ABSTRACT
On March 24, 2004, the five-year investigation by the European Commission into the anticompetitive practices of Microsoft culminated in a ruling against the company's bundling of new programs with its Windows operating system. Specifically the case focused on the Windows Media Player, which when offered with the Windows operating software sent sales plummeting for the front-running media playing software of RealNetworks, Microsoft's much smaller rival. The commission concluded that the effect was too similar to the Netscape browser battle in which Microsoft's bundling of its Internet Explorer software with the operating system doomed the smaller browser company. In attempting to blunt the extension of the Windows monopoly to new areas, the commission, however, was acting after much of the damage had been done, and the ruling, while forcing the software giant to remove WMP from one version of Windows, did not return the market to the time before Microsoft's entry. All that the regulatory agency could do was appoint a monitor to ensure that the two versions of Windows—with and without WMP—were comparable and that Microsoft did "not give PC manufacturers a discount conditional on their buying Windows together with the Windows Media Player." 1
