Microsoft Agrees To Offer Browser Choice in Windows 8

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has promised to cooperate with guidelines set out by the European Commission that require his company to offer a choice of browsers in its upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

Ballmer’s pledge came after various complaints relating to browser choice on Windows. Several companies, including Google and Mozilla, had complained Microsoft was blocking Internet Explorer alternatives as part of its Windows on ARM architecture.

Earlier this year, Microsoft was in hot water with the EC when it emerged that millions of Europeans who were using Windows 7 had never seen the automatic “ballot screen” offering a choice of browsers, necessary under a 2009 antitrust agreement.

Past experiences

In July, the EC opened an investigation to establish whether Microsoft followed rules set out in a legally-binding agreement, which forced it to offer alternatives to the Internet Explorer web browser.

Under the 2009 agreement, the company was expected to offer an automatic “ballot screen” that would let European Windows users choose between 12 different browsers after OS installation.

However, the Commission said it had received information that indicated Microsoft failed to introduce the browser choice screen with the first Service Pack for Windows 7, despite claims to the contrary made in the vendor’s annual report.

Microsoft had later admitted that it failed to meet the requirements due to a “technical error”, launched an internal investigation and voluntarily extended the time during which it should offer the “ballot screen” by 15 months. The parallel EC investigation is still ongoing.

Now, the Commission is also investigating complaints that Microsoft does not provide rival browser designers with access to essential APIs on its Windows 8 version for ARM-based PCs. According to Mozilla general counsel Harvey Anderson, this means “that only Internet Explorer will be able to perform many of the advanced computing functions vital to modern browsers in terms of speed, stability and security to which users have grown accustomed”.

It seems that the largest software maker in the world has understood it can’t fight the EC, and this time, it is trying a diplomatic approach.

“In my personal talks with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer he has given me assurances that they will comply immediately regardless of the conclusion of the antitrust probe,” European commissioner Joaquin Almunia said at an economic conference in northern Italy, as reported by Reuters.

In 2004, the EC fined Microsoft €497 million for abusing its dominant position in the market. The company paid the fine in full, but had delayed conforming to the new guidelines. As a result, it was fined again in June 2006, for an additional €280.5 million.

In February 2008, the EU fined Microsoft once again, this time a mammoth €899 million – the largest penalty ever imposed in 50 years of EU competition policy, until 2009 and the €1.06 billion Intel fine. This year, the company had attempted to appeal the penalty, but was not successful.

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