Gates: Microsoft, EU working on compliance concerns
Company is still working on an acceptable name for the new operating system
Follow @infoworldPRAGUE -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday that he is working closely with the European Commission to resolve issues related to the company's compliance with antitrust remedies, following news reports earlier this week that the Commission had become frustrated with the software giant.
"We are working to bring these issues to a positive resolution," Gates said when asked about the matter during a press conference at Microsoft's Government Leaders Forum in Prague.
As part of the Commission's anticompetition ruling against Microsoft last year, it ordered the company to provide a version of its Windows XP operating system without Windows Media Player. The Commission said Microsoft had leveraged its dominance in the desktop software market to gain an advantage against competing media player providers like RealNetworks. The Commission also ordered the company to publish the APIs for its workgroup server software and slapped it with a fine of €497 million ($648 million).
Microsoft has already made the stripped down version of Windows XP available to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), but the operating system's suggested name, "Windows XP Reduced Media Edition," reportedly raised the Commission's ire. It was believed to be unappealing to consumers, especially given that both versions cost the same.
The Commission also expressed concern about dialog boxes that appear with the Media Player-free version, warning users that they won't be able to access certain Web sites or view some types of content. According to news reports, the Commission was mulling additional fines of up to 5 percent of Microsoft's daily gross revenue if the company made the Media Player-free version unattractive to customers.
Gates met with Commission leaders in Brussels earlier this week and discussed the matters.
The company is still working on an acceptable name for the new operating system and to resolve concern over the dialog boxes, according to Microsoft chief executive officer of Europe, the Middle East and Africa Jean-Philippe Courtois.
If the operating systems already sent to OEMs require changes, they can be updated, Courtois said in an interview Tuesday.
Even while Microsoft continues to work through potentially thorny issues with the Commission, it is collaborating with the body in other areas, such as fighting spam, Gates said.
The Microsoft Government Leaders Forum ends Wednesday.
