Real CEO says EU-Microsoft ruling 'right,' may help lawsuit

With the sting of the European Commission's antitrust ruling against Microsoft still fresh, RealNetworks head Rob Glaser appeared in London on Wednesday endorsing the Commission's decision as more solid than the U.S. settlement, and predicting that it would aid his company's private suit against the software giant.

"Our sense is that the Commission did the right thing for the right reasons," Glaser told a handful of journalists at an event to launch international versions of the company's RealPlayer 10 software.

The RealNetworks chairman and CEO said that the Commission's decision was especially important to his company because it is the first time that an antitrust ruling has been made concerning media players, given that the U.S. case against Microsoft centered around browsers and Java.

Real hopes that the decision will add fuel to a private suit it lodged against Microsoft last year, after the U.S. government settled its antitrust battle with the Redmond, Wash., company, in an agreement that some competitors saw as merely a slap on the wrist.

"Our lawyers tell me that (the Commission's ruling) will strengthen our private suit," Glaser said.

Real's U.S. suit accuses Microsoft of using its monopoly powers to control the digital media market by forcing PC makers to include its Windows Media Player, while at the same time placing restrictions on competing players like Real's.

Many of the concerns brought up by the private suit were addressed in the Commission's decision late last month, in which it ruled that Microsoft must offer versions of its ubiquitous Windows operating system (OS) without bundling its Windows Media Player, giving original equipment manufacturers a choice over which player to provide. It also laid down rules that Microsoft must disclose details of interfaces used by its products to communicate with Windows and levied a 497 million-euro ($601 million on Wednesday) fine.

And although in negotiations with the Commission Microsoft had offered to provide several different media players with its OS, Glaser believes that the Commission's final decision was the right course to take.

"It's much better to establish a legal precedent than to have one party craft a solution," he said. "And we are already hearing from manufacturers that they welcome the opportunity to choose which player they want to include."

The Commission's ruling stands in contrast to the U.S. Department of Justice's 2002 settlement with the software provider, which established restrictions to licensing agreements, orders Microsoft to release some of its intellectual property and forbids retaliation against PC vendors and software manufacturers that offer competing products.

At the time of the settlement some Microsoft rivals complained that U.S. regulators had not gone far enough. The Commission's ruling has also faced criticism -- not from Microsoft competitors, but from U.S. politicians who claim that antitrust rulings against U.S. companies should be made at home. The Justice Department's antitrust chief has even come out against the decision, calling it "unfortunate."

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.