European Committee for Interoperable Systems

The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) is an international non-profit association founded in 1989 in order to promote interoperability and market conditions in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector allowing vigorous competition on the merits and a diversity of consumer choice. ECIS has represented its members on many issues related to interoperability and competition before European, national and international bodies, including the European Union institutions and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Fact|date=February 2008 ECIS’ members include large and smaller information and communications technology hardware and software providers as Adobe Systems, Corel Corporation, IBM, Linspire, Nokia, Opera Software, Oracle Corporation, RealNetworks, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems.cite web
url=http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/corporate/microsoft_competitors_wow_moment.html
title=Microsoft Competitors' 'Wow' Moment
publisher=microsoft-watch.com
quote="Today, ECIS (European Committee for Interoperable Systems) again charged that Windows Vista would stifle innovation and competition. The group, founded in 1989, represents a Who's Who list of Microsoft competitors, including Adobe, Corel, IBM, Linspire, Nokia, Opera, Oracle, RealNetworks, Red Hat and Sun. Many of these same companies are Microsoft partners, too."
date=2007-01-26
accessdate=2008-02-24]

Involvement against Microsoft dominance

Over the past years, ECIS has been actively involved in the European Commission’s anti-trust condemnation against Microsoft, now upheld by the European Court of First Instance in September 2007.cite web
url=http://www.ecis.eu/news/2007_jan26.html
title=ECIS Media Release January 26, 2007
publisher=ECIS
quote="With XAML and OOXML Microsoft seeks to impose its own Windows-dependent standards and displace existing open cross-platform standards which have wide industry acceptance, permit open competition and promote competition-driven innovation. The end result will be the continued absence of any real consumer choice, years of waiting for Microsoft to improve - or even debug - its monopoly products, and of course high prices"
date=2007-01-26
accessdate=2008-03-06] [ [http://www.ecis.eu/news/index.html ECIS News room] ] [cite web
url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/14/microsoft_hit_new_ec_probes/
title=Microsoft hit by two more EC probes
publisher=theregister.co.uk
quote="Commission will also investigate whether the software giant's new office file format, Office Open XML, is interoperable enough with competing products. This refers to a complaint made by the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS)"
date=2008-01-14
accessdate=2008-02-24]

Some have hintedfact|date=August 2008 that ECIS corporate members are mainly Microsoft competitors, which does not of course invalidate their complaints against Microsoft dominance.

Other complaints about Microsoft include:
* That bundling XAML in Vista is an attempt to replace HTML by a Microsoft-specific technology [cite web
url=http://www.itwire.com/content/view/8988/53/
title=Microsoft runs into EU Vista charges
publisher=itwire.com
quote="The main complaint is Microsoft's bundling of its own markup language XAML with Vista. According to ECIS, XAML has been positioned to compete with the universally used HTML (hypertext markup language), which is the code used to design web pages of sites in use today. ECIS contends that bundling XAML with Vista is an attempt to promote the creation of websites that work only with Vista."
date=2007-01-28
accessdate=2008-02-24] [cite web
url=http://www.betanews.com/article/ECIS_Accuses_Microsoft_of_Plotting_HTML_Hijack/1169824569
title=ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack
publisher=betanews.com
last=Fulton|first=Scott
date=2007-01-28
accessdate=2008-02-24]
* That Office Open XML is a Microsoft-dependent document format

ee also

*Free Software Foundation Europe
*OpenForum Europe

tatements about the European Commission's anti-trust case against Microsoft

* [http://www.ecis.eu/documents/ECIS_Press_Statement_22_October.pdf ECIS statement from Oct. 22 on the EU-MS agreement]
* [http://www.ecis.eu/documents/ECISPressStatement117September.pdf ECIS statement on the European Court First Instance (CFI) Microsoft judgment]
* [http://www.ecis.eu/news/04_mar26.html March 26, 2004 ECIS welcomes Commission Decision finding Microsoft infringed Article 82]

References

External links

* [http://www.ecis.eu/ ECIS main site]