The US
embassy in Brussels contacted Kroes just before she was to decide
what fine to impose on Microsoft in an ongoing antitrust battle
with the company. The embassy asked her to be "nicer" to the
world's biggest software company. Kroes went ahead and fined
Microsoft €280.5 million in July.
The EU's dispute with Microsoft centres on a 2004 antitrust
ruling which said that by bundling software with its windows
operating system and keeping source code secret, Microsoft was
behaving anti-competitively. The fine in July related to
Microsoft's alleged failure to comply with the antitrust ruling,
which itself had carried a fine of €497 million.
"I believe [the US] intervened in a responsibility which was on
our shoulders at that time," Kroes told Dutch newspaper Het
Financieele Dagblad. "I said I did not want…an intervention that is
not done."
"I am not interested in what nationality a company has, or what
size. What is of interest to me is whether [a firm] sticks to the
rules. Microsoft is not above the law," Kroes said.
The European Commission and Microsoft are now at loggerheads
over the next major Microsoft release, Vista. Kroes had written to
Microsoft earlier this year expressing concerns about various
aspects of the new operating system.
She said that its integrated internet search facility and its
ability to create documents in fixed formats could cause similar
competition concerns. Microsoft retaliated by claiming that
Commission meddling could result in the release of Vista in Europe
being delayed for longer than in other territories. Though Vista is
not under formal scrutiny, Kroes's actions demonstrate that
problems with it could emerge.
Microsoft said that the Commission's concerns could delay the
system and that the Commission had not given it guidance on how it
could make sure that Vista did not break the rules. The launch date
for Vista was the second half of this year but it has already been
delayed.
