Opera seeks EC ruling against Microsoft

Stephen Withers
Friday, 14 December 2007 00:55

Business IT - Technology

Microsoft's IE development team has described ACID2 as a "wish list" rather than a test of standards compliance, but that still leaves web developers with the overhead of having to produce code that will render sensibly on all significant browsers, something that increases costs and therefore reduces business efficiency.

If time or financial constraints mean developers are only able to ensure that a commercial site works properly with one browser, it is almost certain to be Internet Explorer because of its dominant market share.

Apart from any other arguments around interoperability, the EC might support Opera's claims of anticompetitive behaviour if Opera could show that Microsoft's web development tools tend to produce code that renders correctly in Internet Explorer but not in other browsers.

Opera has the support of the European Committee for Interoperable Systems regarding these issues. Opera is a member of ECIS, along with IBM, Oracle and Sun - companies that have at best a mixed relationship with Microsoft.

The Windows Media Player case cost Microsoft a fine of almost €500 million. If Opera wins, it will be interesting to see what the EC believes is an appropriate fine for a 'repeat offender'.