Microsoft Competitors' 'Wow' Moment

Today, ECIS (European Committee for Interoperable Systems) again charged that Windows Vista would stifle innovation and competition. The group, founded in 1989, represents a Who's Who list of Microsoft competitors, including Adobe, Corel, IBM, Linspire, Nokia, Opera, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat and Sun. Many of these same companies are Microsoft partners, too.

Back in November, I predicted about Office 2007 and Windows Vista: "Competitors aren't done complaining to European regulators about either product. Their clamoring will continue and maybe even increase ahead of Windows Vista's consumer launch in January."

Clamoring has increased, although the timing is surprising. It's not like the European Union's Competition Commission is going to suddenly ban Vista, over the weekend, ahead of Tuesday's widespread availability. Heck, it took the European Commission almost five years to decide Microsoft was guilty of anything.

ECIS has filed a complaint in Europe, but that was in February 2006.

The good folks at ECIS are just looking for some good press ahead of the Vista consumer launch, the same as the BadVista.org group, which plans "actions" during Monday's launch festivities. Microsoft's own PR noise will be loud come Monday, so typically slow news day Friday is good timing for ECIS. Besides, there are lots of news organizations looking for a fresh take on Windows Vista, since it has been covered ad nauseam. Today's Vista attack is that fresh view, er, vista. Or maybe it's ECIS' answer to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' call for people to share their "Wow moment."

Microsoft's position is most tenuous before a new operating system ships, particularly in this era of trustbuster oversight. But not right before the operating system ships. In October, Microsoft agreed to make some Windows Vista changes, in an effort to stave off any problems with the European Commission. Those changes came before Microsoft completed Windows Vista's gold code in early November and made it available to businesses the last day of that month. Windows Vista is now a train near its destination--and it's got a lot of momentum. Microsoft won't be stopping that train and asking the passengers to get off.

If ECIS were truly serious, it would have launched a more concerted effort much earlier than the Friday before Tuesday's general Vista availability. That said, ECIS' timing doesn't invalidate its complaints.

Microsoft and the European Commission have had an ongoing dispute over the release of protocol information that trustbusters contend would foster competition in the market for workgroup servers. In its 2003 adverse antitrust ruling, the European Commission concluded that Microsoft used its dominance on the desktop to gain unfair competitive advantage in the workgroup server market. If European trustbusters are correct, than stalling protocol disclosure works to Microsoft's advantage, because the company would continue to gain server market share. At some critical juncture, market share reaches a level where corrective measures are ineffective.

For its part, Microsoft has argued that protocol disclosure, at least the way the European Commission wants it, would violate the company's patents and copyrights.

In a press release issued today, ECIS argued that XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) is "positioned to replace HTML" and "is designed from the ground up to be dependent on Windows, and thus is not cross-platform by nature." Considering the low XAML adoption, it's hard to justify such a claim. However, characteristic of monopoly abuse is the leveraging of a dominant product in one market to gain control of another. Bundling, which is a longstanding Microsoft tactic, is a typical means of leveraging dominance. This practice and its impact on adjacent markets is one reason the European Commission ordered Microsoft to ship versions of Windows without the bundled media player.

ECIS views the XAML and OOXML (Office Open XML) file formats as a double whammy to fair and open competition. ECIS backs ODF (OpenDocument format), which received ISO international standards approval in May 2006. OOXML is in the early ISO-ratification process.

"With XAML and OOXML Microsoft seeks to impose its own Windows-dependent standards and displace existing open cross-platform standards which have wide industry acceptance, permit open competition and promote competition-driven innovation," Thomas Vinje, ECIS counsel, said in a statement. "The end result will be the continued absence of any real consumer choice, years of waiting for Microsoft to improve--or even debug--its monopoly products, and of course high prices."

ECIS raises some apparently legitimate concerns that have yet to be formally legitimized by European trustbusters. Microsoft took today's ECIS press release so seriously that it chose to reissue its February 2006 statement about the trade group's complaint.

"We have come to expect that as we introduce new products that benefit consumers, particularly with the kind of breakthrough technologies in Office 12 and Windows Vista, a few competitors will complain," Microsoft said in the statement. "ECIS is a front for IBM and a few other competitors who constantly seek to use the regulatory process to their business advantage. When faced with innovation, they choose litigation. We have received the complaint from the Commission and will respond in due course."