In addition, the EC continues to investigate a number of other actions Microsoft has taken to tie products to Windows
as well as Microsoft’s refusal to enable interoperability with certain of its monopoly technologies, including Sharepoint, Outlook, Exchange, and Office.
138
The EC is also investigating
Microsoft’s actions to manipulate the vote of the International Organization for Standardization / International Electrotechnical Commission on the recent standardization of Office “Open” XML (“OOXML”). As reported widely in the press and on the Internet, Microsoft’s manipulation of the standards setting process in favor of OOXML included financial inducements, threats, misleading information, and committee-stuffing.
139
These investigations are compelling examples of Microsoft’s continued misconduct related to its monopolies in operating systems and other products.
138 See Press Release, European Commission, Commission Initiates Formal Investigation against Microsoft in Two Cases of Suspected Abuse of Dominant Market Position (Jan. 14, 2008), available at:
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/08/19.
139 See Charles Forelle, Microsoft’s Office Push Scrutinized by EU, WALL ST. J., Feb. 8, 2008,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120242867034452081.html (stating that the EC is examining whether Microsoft’s pressure on countries to vote for the Office Open XML standard “amounted to an undue stifling of competition”). “In the months and weeks leading up to the vote, Microsoft resellers and other allies joined.