Opera's Antitrust Complaint: Microsoft Must Support Standards

[BSIT07-01]

Opera's Antitrust Complaint: Microsoft Must Support Standards

Opera has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, alleging that Microsoft has illegally stifled competition in the browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows and by failing to support web standards.
According to Opera?s press release, in September the European Court of First Instance ruled that Microsoft has illegally tied Windows Media Player to Windows, despite the ability to override the program?s file associations, and despite the availability in Europe of Microsoft?s special "N" editions of Windows, which don't include Windows Media Player, as required by a 2005 European Commission decision.
Off the back of this latest ruling, Opera is seeking to have the Commission apply the very same logic to Internet Explorer, and force Microsoft to distribute Windows either without Internet Explorer (something that Microsoft has consistently maintained is impossible in practice), or with alternative browsers bundled in.
On top of the bundling issue, Opera?s complaint also seeks to require Microsoft to implement support for web standards in Internet Explorer. This will be a much tougher one to prove. Although Internet Explorer is certainly the least standards-compliant of the major browsers today, each and every release of Internet Explorer has included improved standards support. It seems that Opera is saying that Microsoft?s slowness to develop Internet Explorer is in itself an illegal and anti-competitive act.
So what do you think? Is Microsoft doing enough to enable users to choose alternative browsers in Windows? And should browser makers be legally required to support web standards, whether they have the programming resources to devote to doing so or not?

[BSIT07-01]

Opera ---------------- hay