EU may fine Microsoft $2.2 billion

European Union regulators may fine Microsoft for failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust order to charge "reasonable" fees for patent licenses on operating-system software, three people familiar with the matter said.

The fine may be announced as soon as Wednesday, said the people, who declined to be identified because the decision isn't public. Microsoft said in a Jan. 24 U.S. regulatory filing that the penalty may be as much as 1.5 billion euros ($2.2 billion).

Microsoft has tried to allay European antitrust concerns, announcing last week that it will help competitors' software work better with some products, such as Office. It also sought to limit potential EU fines, which already total 775 million euros in the 2004 case, by agreeing in October to make network data available to open-source software developers so their server software can connect to Windows.

Tom Brookes, a Microsoft spokesman in Brussels, and Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator in Brussels, declined to comment.

The EU's penalty isn't related to Microsoft's announcement last week on easing compatibility problems with rivals' products. The commission's fine is based entirely on the company's noncompliance with the 2004 antitrust order.

On March 1, 2007, the EU threatened the company with millions of euros in daily fines backdated to December 2005 for failing to fully comply with a March 2004 antitrust order.

Under that decision, for which the company was fined a record 497 million euros, Microsoft had to provide data to rivals to allow their servers to connect to the Windows platform. When patent licenses were necessary for that network data, Microsoft was required to charge "reasonable" royalties.