The European Commission has threatened Microsoft with daily fines of 3 million euros ($5.7 million) if it does not provide certain information that would allow rival software developers to make their programs work smoothly with Windows.
The order to reveal the documentation, released in a statement Wednesday by the commission, was part of a March 2004 antitrust ruling. It was the latest in a string of missed deadlines over the last two years imposed in an effort to get Microsoft to license technical information on its Windows operating system to rivals.
In July, the commission fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros ($357 million) for failing to submit the information.
Neelie Kroes, the European competition commissioner, expressed her frustrations in an interview in The Guardian on Wednesday. “I am not impressed if someone says 90 percent of the information is already there when we need 100 percent ” she said in the article. “It’s a jigsaw and some parts are missing. In my opinion, this information should have been here a couple of months ago.”
In response, the company issued a statement, saying, “Microsoft is committed to full compliance with the commission’s March 2004 decision and we are working closely with the commission and the monitoring trustee toward that goal.”
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