The European Commission received a complaint from the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) about Microsoft’s anticompetitive licensing practices in schools.

Apparently, Microsoft’s Open Office XML impedes the collaboration between Office 2007 and competing products. The poor results obtained by rival software teamed up with Office in schools could easily hurt the interests of everyone involved in the system.

"It is not just the interests of competitors and the wider marketplace that are damaged when barriers to effective interoperability are created. Such barriers can also damage the interests of education and training organizations, learners, teachers and parents", said Stephen Lucey, executive director of BECTA in a statement, quoted by PCWorld.

In an effort to aid their case, Microsoft officials stated that one of their strongest committements regards the smooth collaboration of their programmes with others and that they are on a continuous quest to aid education and offer easy interoperability.

Mr. Lucey strongly disagreed, explaining that Microsoft’s converters present "limited functionality ... and are poorly integrated into the overall Microsoft user interface, as compared with, for example, the integration and functionality Microsoft offers for its own OOXML format," according to Reuters.

Last week Microsoft decided to appeal the $1.3 billion fine imposed by the European Commision for failing to comply with the antitrust ruling terms of 2004.

The commision is currently investigating both of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Office in order to determine the extent of the antitrust breach.