Sources say Microsoft faces EU query on Word, Excel

Microsoft is facing deeper scrutiny from European regulators on whether it is abusing its dominance in word processing and spreadsheets, three people with direct knowledge of the case said.

The European Commission in Brussels has sent a second questionnaire to rivals of Microsoft asking them for additional details on how the company may crimp competition by withholding technical data on Word and Excel, said the people, who declined to be identified because the letters aren't public.

"The commission will have to look at whether Microsoft was deliberately holding up that information," said Neil Macehiter of England-based Macehiter Ward-Dutton.

The EU questionnaire follows a February 2006 complaint by a group representing companies including International Business Machines and Sun Microsystems. The organization, the European Committee for Interoperability Systems, claims Microsoft doesn't provide formatting and other information to allow rival products to work with Word and Excel.

The query comes two months before a European court rules on Microsoft's appeal of a record 497 million-euro ($685 million) fine for breaking EU antitrust rules. The commission accused Microsoft of illegally using Windows, which runs on about 95 percent of the world's personal computers, to crush competition from rival makers of server software and media players.

Jonathan Todd, a commission spokesman, and Tom Brookes, a Microsoft spokesman in Brussels, had no immediate comment.

Microsoft's competitors were asked for specific examples of how Microsoft has refused to make interoperability information available, the people said. Rivals need the data to make their products work with Microsoft's Office, which includes Word, Excel, the PowerPoint presentation program and Outlook e-mail software.

Microsoft has sought to make it easier for rival companies to develop compatible programs as customers switched to open-source software. In December 2006, Ecma, a Geneva-based international standards association, approved Office Open XML formats as a new standard.

Microsoft provided more than 6,000 pages of documentation to allow rivals to take advantage of the new format.

Macehiter said Microsoft's rivals may have a more difficult case to prove since Microsoft has released the documentation. "The world has moved on and Microsoft has moved on," he said. "Microsoft will be very quick to point out these initiatives and say 'what is the issue?' The case isn't quite as easy to make as when the file formats were proprietary."