Microsoft has offered to provide a choice of Web browsers with its upcoming Windows 7 operating system to ease concerns of competition regulators in the European Union, the EU's competition authority confirmed Friday.
Microsoft proposed including a "ballot screen" that would make it easy for Windows 7 users to install a competing Web browser, set it as the default and disable Internet Explorer, the European Commission said in a statement. PC makers would also be able to install competing Web browsers and disable IE.
"The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness in terms of ensuring genuine consumer choice," it said.
The Commission raised concerns in January that Microsoft's practice of tying IE with Windows might be anticompetitive. Later, in June, it said that simply separating IE from Windows might not be sufficient to ensure competition.
Microsoft has also made proposals to the Commission about disclosing information to achieve better interoperability between Windows, Windows Server and third-party products, the Commission said Friday. It is also investigating these proposals, it said, declining to comment further.
The EU has already won an earlier competition case against Microsoft. In May 2004 it fined the company a record EUR497 million ($US794 million) and ordered it to sell a version of Windows in Europe that did not include Microsoft's Windows Media Player software, to restore competition in that market.
Few PC makers sold the version of Windows without WMP, however, and the remedy was widely seen as ineffective. The Commission is keen to extract more effective remedies from Microsoft for its latest objections.
Microsoft couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The Commission said Microsoft planned to post details of its proposals on its own Web site.