Microsoft to meet EU antitrust ruling

Microsoft Corp. said today it will license its Windows source code to comply with a European Union antitrust ruling.

The source code provides the building blocks of the operating system that competitors need to make products compatible with Windows.

In March 2004, the EU executive levied a record €497m fine against Microsoft, ordered it to share code with rivals and offer an unbundled version of Windows without the Media Player software for what the court saw as an abuse of the company’s dominant position in the industry.

Last month, the European Commission threatened to fine Microsoft up to €2m a day backdated to December 15 for failing to obey, saying the software giant was proving intransigent about sharing data with competitors.