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EU's Mind 'made up' on Microsoft
Alain Williams writes "The BBC reports that Microsoft could soon be facing multi-billion euro fines and other sanctions for breaking European competition law.
The European Commission has finished drafting its decision in the case it brought against the software giant." Let's just hope that the EU can fine them cash and not accept Microsoft coupons like the US does. Clearly the best solution to an operating system monopoly is to give free copies of windows to school and eliminate the competition as early in the education process as possible.
England wants to knight him. Europe wants to hate him. Strange.
I want audio and video software as part of my OS, nicely bundled and integrated.
I don't want to a half-baked OS that requires a lot more decisions to get a useful modern OS.
Maybe with MS have been "forcing suppliers to include its own media software", but have MS been preventing suppliers from also supplying other media software? The BBC article does not make clear.
It will be nice though if MS do "reveal more information to its competitors about how its operating system interacts with others and with software applications"
blog.sam.liddicott.com
No other DRM system actually lets you choose your player. iTunes only talks to iPod, at least w/o burning and re-ripping. You want to talk product tying -- MS doesn't even sell an MP3 player, let alone force you to use theirs.
But heh. Don't listen to me. I'm just a hardcore Linux user w/ a half terabyte RAID-5 FreeBSD box with fond memories of his old Apple IIgs days.
Not to mention I think this round of DRM won't end up any differently than it did for DAT/Minidisc/Dataplay -- eventual marginalization vs. products that actually want to work.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
can someone explain how exactly the EU can fine microsoft, or for that matter any company not based in one of their member countries?
. . .and may demand that it stops forcing suppliers to include its own media software at the expense of competitors such as Real Networks and Apple.
I'm not a great fan of Media Player, though it does it's job pretty well, but doesn't the modern definition of a desktop OS contain a media player?
From what I can tell, the options Microsoft will have would be to either have no media player whatsoever, or a vast myraid of them. I would be willing to guess that MS will take the former option, with a recomended update through Windows update being Media Player.
So, by removing some functionality of the OS, how will this help consumers in general? Indeed will they be more likely to use another media player simply because there isn't one currently available, or will they simply get the recommended one from Microsoft?
Microsoft is a legal entity in many EU countries. They have a large presence in Ireland (research & production) and local sales & translation offices almost everywhere.
It doesn't matter wether or not media player or ie are bundled or not. It has been my experience that the only reason people use these things is because they don't know any better. Absolutely everybody I have shown Firebird has switched. Some even thank me, almost as if I saved their lives. A single ad campaign for Mozilla Firebird will destroy Internet Explorer. People just have to be told it exists. Same for winamp 5. If you show people that it can do more than media player ever could they'll switch because it is better. I really hope that mplayer for windows actually works soon though. That will be the best.
Microsoft has done much worse things like preventing the sale of naked PCs (do that, and your OEM licence discounts miraculously shrink), embracing and extending everything from Java to HTML and, of course, spreading FUD left right and centre about anything that might threaten Bill's plans for world domination. These are the issues the EU should be focusing on, not whether they bundle a Windows app that plays MP3s.
Oh yeah, and Bill gives loads of money to charity, but there are more tax-efficient ways of giving to charity than overpaying for mediocre software.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Probably not. I think that the best we can hope for is MS being required to publish the file (e.g.: Word or Access) formats and make them available, at little or no cost, for interoperability.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
That should be left to OEMs to decide whats packaged in the platform in my view. Just as redhat decides what it ships and debian decides what it ships etc.
Also fix the ADVANCED install so we can modify EVERYTHING during the install, they removed all the custom install shit from the UI on 2003 server: God knows why because 2000 had it ok.
As for IE its embedded in the File explorer, sure it can be disabled but its just COM Components that are used. Other apps DEPEND on these COM components for example Yahoo Messenger etc.
They could remove IE but retain the functionality in file explorer and the COM Components remain. Were stuck with them by usage on other apps.
As an EU residing, mostly Linux & reluctant Windows user, I'm not sure that I see much in this story...
I can fully appreciate that Microsoft's general monopolistic attitude needs to be curtailed, no doubting that.
I can also see that had the US/EU laws against monopolistic practices been brought down five or six years ago, then IE might not have been the dominant browser and we might now be accessing web sites that are far less browser dependant.
I can appreciate that restricting the bundling of WMP with Windows might mean that Microsoft's DRM methods will not be dominant technology in the whole rights management argument.
But, to me, DRM is *STILL* a technology that restricts my rights to do what I like with music and media that I legitimately own and whether Microsoft's or A. N. Other's DRM technology is used is neither here nor there. Surely it's DRM that is at the centre of this argument, not WMP?
Where an application forces changes in an open standard (like HTML), then there is a good case to limit the impact of that application but there are enough multimedia formats that I can download or buy any number of non-Microsoft media players to play what I like on whatever OS I like without resorting to WMP.
And although I might not like the impact DRM has or will have with Open Source software, I'll simply take the stance of not buying DRM'ed hardware & media that curtails my rights as a user.
Am I missing something here?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Why do none of the remedys require microsoft to release all APIs? This would solve the problems, would not destroy their business but would reduce their ability to harm consumers more than any other action.
Oh, then you always end up with endless arguments about what constitutes a person or company's "net worth." Just coming to a decision that out would be another legalistic nightmare about as bad as the trial itself.
With "simple" individuals it might be easy (speeding ticket is 10% of your AGI on you last 1040 form) but with companies and/or people who do lotsa tricks with assets and income, it would be a nightmare to settle on.
That said, I agree that, as a concept, fines are ridiculously unfair -- a $75 fine for running a red light hurts a college student a LOT more than it would a corporate CEO who has $2M in stock options per year.
.. will ensure many years before it comes to court, by when either MS will be gone.. or they will have encompassed everything....
Have a nice day!
Well fines aren't supposed to put a company out of business... If MS has to give up a few billion dollars in cash, you can bet they'll change their ways...
At the very least it will make the stockholders take notice and perhaps even dump if MS doesn't change their ways under a significant penalty.
The funny thing is that if Microsoft was a company based in the EU they would be getting government money and protection from the EU
What is funny is that EVERY TIME an article about EU/MS pops up, someone says this. They then tend to get modded to +5 insightful whereupon the following thread turns into a US vs EU flamefest. And speaking of which:
A shining example of this is Airbus who clearly benefits from government subsidies, etc.
Agh, and you just had to bring up the Airbus/Boeing conflict too? This ought to be a subset of Godwin's law.
For the record, I think both Airbus and Boeing use government subsidies to prevent fair competition, and it sucks. However, in the EU/MS case, could it not be possible that somewhere in the EU beaurocracy there are some people who are actually trying to do the right thing?
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
McDonalds has a competative advantage over its rivals, so lets force McDonalds to offer whoppers to its customers. CocaCola has a competative advantage over its rivals so lets force it to attach a bottle of pepsi to its bottles of coke. General Motors shouldn't be allowed to install dvd players in the backs of minivans because that would infringe on Toyota -- your kids should be whining "are we there yet" instead of watchign nemo and allowing you to drive in relative peace.
MS has competition from apple and from linux and from unix the fact that people choose microsoft over these alternatives shouldn't in any way hamper MS's ability to expand the services in their product.
If you think this is about MS being evil, you're dead wrong. This is about MS having a 10 billion dollar liquid slush fund and governments wanting their piece of that pie.
They're giving it away for free. Free is good, right? Or all of the sudden when it's Microsoft, free is bribery, isn't it?
Free as in free beer, yeah.
Giving away free copies of Windows barely harms Microsoft. It actually helps them stabilize their monopoly even more, especially when you're going for schools. "Hook 'em while they're young."
I'd say sue them for their Machiavellian violation of competition laws and put that money into good causes. Best investment (imho) would be to invest it (or a large part of it) in open source software (including awareness campaigns). That's the only way you're really going to break this monoply.
parasight.de
This is just a ploy by the EU to try and influence global commerce beyond their reach. They want to matter.
Hhhmmmm...
Poor little us, not being big enough to matter to global commerce! Methinks you need to look at some statistics comparing the GDP of the USA with the EU.
And you've been modded as "insightful". I think there should be a new category of mods. "Insightful (American)"
Kids' minds are like sponges. Give them the chance and they can learn a lot, especially when you make the learning fun. This has been shown many times in foreign language education; the eariler a kid starts learning another language, the higher the chance of that kid learning the language and learning it well. The reason why foreign language education still doesn't start at an early age for most children is due to adults' prejudices. They think it's too difficult to learn another language, so therefore it is way too difficult for the kiddies.
It's the same way with computer stuff. Computer-phobe adults are the ones who end up instilling a "fear" of computers in children. You know the drill. "I don't understand computers." "It's too hard to figure out." Because adults think Linux is too difficult (often without trying it first), they think kids can never learn it.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
You know I find it interesting that any post that is even slightly anti-*nix and pro-windows gets modded down within a few seconds of posting. People like Windows. If they didn't, they wouldn't buy it. People want a computer to do things for them and not have to do things for their computer. Microsoft provided the masses a way to do this, albeit for a high cost (cash and security).
No, they won't. They simply use it because it is there, its the default app, and does the job, however horribly, that they need. 'Most' users, anyway.
OTOH, if YOU install it for them, and make it the default, they will happily use it and learn its features.
Unfortunately, even installing the simplest of software still scares the crap out of a lot of people. Or even saving a copy of a document to a floppy disk instead of in their My Documents folder is totally over their head.
(Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
"Clearly the best solution to an operating system monopoly is to give free copies of windows to school and eliminate the competition as early in the education process as possible."
You know, I remember all through school (k-12) we were forced to use Apple products of varying models. Since then, I have never used an Apple, and all the forced Apple knowledge was wasted.
The obvious long-term solution in this "war on IT terror" is for the EU and other nations to rebuild their IT infrastructures cooperatively and relatively inexpensively upon open source foundation. By removing the bottleneck that is at Microsoft Way One, Redmond, countries (incl. the US of A) can launch a renaissaince of innovation and information sharing between countries and individuals while nurturing a more balanced distribution of local employment across the world.
Governments are fundamentally responsible for establishing the basic infrastructure upon which the people can build their lives and business without artificial impediments. Imagine what the life would be like today if printing presses, typewriters and even the lowly sheets of paper had been incredulously controlled by some mediaval robber baron!? Why should one provenly immoral corporation be allowed to "own" the formats in which data (incl. writing itself!) is excanged, recorded and backed up!? It's insane.
The EU is fully capable of first introducing a set of recommendations and later (after the OSS-based support and development structures have been established) requirements for publically-owned and open IT systems that can also be easily adopted by other countries across the globe. Microsoft is fully welcome to participate in this "New Deal" but they must remove their foot from the oxygen tubes or risk becoming totally irrelevant.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Europe isn't a borg collective. There are people who have difference opinions. Believe me, more people than not don't like Gates in England. Just because the Queen has given away a KBE doesn't mean that everyone's falling over themselves to grovel at his feet.
As I recall, the US government wasn't particularly harsh on Microsoft. Does that mean all USians adore their products?
Two things about that though. Firstly Debian ships with (nearly) every piece of free software you could ever want, bar a few minor quibbles (mplayer anyone?) especially if you use testing or unstable. It "ships at least 3 different word processors and 5 different browsers, it's not quite the same. Shipping everything has package management advantages too.
Secondly in an ideal world I'd agree with you, if it were a linux only world (for the sake of argument, not as an ideal people) and no distribution had supremecy then people can freely choose a distribution that has a mix of software they like. Lovely, freedom of choice. Sadly we don't live in that world though, and people get microsoft whatever plonked on their desktop, and they strongarm OEMs to make sure that it's what *they* want, where else are the OEMs going to go? People want to play a video or mp3s and it happens, little do they care if it's microsoft or otherwise till they are locked in. Experience seems to show that consumers en masse are a bit like sheep, and maybe they need protection from their own inertia, apathy and lack of knowledge. That said, if they show the same ignorance to everything, then they get the state they deserve (and to hell with the rest of us).
That's life I guess
I'm with the cash grab people on this one.
Reading the article I found it interesting to note that in the penalties section a heavy fine was expected but the media player issue was preceded by "may". In other words, pay us a bunch of money and we will let the whole media player issue slide.
Also, not sure if anyone noticed this, but in the first section they threw in the word "servers" as one of the embedded systems that has broken the cometition laws. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention the last time I rebuilt my 2000 or XP boxes, but I could have sworn all the servers were optional installs, I mean if they weren't why would Apache have more installs than IIS...?
And on the IE issue, I still remember hacking the CSS file for windows explorer several years ago to put a little lemming in the top left of my windows explorer pages...Sure they could just not include the IE icon in the system, but removing all things IE from the system would require a rewrite of a lot of the GUI which is currently based on CSS and HTML, something that I think is actually a nifty idea, no matter who is doing it.
And last, and more specifically, Media Player. Those of you who have problems with it grabbing file associations and popping up on it's own and such, err, to bad. I have no pity for you. I haven't seen Windows media player since I last reinstalled me windows boxes. I did nothing special that I am aware of, I'm by no means a Systems expert, I just associated the files to other programs. Took a couple minutes. Oh the pain. Maybe your confusing Windows Media Player with Real Player, the spyware posing as media crap.
Whee signature.
See the movie, The Corporation,
The purpose of a corporation is to make money for its investors. That is all. A corporation is amoral. Viewed as a "person" a corporation is psychotic. This is the nature of corporations.
Outside influences to get corporations to "behave" can only have limited control due to the structure of our society.
Good Summary
What, you expect them to be root? A normal middle schooler (heck, even a normal high schooler) doesn't know more than word processing and internet browsing. That's not any harder with Mozilla and OpenOffice than it is with IE and Word.
There are 11 types of people in the world: those who can count in binary, and those who can't.
"Could this be the start of an open source Windows version?"
Probably not. I think that the best we can hope for is MS being required to publish the file (e.g.: Word or Access) formats and make them available, at little or no cost, for interoperability.
That would actually be worse than the current situation. As things are now, reverse engineered MS formats can be used for GPL projects. If Microsoft releases the file formats but charges a license, even $1, for usage of these formats, it will be incompatable with the GPL and we will be unable to use their formats AT ALL. In fact this seems to be what they are doing with the FAT file system.
The shear fact is that the EU is totaly anti-american, be it Bush jr, or MS.
Anti-Bush != Anti-American
Anti-MS != Anti-American
Outside of the USA, there are very few people who like Bush. But that does not mean we are anti-American. That's just the kind of limited thinking that Bush seems to promote. You're either with him, or against him, and if you're against him, then you're Unamerican.
According to Bush:
Anti-Bush == Unamerican where person == American
Anti-Bush == Anti-American where person != American
It doesn't matter wether or not media player or ie are bundled or not. It has been my experience that the only reason people use these things is because they don't know any better. Absolutely everybody I have shown Firebird has switched. Some even thank me, almost as if I saved their lives. A single ad campaign for Mozilla Firebird will destroy Internet Explorer. People just have to be told it exists. Same for winamp 5. If you show people that it can do more than media player ever could they'll switch because it is better. I really hope that mplayer for windows actually works soon though. That will be the best.
The problem is not so much that they are bundled. I originally thought this was a good idea, even though I used the bundled IE to pop on the internet and download Netscape immediately. But Microsoft has integrated these apps which are known for their terrible security and viral worminess into the OS, making it impossible to get rid of them and decreasing the security and reliability of the OS considerably. To my mind this is the greatest harm which has come from Microsoft's practices.
You know what I would like to see ... is that Microsoft just pull all copies out of all of Europe and then let Europe experience the horror of trying to use Linux. Sure Linux is good for us nerds, but lets see how much of an uprise there is when the internet market in Europe takes a dive because the mom and pop shops can no longer use the ineternet to place orders and mom and dad can no longer buy their goods off line because they can't figure out how to launch the internet browser.
Creating a good OS isn't hard. Look at BeOS. If Microsoft did pull out all it's copies from Europe, then there'd be a race to see who could fill the gap in the market. Capitalism, you see, when not abused by monopolies, responds well to situations like that. People could use OSX, or a few billion could be thrown toward Linux, and the problem would be solved. The only difficulty is lock-in. If you remove that, Microsoft wouldn't stand too much of a chance. Look at IE compared to Firebird. Clearly the latter is superior, but the former is more widely used. Why? Because Microsoft bundles it in.
You guys all have Microsoft to thanks for the advancement of the internet on the masses and if you think anything else you are crazy and blind. The internet would still be something that is used in the back of corporations down in the basement if it wasn't for Microsoft giving everybody a PC that they could easily use.
This is the same Microsoft that missed the whole start of the home internet revolution? If Microsoft wasn't around, that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be easy-to-use PCs. Hell, there's always Macs, even if you can't accept the possibility that other companies and individuals can design OSes much better than Microsoft can.
Let's repeat one more time...
People don't buy Windows. They buy computers that happen to have Windows installed.
Only now in the US are we starting to see places offer PC's with Linux pre-installed. I don't know of ANY big stores that do that in Europe (admittedly, my knowledge is restricted to Spain and Italy).
Unfortunately that's not always true.....
I've tried to "help" several people who compain about IE crashing, popups, etc, by telling them to use Firebird. It's amazing but I usually hear "I tried it and it worked fine but I don't like it, how can I fix IE."
You can lead a fool to Firebird but you can't make them browse or something.
Just because media player is removed from the install it doesn't mean a 'better' one will take its place. Microsoft's competetitors in this market (Winamp, foobar, Quintesssential) have horrible marketing. If it is removed they will simply advertise it and we'll be back where we started, except with a bunch of pissed off customers who can't get their CD's to play off their fresh new Dell PC.
WMP9's dominance hasn't little to do with the fact that it comes with the computer, and a whole lot to do with poor marketing by its competetitors. Why do you think the iTunes app is doing so well? Microsoft's actions do not exempt their competetitor's from poor BUSINESS decisions, not necessarily software ones.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
The problem is, the EU only does the "right thing" when it applies to foreign companies, foreign agriculture (especially 3rd world agriculture), etc.
Cows in the EU get a subsidy equivilent to $250 per year from the EU. There are a billion people in the world that subsist on less than $200 a year.
Pressure from the EU on Zimbabwe was the major reason why American GM corn was turned back at the ports in the midst of a famine. Can't feed the starving people in Zimbabwe franken food, because it might jeapoardize future EU contracts. This is exactly what was threatened.
Oh yeah, the EU, making a habit of doing the right thing.
Giving away free copies of MS products to schools helps the monopoly, it doesn't help competition! It shuts down the possibility of competing products in those schools! Having M$ give part of that fine money to fund open source or to a sw foundation to help growing sw companies are the things that might help competition?
Because Media Player and IE themselves are just frontends. They are just wrappers that make calls to system services. In Media Player's case, it's DirectShow, in IE's it's the MSHTML engine. Well ripping these out of the OS is a bad idea since many things depend on them. To remove DirectShow is to break all pro A/V software, alternative media players that use it (such as Media Player Classic), many games, and so on.
Remember: Windows isn't Linux and 99.9% of users don't want it to be. Linux is defined as nothing but a kernel, what you put from there is up to you. So you can have Linux systems with totally different UI's libraries and so on. This is fine for geeks, but frustrating for normal users since you have no gaurentee that you have the dependencies you need (and have to go track them down and download).
Windows (and MacOS, and Solaris, and many others) are defined as not just the kernel, but other associated services and such. It is expected that Windows will have it's GUI, it's HTML rendering and such. It's all part of the OS. While this may be frustrating to geeks, it's precisely what normal users want. They don't want to have a program say "sorry, but I can't run until you download X and Y and Z libraries and get them running on your system". They just want it to run.
Erm, why do you think this is just the "Linux vs Windows" argument all over again??
If anything, this issue *doesn't* affect us Linux users at all because we get plenty of *choice* for media players.
The issue is that as a Windows user, you are forced to used Windows Media Player because that's what's bundled with Windows - unless you have the ability to install / configure something else.
That may be fine for the moment and you may be happy using WMP. But what happens when DRM comes in and you find you can't listen to music or watch movies in the way you were previously able to? Oh, and I'm talking about music and movies you *legitimately* own so don't try to turn this into a piracy argument, please...
This issue affects the Windows community first until such time that MS get their way and *everybody* has to use proprietary media standards rather than more open ones.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Did you explain to them why it didn't work? Non-techie's need to be educated in terms that they can relate to, and I find the association of computers to cars to be a very simple way of making that comparison. So when you tell that that the reason Firebird didn't work isn't because the car is broken, but instead it's because the road was intentionally made for specific cars to use and will cause non-equipped cars to crash, they may begin to understand.
If enough people start making layperson comparisons like this and can complain loudly enough, we might get somewhere. But if the average computer user simply caves into whatever works, it doesn't matter whether it is a piece of crap or if the competing product is the greatest thing since sliced bread -- people will instinctively use the easiest tool to accomplish something as possible, and IE fits that bill. If the converse were true, we'd have turbine engines in cars and Betamax would never have lost to VHS.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
If the whole point of the legal actions against Microsoft is to break up its monopoly in some way then where is the money going to go to?
Consider if the money - which I would argue - will come close to $1 billion were spent to help fund open source projects: eg Mozilla, Open Office, Freedesktop.org, KDE and GNOME projects.
All are in legitimate need of funding and are crucial to giving consumers a choice for OS and application use. I'm not implying that funding will equate with better quality product, but I'm sure that some of these project could at the very least get some added resources: more computers, internet connections, etc.
When I install Mozilla I tell people that it supports all the standards, that there are some sites which are badly coded and won't work, but that for those they can brave the popups and security problems and use IE for that site.
I can't remember what the pluggin is, but there's one to open a link in IE. Good for checking out that one stubborn site.
And if you present it as a bug in the sites, which it always is (unless it's ActiveX, which might be a bug anyways...) people are more accepting.
That's a very dificult argument to make when the site in question is someones bank or utilites company.
After all bills have to be paid, no matter what browser your using.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Imagine what the life would be like today if printing presses, typewriters and even the lowly sheets of paper had been incredulously controlled by some mediaval robber baron!?
Yes, instead we should be looking towards the GOVERNMENT to establish standards that all printing presses, typewriters, and sheets of paper must conform to!
That type of governmental oversight may be popular in the nations of the European Union, but it's anathema to a long-standing tradition of United States laissez-faire industrial policy.
Regardless of where you work, you are of course absolutly right. The EU abhors US domination anywhere. Whether it be in economics or international policy. French president Chirac said him self that he sees France's role as a "counterweight to US policy" (his words), regardless of what it is. The EU is going after MS because there is an opportunity. If there was an opportunity to go after IBM, it would do that do. There is nothing more that they would like than to hobble any dominate US corporation. Americans who support the EU's attempts to dismantle MS are naive and have no sense of context. The previous poster has been called names and I am sure I will too, but it is symtomatic of the real issue where people are acting from a sense of loyality to Linux by bashing MS. What they are really doing is siding with our economic rivals and encouraging the destruction of the single largest US corporation. Absolute foolishness.
What about the Russian and US space programs, which came out of Germany.
What about all the best cars.
What about the nuclear weapons of mass destruction, which the US loves to own and deny others.
There are a many every day items, a number of which still cannot be found in the US, although the US companies are eventually good at copying.
All the best kitchen appliances.
A huge number of electronics items (from Philips and many others).
How about an easy-to-use version of Linux, which Mandrake had long before Red Hat, in my opinion having used the major releases of both.
If you think Europeans are in need of overpriced American knock-offs, you are mistaken. Successful International companies use European designs when in Europe.
Credible alternative medicine.
The market is subject to incredible manipulation by corporate powers. Do you suppose that when you go into a German store that the things available on the shelf are the same things which captured the American market?
People need Windows because the Microsoft establishment tells them they need it. Where they are told something else is better, they use it. In Japan, they use cell phones to replace online services and clumsy PCs.
Isn't it revolting to taste the chocolate that is sold in America because it is considered good enough by many who live there, and even recent introductions of American alternatives leave a huge amount to be desired?
As long as Americans do not value their computing enough to care about the stagnating and prohibitive effects of the Microsoft stranglehold, they will continue to use Microsoft software, but that does not necessarily make it in anyone else's interest to do so.
MS will just raise their prices to pay for the fine so they still remain profitable.
They did this with MS Office during the first DOJ investigation in the 90's.
Every one of us and are employers will pay the fine instead of them as ussual.
http://saveie6.com/
The fine is irrelevant to MS. They have a big pile o cash and Ballmer is sensibly using it to buy his way out of legal problems. This is a major cultural shift at MS and should be applauded (at least by MS shareholders).
The opening of APIs and such is a pain for MS, but unlikely to actually do much short-term damage. It might even be good in the long-run because it will make them compete more on the basis of quality and value. Better MS products spawn better open source products and everyone is better off.
What is significant is the potential unbundling of Media Player. At the beginning of this process, MP was a fairly insignificant element of Windows. Now, however, it is central to MS DRM and NGSC (or whatever they are calling Palladium this week). With control over the media front-end, MS can deal directly with content owners and muscle themselves a new monopoly. Media Player is the critical component in a strategy to end-run the hardware companies. Fuck you Sony, HP, Apple, we Ownz u. Without that control they are just another computer company. And one Hollywood would rather do without because of security problems.
Without a shred of evidence, I believe the recent push on Xbox2 is related to the EU problems. If Media Player is hobbled, no hardware end-run is possible. The Japanese electronics firms won't play ball with an MS Windows DRM standard. Oh they'll do this and that, but they don't want another Sony to send cheques to every quarter. That makes the Xbox really important again. That IMO, is why Ed Fries left. He wanted to build a gaming box. Gates needs a media center. Forcing Gates' hand on this issue may be the real penalty the EU is effectively handing MS.