United States software giant Microsoft insisted on Friday that nobody would want to buy its Windows operating system without Media Player, in an appeal against a European Union ruling that it had abused its market dominance.
On the second day of a hearing before the EU Court of First Instance, the software titan said that users did not want a stripped-down version of its all-conquering system.
The European Commision, the EU’s executive arm, ruled in March that the company had to offer a version of its operating system Windows without its Media Player software, which offers access to audio and video content.
The Brussels commission also required Microsoft to provide competitors with the information they needed to enable their products to communicate with Windows.
Brussels also fined Microsoft nearly half a billion euros. The money has been paid into an escrow account, meaning it is held in trust and neither Microsoft nor the commission has access while the appeal is pending.
Microsoft has dubbed the version of Windows without Media Player ”A6” since it is the result of article six of the EU’s decision.
But company lawyer Jean-Francois Bellis told the Luxembourg court: ”There is no rationale that end-users would take A6.”
”This is the first time the commission challenged the right of how a dominant company designs its own product,” he said. He added: ”This would not just be new law, it would be bad law.”
The company claims that media functionality, which will necessarily be stripped out of the operating system together with the media player, is an integral part of an operating system.
Microsoft called various experts to support its case, arguing that removal of the functionality will create confusion for software developers and web content providers.
Microsoft’s rivals are fiercely opposed to any suspension of the measures ordered against it. They argue that such a ruling would open the way for Microsoft to extend its dominance further.
”You’ve already seen them eliminate competition on the browser market,” said CCIA lawyer Thomas Vinje, arguing that the bundling of software like Media Player is ”the most anti-competitive weapon Microsoft has employed”.
He notably voiced concern that, after audio and video software, Microsoft could use its dominance to similar effect for example in the mobile telephony software market.
Microsoft, while hoping for a positive ruling, is also prepared for the worst, its chief lawyer said before the Luxembourg hearing began.
”We obviously think that having to comply really would cause great harm not only to us as a company but to great many others in our industry… But nonetheless if we’re ordered to comply we’ll be in the position to to do so.”
The court president Bo Vesterdorf was set to question both sides on their arguments concerning the removal of media player. He is expected to hand down his decision in four to six weeks. – Sapa-AFP