The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) is an international non-profit association founded in 1989 in order to promote

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader de ...

and market conditions in the

Information and Communications Technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

(ICT) sector allowing vigorous

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indi ...

on the merits and a diversity of

consumer choice The theory of consumer choice is the branch of microeconomics that relates preferences to consumption expenditures and to consumer demand curves. It analyzes how consumers maximize the desirability of their consumption (as measured by their pr ...

. ECIS has represented its members on many issues related to interoperability and competition before European, national and international bodies, including the European Union institutions and the

World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO was created to pr ...

(WIPO). ECIS members include large and smaller information and communications technology hardware and software providers as

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...

, Corel Corporation,

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, Linspire,

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

Opera Software Opera (formerly Opera Software AS) is a Norwegian multinational technology corporation headquartered in Oslo, Norway with additional offices in European Union, Europe, China, and Africa. Opera offers a range of products and services that inclu ...

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational computer technology company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Co-founded in 1977 in Santa Clara, California, by Larry Ellison, who remains executive chairman, Oracle was ...

RealNetworks RealNetworks LLC is an American technology company and provider of Internet streaming media delivery software and services based in Seattle, Washington. The company also provides subscription-based online entertainment services and mobile enter ...

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

, and

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

Involvement against Microsoft dominance

Over the past years, ECIS has been actively involved in the European Commission's antitrust condemnation against Microsoft, now upheld by the European Court of First Instance in September 2007.

Ziff-Davis Ziff Davis, Inc. is an American digital media and internet company. Founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology- and health-oriented media websites, online shopping-related servic ...

eWeek ''eWeek'' (''Enterprise Newsweekly'', stylized as ''eWEEK''), formerly ''PCWeek'', is a technology and business magazine. Previously owned by Ziff Davis, then sold to QuinStreet. Nashville, Tennessee marketing company TechnologyAdvice acquired ...

comments that - Other complaints about Microsoft include: * That bundling

XAML Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML ) is a declarative XML-based language developed by Microsoft for initializing structured values and objects. It is available under Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. XAML is used extensively i ...

in Vista is an attempt to replace

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

by a Microsoft-specific technology * That

Office Open XML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version ...

is a Microsoft-dependent document format

References

External links

ECIS main site
Information technology organizations based in Europe Interoperability Standards organisations in Belgium {{EU-stub

Involvement against Microsoft dominance

See also

Statements about the European Commission's antitrust case against Microsoft

References

External links