Decision Nº M/03/003 from Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, 2003-04-09

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Parties: Placeware,Microsoft
• Date: 09 April 2003
• Decision Date: 09 April 2003
• Status: Cleared (Phase 1)
• Court: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (Ireland)
• Decision Number: M/03/003

Determination of the Competition Authority

Determination No. M/03/003 of the Competition Authority, dated April 9, under

Section 21 of the Competition Act, 2002

Notification No. M/03/003 – Microsoft Corporation’s Acquisition of Placeware

Inc.

Introduction

1. On 17 February 2003 the Competition Authority, in accordance with Section 18

(1) of the Competition Act, 2002 (“the Act”) was notified, on a mandatory basis,

of a proposal whereby Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) would acquire all the

voting securities of Placeware Inc. (“Placeware”).

The Parties

2. Microsoft, the purchaser, is a US-based publicly owned company that develops,

manufactures, and licenses, on a worldwide basis, a range of software products,

notably operating systems for servers and consumer software. It also sells

hardware devices and provides consulting services.

3. Placeware is a US-based privately owned company that operates in the Web

conferencing sector, where it provides a software-based service that enables

customers to conduct real-time interaction using software products via the

Internet.

4. The transaction provides for Microsoft acquiring all of the outstanding voting

securities of Placeware.

Analysis

Geographical Market

5. The geographical market for the products offered by Placeware, and any relevant

software products sold by Microsoft, is worldwide.

Horizontal Effects

6. Placeware operates in the market for Web conferencing services, which allows

different users to interact with each other by sharing applications and

presentations at the same time when using a personal computer across the

Internet. This market is growing rapidly, and Placeware has a number of

competitors in the market. Microsoft does offer a similar product called

NetMeeting. However, NetMeeting does not possess the ability to cross

“firewalls” (unlike Placeware), thus making it useful for real-time conferencing

within the same network, but rendering it less suitable for conferencing between

customers not operating in the same network.

7. Moreover, market investigations have shown that intrinsic to Placeware’s product

is the support service associated with that product. Placeware organises and

1