Microsoft on the Eu-ropes (and Dilbert hillbilly defense)

IT Blogwatch, in which Microsoft faces yet another anti-competitive complaint to the European watchdogs, Mary Jo Foley wears rubber, and Scott Adams gets an oh-so-very-PC letter in defense of hillbillies ... oops, I mean, Appalachians ...

The European competition funfair has a new ride -- with ECIS yelling "faster!" [Is that the Metaphor Police knocking down my door?] Details from Simon Taylor: "[Microsoft] rivals lodged a new complaint with the European Commission today over the company's Office applications suite and other upcoming products, arguing that its business practices are shutting out competitors ... European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), which includes vendors such as IBM, Nokia Corp., Oracle Corp., RealNetworks Inc. and Red Hat Inc., announced that it had made a formal complaint ... One example of the issues raised in the complaint is Microsoft's refusal to disclose interoperability information for its Office suite ... prevents other application suites such as OpenOffice and StarOffice from achieving full compatibility ... ECIS said it was calling on the commission, which is the European Union's antitrust watchdog, to end Microsoft's harmful business practices ... the complaint is separate from the commission's ongoing antitrust case against Microsoft ... The commission is not obliged to launch an official investigation when companies complain about a rival's business practices."

» Philip Letts, Techboard: "ECIS, which dates back to 1989, ... said that limits which were placed on Microsoft in the 2004 antitrust court ruling -- now under appeal by the company -- needed to be rapidly and fully enforced ... European Commission will likely win this battle with Microsoft (in some shape or form), but Microsoft have become masters at tying such rulings up in legal knots so that they can stretch their business practices out until ... their next set of product releases. And then the cycle can start all over again ... They should perhaps take Microsoft on more directly as a grouping -- that's the only real way of changing business practices. If they teamed up more and rode new innovations such as open-source and Internet sevices/Web 2.0, they have an even better chance of taming Microsoft than through the courts."

» Todd Bishop, Seattlepi.com: "Because the complaint by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems isn't public, the precise nature of the allegations isn't clear ... the group says its allegations involve products including Microsoft Office. But [ECIS won't say] if the complaint mentions Windows Vista ... Here's a copy of the group's statement about its complaint: PDF ... As noted in some reports, RealNetworks, which reached an antitrust settlement with Microsoft last year, is a member of ECIS. However, RealNetworks spokesman Matt Graves says the Seattle company isn't a party to the complaint, which was brought by the ECIS organization."

» John Paczkowski: "Mommmmm, Billy's cheating again! ... we haven't been hearing as much pained wailing over Microsoft's business strategies as we used to. Until today, that is ... Microsoft cried foul over the ECIS's move, accusing its rivals of trying to use regulators to do what they can't do in the marketplace."

» Mary Jo pulls on her tall, shiny, black waders: "Many of the same competitors who helped fuel the last EC vs. Microsoft suit, plus a couple of new players ... It's not clear yet what differentiates the latest suit from the most recent one, which concluded in 2004. We're guessing the new case might be specific to Windows Vista and Office 2007." [Sorry about the mental image of Mary Jo in rubber]

» Nathan Weinberg, Inside Microsoft: "Looks to me that the group, calling itself the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, has realized how much easier it is to beat Microsoft when Europe’s courts have your back than on store shelves ... Give it up. You guys are all dinosaurs, and Microsoft beat you years ago. Try teaming up with some real competition, like Google or Yahoo."

Buffer overflow:

• TechieDolphin: Why Build a Collaboration Architecture?
• James Kendrick: BusinessWeek says digital books about to take of
• Eric Bangeman: Apple launching... something next week
  
• Techdirt: Patent Office Gives Final Rejection To NTP Patent, With Interesting Timing
• Techdirt: Why Bother With Data Protection?
• Blake Caraway: Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory...of TDD
• Philip Letts:  Windows servers overtake Unix servers for number 1 spot
• NetworkGarage: WiFi coming to your city, but not sure what that means?
• Matt Marshall: Redpoint Ventures raises $400 million, despite mediocre results
• Jonathan Schwartz: Free Server (v2.0) - Honest!
• Ken Drachnik: Preview Java EE 5 Today
• Jon Udell: The iTunes U agenda
• Om Malik: The New Office Space
• Ben Rockwood: Why I Hate Informix
• Bruce Schneier: Impressive Phishing Attack
• Douglas Schweitzer: Are Mac users the target du jour?
• Martin MC Brown: Extra RAM makes iMac Core Duo fly
• Martin MC Brown: Ad zapping with a proxy
• Alex Scoble: Hacking your Linksys WRT54G - Changing to 3rd party firmware
• Alex Scoble: Robert Scoble on full text feeds
• Martin McKeay: Mac Security: The first wave
• Global News Update: Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006
• Mitch Betts: Offshoring: Not a passing phase
• Brian Garrett: Qlogic Jumps on the Infiniband-wagon
• Shark Tank: How to think like a boss
• Douglas Schweitzer: E-commerce rosier than ever

And finally... Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) gets ... ummm ... letters

Richi Jennings (he's baaack) is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.