Microsoft has complied with the European Commission’s deadline set in March 2004 regarding anti-trust issues by submitting the technical information the Commission had requested. This course of action was set after the EC established that Microsoft abused their dominance in the PC market and did not permit enough interoperability with other software developers. This is what Microsoft had to say:

"This is another important step in the process. The Trustee and Microsoft have now completed the technical review and edits to the more than 100 documents, totalling 8,500 pages, that we submitted in July of this year, in accordance with the deadline established by the Commission. We are pleased that the Commission has recognized our efforts to comply with our documentation obligations, and we will continue to work closely with the Commission and the Trustee to ensure that we are in full compliance with every aspect of the Commission’s decision.”

Microsoft may be trying to play nice, but they are well aware that it will take months for the Commission to review all the documents. It is hard to believe Microsoft will let go of their grip so easily, but facing fines that could go as high as $3.9 million a month might be just the incentive they needed.