The European Commission has threatened Microsoft with daily fines of €3 million if it doesn’t provide information about its Windows operating system by Nov. 23, according to a report in a British newspaper Wednesday.
Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said Microsoft was trying her patience, according to a report in The Guardian on Wednesday. “I don’t have eternal life,” she is reported to have said.
The Commission fined Microsoft €280.5 million in July for failing to provide information as ordered in a landmark antitrust ruling in March 2004.
Microsoft initially claimed that it didn’t understand what information the Commission wanted. The 2004 ruling ordered the firm to make available enough information about Windows to allow makers of rival server software programs to design their products to work as seamlessly with Windows as Microsoft’s own server operating system.
After a hearing earlier this year, Microsoft said it finally understood what the Commission was after, and submitted what it said was the final installment of information on July 19.
However, Kroes said this isn’t enough. “I am not impressed if someone says 90 percent of the information is already there when we need 100 percent. It’s a jigsaw and some parts are missing. … In my opinion, this information should have been here a couple of months ago,” the newspaper quotes her as saying.
Neither the Commission nor Microsoft were immediately available to comment.