EU Threatens Microsoft With New Fines

In a statement issued Tuesday, the commission set Nov. 23—Thanksgiving Day in the United States—as the final deadline for submitting technical documentation needed by competitors to make their products interoperate with Windows-based systems. "The Commission expects the remaining omissions and deficiencies in the technical documentation to be remedied by 23rd November so that by the end of November the entire set of technical documentation will be available for potential licensees to review," the commission said.

Microsoft, the EU said, has promised to meet numerous deadlines since the 2004 antitrust ruling ordered it to document Windows protocols but has missed many, most recently a July 19 deadline that ended with the commission leveling a 280.5 million euro ($357 million) fine on Microsoft. At that time, the commission said it would boost the daily fine to 3 million euros if the company didn't move faster.

Commissioner Neelie Kroes was more direct in comments made to The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper. In a Wednesday story, Kroes was quoted as saying, "I am not impressed if someone says 90% of the information is already there when we need 100%. It's a jigsaw and some parts are missing. In my opinion, this information should have been here a couple of months ago."

"Microsoft is committed to full compliance with the commission's March 2004 decision," a company spokesperson said Wednesday. "We stand ready to do any additional work that is required to comply with the commission's decision."

The developer and the EU's antitrust watchdog have clashed repeatedly over Microsoft's dominance in the operating system market. In October, for instance, Microsoft tried to placate the commission by making several changes to Windows Vista, the next-generation operating system scheduled to ship later this month to enterprises.