14 DAY TRIAL // The history of the OS accused of incorporating too many features that smother the competition might repeat itself for Microsoft, which has been warned by EU that it won't allow it to market Vista in Europe if the operating system comes pre-loaded with certain features.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Neelie Kroes, the EU's antitrust commissioner, sent Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer a letter in which she voiced concerns that bear a striking resemblance to those regarding Windows XP.
The software behemoth's latest attempt to please the EU was the announcement that it would voluntarily offer free, unlimited technical support to licensees of the European Commission's Workgroup Server Protocol Program and that it submitted a work plan to the Monitoring Trustee detailing a number of projects to enhance the Program's 12 000 page technical documentation.
Microsoft said that it is taking these voluntary actions in order to further address issues raised by the European Commission on December 22 and on March 10.
In spite of this decision, the Redmond company continues to claim that the documentation meets the industry's standards.
"Although five European computer science professors have already confirmed that our documentation meets or exceeds industry standards, we are committed to doing everything in our power to address the Commission's concerns," said Brad Smith, Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel on March 21.
A company spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that Microsoft was not aware of such a letter, and thus he couldn't comment.