BF2S Forums Microsoft Facing EU Antitrust Probe for Office

Here's another one for Microsoft to add to its seemingly never-ending list of EU antitrust probes: Word and Excel.

Bloomberg this week reports that Microsoft is in talks with European Union antitrust officials regarding Word and Excel in addition to the high profile case surrounding the Redmond company's Internet Explorer web browser. Bloomberg cites four sources, who all declined to be identified because the talks are confidential, as saying Microsoft is in preliminary talks to settle two additional probes before EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes leaves office. The sources went on to say that any agreement would have to resolve a case over IE as well as a separate investigation into word processing and spreadsheet software.

Microsoft has already racked over $2 billion in antitrust fines from the European Union and, while we've been hearing all about the IE probe for months now, details on the probe into the Office software are a little hazy. Bloomberg sources say that the EU is investigating complaints that Microsoft doesn’t provide formatting and other information to allow rival products to work with Microsoft Office software
but neither Microsoft nor the EU would comment on the report.