would like to see Microsoft compelled to offer a choice of up to four browsers with the Windows operating system.
"This is an important case to ensure that browsers can compete on merit and that consumers have a true choice in the software they use to access the world wide web," said Thomas Vinje, a lawyer and Ecis spokesman.
"Smaller, more innovative browser developers need a level playing field. Computing can be done over the internet in a much fuller, richer way than before and the browser is the gateway to that. Companies are realising that the browser is much more important than ever before."
Microsoft declined to comment on the news.
The Commission sent Microsoft a complaint in January, with initial findings that the company was harming competition with its practices. Microsoft has until April 28 to respond.
Ecis has also been active in campaigning against Microsoft over its use of its proprietary programming languages such as XAML and Office Open XML on the internet.
Members of Ecis include Adobe, Corel, IBM, Nokia, Opera, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems.
-----------------------------
BY Maija Palmer in London
Source：The Financial Times
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment