Microsoft faces antitrust complaint for bundling browser
13 December 2007
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Less than two months after Microsoft lost a landmark antitrust case in Europe, a Norwegian software company filed a new complaint Thursday, challenging the U.S. software giant’s bundling of its Web browser with the Windows operating system.The complaint to the European Commission was filed by Opera Software, based in Oslo, a maker of browsers for personal computers and mobile devices. The company had $60 million in sales in 2006.
The company’s chief technology officer, Hakon Lie, said that the bundling of the Internet Explorer browser into Windows, which has more than 80 percent of the market share in Europe, violated European antitrust law.
In September, the second-highest European court upheld a 2004 ruling by the European Commission that Microsoft had illegally tied its media player to Windows. That ruling required Microsoft to market a version of Windows without its media player program.
“Of course the European Court of First Instance decision strengthens our case and that is in part why we decided to file this complaint now,” Lie said.
