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The tussle between a Chinese antitrust watchdog and American tech giant Microsoft seems to growing large silently over the ongoing antitrust investigations against the later.
According to some reliable sources, Microsoft Corp’s chief executive officer Satya Nadella is going China next month but whether the motive behind the visit is the probe is not clear.
A report published in Reuters quoting a Microsoft spokesman said that the company will not comment on the executive travel plans.
Chinese antitrust watchdog, State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), has earlier this month launched an antitrust probe against Microsoft’s products including Windows Operating System, Internet Explorer, media player and office suite, saying that the world’s largest software firm has broken anti-monopoly laws related to bundling, compatibility and document authentication of these applications.
“Microsoft had failed fully to disclose information about its software,” Zhang Mao, head and Communist Party chief of the SAIC, told a news conference in Beijing.
“Through repeated contact with Microsoft, their top-level executives have shown respect for Chinese laws and cooperated with China’s anti-monopoly investigation,” Zhang said.
Microsoft’s Windows Operating System is majorly used on computers in China.
This is not the first time when Microsoft is facing such probe. Earlier, in several other markets the company has faced anti-trust investigations for tying its Windows system to its other products. Microsoft was fined a whopping USD 731 million by the European Commission in March last year for failing to offer web browsers as per the choice of the users.
In is noteworthy, China has recently announced its plans for launching its own desktop and mobile software, including an Operating System (OS), in an attempt to oust foreign rivals from Google, Microsoft and Apple.
According the Reuters, it is not clear whether Nadela will be meeting any Chinese government representatives over the probe issue during his visit to the Asian country.
Meanwhile, Microsoft shares slumped 0.3 percent at USD 44.87 at the closing trade on Tuesday. However, the price of its shares has advanced nearly 20 percent since the start of the year.
