European regulators are examining whether Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Corp violated antitrust laws during a struggle last year to ratify its Office software file format as an international standard, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Microsoft Corp., bowing to pressure from European regulators, will take steps to make top-selling software including Windows and Office work better with competing products and limit lawsuits against some rivals.

The European Commission confirmed it has received a complaint about Microsoft's business practices from a British government agency Tuesday, but isn't following it up as it normally would with an antitrust complaint, according to a press officer.

The European Union's competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, delivered an unusually blunt rebuke to Microsoft on Tuesday by recommending that businesses and governments use software based on open standards. She called using open technology a "smart business decision".

A new plan by Microsoft to allow its Office software to save and edit files in a rival format will face a probe by the European Commission.

The BBC is being threatened with an anti-trust challenge in Europe over its use of the Windows Media format in its on demand service, iPlayer, which is in the final stages of testing.

A European court confirmed on Tuesday that it will rule on September 17 on whether software giant Microsoft broke European Union antitrust regulations.

Last week, Microsoft published the binary file formats for Office. These formats appear to be almost completely insane. The Excel 97-2003 file format is a 349 page PDF file. But wait, that’s not all there is to it!

Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market.