EU: No Microsoft Fines Until July

Although the European Union's imposed deadline for Microsoft to comply with its antitrust sanctions has arrived, a decision on fines will not come until the end of July at the earliest. Spokesperson Jonathan Todd says that it may take several weeks to decide whether or not fines are necessary.

Under EU law, the European Commission has the authority to fine a company up to five percent of its daily global revenue if it feels its sanctions are not being followed appropriately. In March of 2004, the Commission fined Microsoft 497 billion euro for anti-competitive practices.

As a part of the sanction, Microsoft was mandated to open up the source code of its server software to third parties to allow for better interoperability, as well as offer a version of Windows XP without its bundled Windows Media Player.

Todd said that he sees no reason why Microsoft would not at least attempt to make an offer by midnight tonight; however, it would take some time for the members of the Commission to look through it and see if it is acceptable.

According to Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox, Microsoft has "good reasons" to slow down the process as much as it can. "Every day that Microsoft stalls the process is another day closer to an appeals decision," Wilcox wrote in his Microsoft Monitor Web log.

Even if the company does end up having its latest proposal rejected, Wilcox says the impact of the fines would not be felt until the next fiscal year.

"Assuming the EU rejected Microsoft's proposal and fined 5 percent of daily global sales, the company wouldn't see material impact until after the start of its 2006 fiscal year on July 1," Wilcox wrote. "And, of course, Microsoft would have the option of appealing the fine, further dragging out the process."