14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has reached the limits of EU patience. According to the final ruling in the 2004 antitrust lawsuit lost by Microsoft, the Redmond Company had to provide to its competitors until December 15th 2005 the software protocols necessary for them to create Windows compatible applications. The dead-line was moved to this summer but Microsoft only released five out of the seven installments for technical documentation. Furthermore Microsoft representatives reveled that the last two technical installments will be submitted on June 30th and July 18th.
The European Commissioners are one step further and have scheduled a meeting on July 3rd to draw the conclusion that Microsoft is guilty of not complying with the 2004 ruling, followed by one on July 10th to decide on the amount of the fine.
Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner and the world's 44th most powerful woman is the one that will have the last word in this case and has already threatened Microsoft with a 2 million Euro a day fine dating back to December 15th 2005 for not conforming to the Commission's 2004 decision. As it seems that Microsoft's collaboration with EU regulators is not on the best terms, the Commission threatens the Redmond Company with fines of 5% of its daily sales, meaning no less than 6 million dollars a day considering that Microsoft announced 10, 9 billion dollars sales in the first-quarter of 2006.
"Microsoft has committed massive resources to the technical documentation program," Horacio Gutierrez, associate general counsel for Microsoft Europe, says in a statement. "Any fine would be unjustified and unnecessary."