p2p news / p2pnet: A bid by Microsoft to force Sun Microsystems and Oracle to provide documents it wants to use in its fight with the European Union has been blocked by a court in California.

"But judges in New York and Boston are still considering similar requests against IBM and Novell Inc.,respectively, as Microsoft fights against possible fines of up to 2 million euros a day for failing to carry out sanctions imposed by the Commission, lawyers for one of the companies said," says Reuters.

"A European Commission hearing officer, Karen Williams, had rejected Microsoft’s for a number of documents, ruling they were confidential. So Microsoft got U.S. courts to issue subpoenas, which were challenged."

Bill and the Boyz wanted the EC to show them communications between the companies and the EC, a "Monitoring Trustee" in the case and a technical adviser to the Commission, says Reuters, adding:

"The Commission found in 2004 that Microsoft used its dominance of PC operating systems to compete unfairly against rivals. The EU’s number two court fined Microsoft half a billion euros and ordered it to provide rivals with protocols making it easier for them to build software that runs as smoothly on Windows as Microsoft’s own server software."

To make matters worse, European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has contacted Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer expressing concern over the company’s new operating system, Vista.

The EC worries Vista might include elements which are currently available separately from Microsoft or other companies.

Also See:
Reuters – Judge denies Microsoft subpoenas against rivals, March 30, 2006
expressing concern – Vista EU anti-trust pressure, March 30, 2006

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 30th, 2006 at 7:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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