News
Open Forum Europe supports Opera's complaint to EU over Microsoft
9 January 2008
Opera, the Norwegian Internet browser company, has filed a complaint
with the European Commission over some of Microsoft's business
practices. Opera says Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by
tying Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system and that it is
hindering interoperability by not following commonly accepted Web
standards.
Open Forum Europe (OFE) has expressed its support for the move. OFE
chief executive Graham Taylor said: "From its inception, OFE has
encouraged the development and use of open standards and supported moves
towards improving interoperability. The allegation that Microsoft fails
to implement industry-accepted open Web standards, or that it
systematically adds proprietary extensions in its implementations, is
very serious.
"Lock-in to proprietary solutions is arguably one of the single
greatest
inhibitors to an Open Europe, free from barriers to innovation and
accessibility. Open standards need to be precisely that — open to all.
They also need to be fully adopted without proprietary extensions."
OFE's stance is that Open Web standards allow developers to readily
create web content and applications. This benefits consumers, companies
and governments by increasing competition and choice. Ensuring free
competition is perhaps especially important when it comes to browsers,
as they have increasingly become much more than simple viewing tools.
OFE says that it would not be the first time that a company has
superficially collaborated in the process of developing community
standards and then not adhering to those standards in its
implementations. This has implications beyond the current complaint.
Over the last year, OFE has become increasingly concerned about the
behaviour of Microsoft and Ecma in attempting to fast-track its Office
Open XML specification (OOXML) through the ISO system.
Graham Taylor said: “We know that Ecma and Microsoft are now engaged
in resolving some of the technical issues raised in the previous stage
of the process, but given the company's track record, there is real
concern that Microsoft, the originator and primary author of OOXML, will
delay and postpone implementing any such changes in its Office 2007
products. This will make the specification worthless as an international
standard.”
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