EU opens Gates to competition
Web 2.0, E-commerce
22 October 2007
The European Commission has announced that Microsoft has 'finally' agreed to open its operating system to open source developers.
The corporation currently has a 95 per cent share of the operating systems market and is still awaiting a decision by the commission on the previous unreasonable pricing case.
Competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said: "It is regrettable that Microsoft has only complied after a considerable delay, two court decisions, and the imposition of daily penalty payments."
It is hoped that the announcement will encourage greater competition and innovation in the server market after years of domination by Microsoft.
The changes will allow open source developers to access interoperability information for a one off payment of €10,000 and reduce worldwide license royalties from 5.95 per cent to just 0.4 per cent.
Microsoft will remain under scrutiny for some time. The commissioner added: " The commission will remain vigilant to ensure that Microsoft continues to respect its compliance obligations and does not engage in other anti-competitive behaviour."
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