Microsoft submits final EU antitrust proposals

Microsoft has met the European Commission (EC) deadline for submitting proposals on how it intends to comply with last year's antitrust ruling.

The EC has already rejected one proposal from Microsoft and threatened to invoke a daily fine of up to $5m on the company if the software giant missed a midnight deadline this week to submit its final remedy.

The initial EC antitrust ruling in March last year ordered Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without Media Player and to disclose source code to rival makers of server software to enable their products to be interoperable with Windows.

The key sticking point is the interoperability remedy and the EC rejected Microsoft's last proposal in March over the high level of royalties Microsoft had proposed.

An EC competition spokeswoman confirmed Microsoft had submitted a new proposal just before midnight on Tuesday this week.

"We have to study it very carefully and that could take a few weeks," she said.

But even if the EC rejects these new proposals it will still be some time before Microsoft faces any financial penalties. The EC spokeswoman said a letter would have to be sent to Microsoft detailing why the proposals had been rejected and giving Microsoft time to reply. The member states and the EC would then also have to be consulted before the fines could be invoked.

A statement issued by Microsoft said: "We have submitted our proposals to the Commission and we await their response."