IT trade lobby group ECIS is withdrawing a complaint against Microsoft it originally filed with European regulators in 2006. The complaint raised interoperability issues with server and office software, including networking protocols and file formats. In 2007, Redmond pledged to provide competitors with technical information, and last December, Microsoft signed up to a formal compliance program that will last for ten years.

"Microsoft continues to dominate the markets for operating systems and office suites, and continues to have an incentive to abuse its dominance. Therefore we will monitor Microsoft closely, keeping the Commission apprised of the effectiveness of Microsoft's implementation of its obligations," said ECIS' chief lawyer Thomas Vinje in a statement.

ECIS is supported by competitors including IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, and Opera.

As the result of a parallel inquiry instigated by Opera, new purchasers of Windows machines since March have been greeted with a randomised browser "ballot" screen, allowing them to choose from FireFox, Chrome, Opera, and other browsers, as well as Internet Explorer. It was revised after the algorithm doing the randomising was deemed to be too Googley. ®

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