BRUSSELS - THE European Commission said on Thursday it would scrutinise a decision by Microsoft to make its Office programme compatible with a rival document format.

With the US software giant embroiled in an antitrust standoff with Europe's top antitrust watchdog, the company said on Monday that Office would support the competing Open Document Format (ODF) from the first half of 2009.

In a short reaction, the commission said that it had 'taken note' of the announcement and would 'welcome any step that Microsoft took towards genuine interoperability, more consumer choice and less vendor lock-in'.

It added that it 'will investigate whether the announced support of ODF in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice'.

The European Commission has long accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant market power by making software that is incompatible with products made by its rivals.

The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), a group of Microsoft rivals including tech giants like IBM, Nokia and Oracle, said Microsoft's announcement marked 'steps in the right direction' but were 'not nearly enough'.

'A closer look at their substance suggests that Microsoft is still playing for time to further consolidate its super-dominant position, and that continued anti-trust vigilance will be necessary,' ECIS spokesman Thomas Vinje said.

He described Microsoft's target of supporting ODF by the first half of 2009 as 'pretty underwhelming'. In September, Microsoft lost an appeal before Europe's second-highest court against a fine of nearly 500 million euros (S$1.1 billion) that EU regulators slapped on the company in 2004 for abusing its dominant market power.

Since its court victory, the European Commission has launched a new investigation targetting the interoperability of a broad range of software, including Microsoft's popular Office package, with rival products.

In February, the commission hit Microsoft with a further fine of 899 million euros for defying its 2004 ruling. Microsoft has lodged an appeal against the decision. -- AFP