There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding. We have worked productively with PIN-SME on issues regarding ICT SMEs in the past, so we were very surprised to see the attack they launched against us today.
For those who don’t know, PIN-SME is a recently created organization whose members are regional ICT-related trade associations from throughout Europe (whose individual members are automatically counted as part of the larger PIN-SME organization). They do a lot of great work on promoting the interests of ICT SMEs in Europe. We don’t always agree with them on methods or policy recommendations, but we always agree on the goal of improving the environment for ICT SMEs in Europe. The European Commission’s complaint against Microsoft for integrating Internet Explorer and its underlying technology into Windows is one such area of disconnect.
ICT SME’s Are As Diverse as Europe Itself
What is disturbing is that PIN-SME makes the following argument in their attack:
The leadership at PIN-SME should know better than anyone how dangerous it is to treat all European SMEs as some monolithic entity. ICT SME’s are as diverse as Europe itself, and to suggest that all of them agree on ANY position is a mistake.
74 ICT SME’s from 21 European Countries signed a statement of concern about the European Commission’s proposed remedy in this case, which we included in our submission to the EC. Is PIN-SME suggesting their views are not legitimate? Are they saying any SME that disagrees with the PIN-SME position cannot be a real SME? I’m sure that would not be the case if someone asked them, but they certainly infer it in their statement.
Misreading the ACT Position
PIN-SME incorrectly asserts that ACT believes “SMEs should benefit from the existence of the Microsoft monopoly in the browsers market.” We have never said that nor do we believe it in any way.
In fact, our primary interest in this case is not the browser market itself, but the collateral damage the Commission’s remedies would impose on software developers that are creating desktop applications and web-based software that leverages desktop applications. Despite the assertion PIN-SME seems to be making, the interests of these developers deserve to be heard and protected.
We do have serious questions about the European Commission's case given that the evidence suggests we already have a world where a “variety of open and standards-compliant browsers exist in a market of vigorous and undistorted competition.” However, the focus of our submission to the Commission was the proposal to rip out or lock the underlying code behind Internet Explorer. This code and the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) it provides are critical to software developers and cannot be replaced by alternative browsers. This technology is used by many desktop programs to access information or updates on the Internet without ever having to launch an actual web browser. As we said in our blog:
There has to be a better way than ripping functionality out of Windows that developers rely upon to address the Commission's concerns. The Commission is not just talking about removing the desktop application we know as Internet Explorer, but enormous amounts of technology that are leveraged by software developers in order to write programs in less time and with lower costs.
We look forward to talking to PIN-SME and the Commission about our concerns, and clearing up any further misunderstandings.