Opera Latest "Victim" in Microsoft Anti-Trust Claim

Opera Software, maker of the Opera browser, says it has filed a complaint against Microsoft, accusing the company of abusing the dominance of Windows to give Internet Explorer an unfair edge in the market.

However just under a year ago Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner was asked by SeattlePi in an interview about Windows/IE antitrust issues, he responded at the time that his company had no intentions of taking action. Here is a summary of Opera's complaint:

Opera requests the Commission to implement two remedies to Microsoft's abusive actions. First, it requests the Commission to obligate Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers pre-installed on the desktop. Second, it asks the European Commission to require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities. The complaint calls on Microsoft to adhere to its own public pronouncements to support these standards, instead of stifling them with its notorious "Embrace, Extend and Extinguish" strategy. Microsoft's unilateral control over standards in some markets creates a de facto standard that is more costly to support, harder to maintain, and technologically inferior and that can even expose users to security risks.

And Microsoft had this to say about the complaint:

"It's important to note that computer users have complete freedom of choice to use and set as default any browser they wish, including Opera, and PC manufacturers can also preinstall any browser as the default on any Windows machine they sell. Microsoft is committed to ensuring that freedom through our Windows Principles. Internet Explorer has been an integral part of the Windows operating system for over a decade and supports a wide range of web standards. We will of course cooperate with any inquiries into these issues, but we believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers already are free to choose to use any browsers they wish."

It makes you wonder if Opera are suffering after they changed their flagship product to "Freeware" where-as before you had to purchase a license for the ad-free version of Opera browser suite. Generally speaking people will use the product if it is good, Mozilla Firefox hasn't gained a significant market share for nothing!

News source: SeattlePi