Symantec, Adobe lobby EU over Vista features

See correction below

Two engineers at the computer security firm Symantec are coming to Europe next week to discuss concerns about the upcoming version of Microsoft’s Windows, dubbed Vista, a Symantec spokesman said Thursday.

Vice President for Consumer Engineering Rowan Trollope and a senior engineer in the technology strategy office, Bruce McCorkendale, will be talking to the media in Brussels and throughout Europe. Their concerns center on a new version of Windows Security Center and PatchGuard, a feature in the 64-bit version of Vista. While Microsoft says these features lock down the operating system to prevent tampering and enhance security, Symantec officials say it will make it harder for customers to use third-party software.

While the Symantec officials are not scheduled to talk to the European Commission next week, the European Union’s chief antitrust body, the discussions with the media come amid a groundswell of concern in the industry about the competitive issues posed by the new Microsoft security features in Vista.

The Commission has warned Microsoft about the possible impact on competition of Vista’s built-in security software. The regulator fears that by including a sophisticated antivirus program into Vista, this could have a similar effect to the bundling of Media Player with Windows XP.

Two and a half years ago the Commission ruled that the bundling of Media Player into Windows was anticompetitive and ordered Microsoft to launch a second version of Windows without Media Player. It also fined the company nearly €500 million ($634 million).

Meanwhile, Adobe Systems has told European Union regulators that Microsoft should be banned from bundling in free competing software for reading and writing electronic documents into Vista, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal Europe.

The paper cites unnamed people familiar with the situation.

Adobe’s and Symantec’s lobbying moves will come as no surprise to the Commission. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes wrote to Microsoft in March expressing concern about Vista’s impact on competition, and cited the computer security and document reader and writers sectors as examples of where Microsoft’s bundling strategy might pose competition problems.

However, earlier this week Kroes insisted she wasn’t calling for Microsoft to launch Vista without any security system.

“I have seen it suggested that the Commission may seek to prevent Microsoft from improving the security of its operating system. This is categorically not the case,” she wrote in a letter to the Financial Times newspaper.

Correction: This story as originally posted misreported who Symantec and Adobe officials were talking to in Brussels. The story has been corrected.