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The European Commission has recently extended its formal probes launched on 14 January 2008 against Microsoft in two cases where it has been alleged that the multinational firm had abused its dominant market position.

The first case was brought by a complaint from web browser Opera, which complained that the tying of Microsoft's Internet Explorer to its Windows operating system was anti-competitive.

The second case under investigation was the complaint filed by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems for the Microsoft's refusal to disclose interoperability information on some Microsoft server products, Office and NET Framework. In relation to this case the Commission also intends to verify Office Open XML (OOXML) file format for not working with its competitors' specifications.

In the latter case, the Commission will also check possible influence of the the votes by the company during the ISO standardization process for the OOXML document format. The Commission has asked Microsoft to provide information about its activities during the process wanting to know whether the software firm has put pressure on committees in various countries to ratify OOXML as a standard.

ISO members refused to adopt OOXML in September of 2007 and Microsoft was asked to make improvements before the final vote that will take place at the end of February 2008 in Geneva. The Association for a Free Information Infrastructure had revealed, even before the September vote that there were some irregularities in the Microsoft's participation in the committees, calling for the ceasing of the standardization process. Among other charges, Microsoft is suspected of having bought votes in Sweden, of hindering the participation of the competition by limiting the number of seats and by "hijacking" standardization committees in some countries, including the US, Mexico and Columbia.

EU looks into Microsoft's influence on ISO standardization process (08.02.2008)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/103201/

EU investigates Microsoft's OOXML campaign (08.02.2008)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/08/ooxml_eu_probe_iso/

Microsoft faces additional European antitrust probe (08.02.2008)
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-faces-additional-europ...

EDRi-gram: Opera complains to the EC on Microsoft's Internet Explorer (19.12.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.24/opera-commission-microsoft

EDRi-gram: Reactions on the ISO voting procedures (12.09.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.17/iso-procedures