EU Commission raps Microsoft

The EU Commission says that the Microsoft bundling of its video playing software Media Player with its Windows operating system puts other products, such as RealNetworks and Apple Computer's QuickTime at a disadvantage.

In a US settlement made last week Microsoft agreed to allow computer makers to remove the Media Player icon from desktops but not to take away the entire programme.

Microsoft sees this as a good compromise and hopes it will be adopted by the EU Commission.

It would be very unhappy about being required to split Media Player from Windows completely.

The EU Commission is also investigating claims made by Sun Microsystems that Microsoft used Windows large market share to gain dominance in the market for servers.

It is possible that it may be required to give technical information to its competitors to enable their servers to interact with Windows.