From the Boston bureau at WGBH, I'm Helen Palmer for Marketplace. Microsoft today launched its latest operating system, Windows 2000. The company released the product worldwide, including in Europe, where anti-trust regulators have objected to the new system. From the European Desk in London, Stephen Beard reports. He's investigating a complaint that the Windows 2000 operating system is anti-competitive, allowing Microsoft to dominate the server market.
Servers are computers that connect PCs to the Internet.
Windows 2000, it's alleged, has been bundled with Microsoft's server application in a way that makes the two products only work properly together. If the European Commission decides he company has broken European law, it could force Microsoft to alter Windows 2000 or ban it from sale in the E.U. altogether. Microsoft denies that the new package is anti-competitive and says, pointedly, that the complaint was filed by its historic U.S. rival, Sun Microsystems. Meanwhile, Windows 2000 is encountering problems elsewhere in the world. A showdown is looming with the Chinese government over the system's encryption code.