Yesterday the Court of First Instance (CFI) delivered its final judgement on the aged lawsuit between the European Union (EU) and Microsoft. The court upheld the earlier victory for European Union, requiring Microsoft to enable third-party integration to its rivals through documentation and support, to release a version of Windows with Media Player, to pay a substantial fine and to pay the majority of the legal costs of the case.
"The EU has its victory but it must now work hard to bring the case to a conclusion. On its own the court ruling is the beginning of the end, rather than the end itself.
"Inevitably the ruling will not bring an end to the case, and will not deliver the closure that everyone outside of the self-perpetuating legal bean-feast wishes to see. There is likely to be an appeal to a higher court - the CFI is only the second-highest court in the EU. Also, there is the potential for a continued debate concerning Microsoft's compliance with the measures - with claims that the progress made to date by Microsoft to date in documenting and opening up its protocols already constitutes compliance, against a vague and unclear original request.
"Let's examine the compliance issue in more detail. Microsoft has already released a version of Windows that does not include Windows Media Player. To say that the sales of this product have been snail-like would be to do a disservice to the athletic prowess of snails - rumour has it that only a few hundred copies have been sold, and many of those to Microsoft employees seeking an interesting memento of the case. Contrast this with the huge sales of standard Windows products. Next, a set of technical documentation has been produced to help developers create inter-operable products. Earlier documentation produced by Microsoft was fair reflection of the products - it was the underlying products themselves that had many design flaws and problems. Microsoft has spent a huge amount of time improving the documentation, essentially to make it as good as it could become, given the problems of the underlying code. The documentation package is combined by the offer of substantial developer support from Microsoft. Microsoft has learned a valuable lesson about how to produce documentation for a huge and complex system - with the European tax payer paying for the lesson.
"So, to summarise….there is already a worthwhile argument that Microsoft has already complied with the ruling that was confirmed today. The European taxpayer has paid to force Microsoft to produce a product that very few people wanted and has paid to improve the quality of Microsoft's development practices. As one of those European taxpayers I am not sure that this has been money well spent.
"At a more abstract level the case concerned the impact of monopoly behaviours on the European consumer and the European technology industry. The EU brought in fines and other remedies to force Microsoft to change its practices and therefore benefit the European market in the long term. Comparing the condition of the European industry now with 9 years ago is a difficult exercise. So, much has happened in terms of technology development - the Internet is now much more ubiquitous, services like iTunes are hugely successful, the capabilities of hardware are now much greater, the open source movement continues to gain momentum, and the list goes on. However, none of these developments are at all linked to the regulatory intervention of the EU - they are down to free market operation. The case simply does not address the structural market issues that it first saw, either because the remedies were inappropriate, the analysis didn't reflect the actual market operation, or a range of other possibilities. Whatever the reason we are where we are and we must now find a way forward.