Microsoft has submitted documents required by the European Commission in an effort to avoid further fines, a spokeswoman for the EU competition regulator said today.
"We received the technical documentation from Microsoft. The competition services are currently analysing it with the help of the trustee. It's too early to say whether they complied with the decision," the spokeswoman said.
Earlier this month, the EU fined Microsoft €280.5 million for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling requiring it to share key information on its office servers with rivals, and it warned the company to comply or face bigger fines from next month.
The information is needed so that rivals' servers can compete on a level playing field with Microsoft's own.
Microsoft must help its rivals interconnect smoothly with its Windows operating system for personal computers. Part of the decision was based on an evaluation by an independent monitoring trustee, British Professor Neil Barrett, who was nominated by the US software giant.
The non-compliance penalty imposed on July 12th was the first of its kind and came on top of a record €497 million fine the Commission levied in its landmark antitrust decision against Microsoft in March 2004.
That decision found that the company abused the dominance of its Windows operating system to squeeze out competitors.
Microsoft faces a further fine of up to €3 million a day if it is found to be still not in compliance with the ruling. The move signalled the Commission's determination to force the software company to obey its order. Microsoft had two years to comply.
Microsoft says it has made massive efforts to comply with the Commission's ruling and had 300 people working to complete its package of interoperability information.
The company, which has appealed against every ruling the Commission has made against it, has said it will appeal against the non-compliance fine as well.