Sun is not alone in its Microsoft anti-trust battle

The evidence and testimony against Microsoft's anti-competitive practices that have been gathered through continuing anti-trust legal action in the US and the European Union have come from a lot of other companies besides Sun Microsystems, according to Sun's president and chief operations officer, Mr Ed Zander.

Mr Zander was responding to the decision of the European Commission, following a complaint by Sun, to extend its antitrust investigations of Microsoft to cover allegations that it abused its near-monopoly in personal computer operating software to drive out competitors in the market for server software.

"As you know, we've been very opinionated for many years about some of the business practices of Microsoft," Mr Zander said in Dublin yesterday.

"I'm not that well versed in European Union law, but we were asked a year and a half ago to give our opinions and talk about things. Since then, there has been extensive investigation on the part of the European Commission with not just Sun but from a whole bunch of other companies," he said.

The Commission has issued a "statement of objections" to Microsoft over what it claims is a violation of EU competition laws by the software giant. This latest action came after Sun alleged that Microsoft was breaching EU antitrust rules by discriminatory licensing and by refusing to supply essential information on its Windows 2000 operating system.

However, Mr Kevin Dillon, general manager of Microsoft's European operating centres, said in an interview on RTE Radio yesterday that Microsoft was confident that it had not broken EU competition rules. The company also issued a statement on Thursday arguing that Sun Microsystems continued to use state intervention to compensate for the fact that Microsoft's products are outperforming Sun's and at a lower cost.

Sun has been instrumental in bringing Microsoft's anti-trust violations to the attention of the US Department of Justice.

Mr Zander welcomed the Commission's move but said: "I don't think a lot about it. I think it sums up a message to the marketplace and we're hoping that the laws of the world and the courts of the world enforces the law, whoever breaks them. In this case, it's Microsoft.

"This is their own investigation, not ours. The European Commission went off for the best part of six months and talked to lots of individuals and companies and did their own analysis and investigations.

"So, I'm going to let them do their job and the Department of Justice in the US do their job. At the end of the day we have to go on selling our products and services and to let governments use due process to figure out whether Microsoft broke the laws in the European Union or the US or not."

This is in marked contrast to Mr Zander's reaction in April to a US court ruling that Microsoft had violated anti-trust law. Speaking to journalists in London, Mr Zander said: "For so long the press didn't really believe that Microsoft was doing anything wrong. You had to get behind it from our position to see that they are bullies."