France’s Finance Ministry said on Friday that it has launched an investigation into alleged anti-competitive practices by Microsoft Corp in the country. The move follows complaints from fans of alternative operating systems such as Linux and BeOs about how it is next to impossible to buy a PC without Microsoft Windows pre-installed.
The ministry is expected to look into claims that Microsoft acts anti-competitively with the structure of its OEM market development agreements. These have come under criticism in the Microsoft versus Department of Justice antitrust trial in the US, where it was claimed that Redmond used the agreements to effectively ban PC makers from installing any other OS on their machines.
The France investigations are said to be at an early stage, and have not yet been referred to antitrust regulator the Competition Council. Referring to the, a ministry spokesperson told Reuters: It’s not anything yet like the US.
