Microsoft insisted today it has lived up to European Union competition measurements as it attempts to avoid new fines at the start of a two-day hearing with regulators.
But EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said the company still has to comply with a two-year-old order to share technical information with rivals. "The best outcome for everybody would be that Microsoft were to finally do that," he said.
The EU has threatened to fine the company €2 million a day backdated to December, saying the technical manual Microsoft provided that month needed a radical overhaul to make it usable.
But Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith said daily fines were "not the answer," adding that the software maker had gone beyond complying with the EU's 2004 ruling that orders it to share technical information with other software companies.
"We have complied and we are willing to do more," he said. "But we cannot do it alone. Interoperability in our industry happens through dialogue and engagement, not through fines."
Mr Todd said the European Commission wasn't asking Microsoft to go beyond what it was told to do two years ago.
The hearing is Microsoft's last chance to defend itself before the EU decides whether to go ahead with the fines. It said there was no deadline for a decision.