Microsoft vs. Europe: Possible truce, with Windows 7
By Peter Gumbel
Microsoft's titanic struggle with Europe's trust busters appears to be finally drawing to a close — thanks in part to Windows 7, the new operating system the U.S. software giant is releasing worldwide this week.
The two sides have been at loggerheads for a decade over the European Union's allegations that Microsoft has abused its dominant market position to push its own products such as Windows Media Player and the Internet Explorer web browser on consumers by bundling them with Windows — to the detriment of rival companies. It's a battle Microsoft (MSFT) has fought vigorously, but largely lost; it has been dragged into European courts and hit three times with fines that, together, total well over $1.5 billion.
But as it has geared up to launch Windows 7, Microsoft has changed tune — and so have the Europeans. "There's been a lot of progress in the past few months," Jean-Philippe Courtois, the Paris-based president of Microsoft's international operations, told Fortune. The atmosphere, he says, "is more serene."
It's a sign of the growing détente that Courtois himself, a 25-year Microsoft veteran, is currently serving as an official "ambassador" for a jamboree called the "Year of Creativity and Innovation" organized by the E.U.'s executive commission — the same body that has been taking Microsoft to task over its business practices. He will be sharing a podium in Brussels in early November with the commission's president, José-Manuel Barroso, and the other 14 ambassadors. "We're trying to be a partner with Europe," Courtois says, pointing out that Microsoft spends about $600 million on research and development in Europe, and provides thousands of jobs in the region.
