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Mario Monti Fines Microsoft 100 Million?
n3k5 writes "EU competition commissioner Mario Monti has been in the news a lot lately, following "[...] a preliminary decision that Microsoft is breaking European law by abusing its dominant position in the personal computers' market. However, [the Commission] needs to carry out a series of consultations before finalising its verdict, due by May 1." (Financial Times article) The latest articles all cite German magazine FOCUS, which reports in its current issue that, according to "informed" EU sources, the Commission is considering imposing a record fine of EUR 100,000,000 (USD 123,840,000) on Microsoft. "Amelia Torries, a spokeswoman for Monti, dismissed the report as 'pure and utter speculation.'" (Channel NewsAsia article)"
Next column:
Microsoft shares fall $0.02!Ohhh... nasty... fined ~$0.30 for each person in the EU...
Slap another two zeros on that and you would be talking about a serious fine.
Happy Trails,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Why do they simply give them a fine? This is behavior that deserves more than just paying a fine. MS has no trouble coming up with cash. If a few top level execs got thrown into jail it may make a bit of difference. Reminds me of the joke of only having to shoot one politician and the rest tend to fall into line.
Stay tuned for new sig...
There is no way Microsoft pays anything close to that. It is a rediculous sum that stifles innovation.
I have had my share of Microsoft headaches, but the EU has no right to impose such a rediculous fine for questionable acts of enforcing a monopoly.
Why is it that people always hear what I say, and not what I mean?
The Focus articles states that Microsoft hat to disclose "important informations about Windows" to their competition. I think that means the Windows-API. This would prevent further offences. Could WINE get advantages out of it?
EU: We are fining you EUR100M....
... And we are going to give it all to the FSF.
MS: *Yawn* Can you make change for EUR1B?
EU:
www.eFax.com are spammers
Many well-meaning individuals have proposed adding 3 zeros to the fine; this sounds good from an anti-Microsoft standpoint, but it's simply bad for the economy; remember that by fining a corporation ridiculous amounts of cash we don't punish the people that make the poor decisions (CEOs, chairmen, board of directors) but the guys just like us, working to make a living so that we can hack in our spare time and play with our kids.
There is a better way, I think. If we force open formats for data storage and network protocols, market penetration will be less useful as leverage to increase the barrier to entry of competition.
Thinking outside my Head
it's not a settlement, and by all means it's not a "keep doing what you're doing" pat on the back.
if they keep fuckin around it's easy to determine that, and the _fine_ will return as a bigger one. all that said I'm pretty disappointed in the fine being so small, though that's how you deal with things I guess(starting with small fines and ending up with big fines if they keep doing what they're doing..).
like you paint your house without checking with the citys cityscape planning offficials and them not liking it.. they slap you a fine, if you don't paint your house back to what it was they slap a fine that's 2x the first one.. and the cycle continues until you do something about it or lose the house due to unpaid fines.
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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Everyone else has come out with the obvious 'but 100m would be nothing compared to their cash reserves' line.. but forgetting that, Gates doesn't seem to mind fines anyway. He just sees them as a way of getting away with stuff and paying it off.
If you read many of the Microsoft biographies, you'll read stuff talking about how Gates was heavily into speeding everywhere he went, and was constantly being fined and given tickets. He even ended up in jail for it, which is where the infamous Bill Gates in jail picture came from.
But who cares? When you're making massive bucks each month, is it worth a few hundred in fines to stop speeding all the time, if you're not going to end up in jail for a long haul? No. Same goes with this. Paying this fine is just a great way of getting the EU off his back without any hard work.
Okay, let's get this straight - the legal system here worked. The case was prosecuted successfully, Microsoft found guilty. What fell down was the Republican administration that stole power made it known that they had no intention of pursuing the case further. If the prosecution quits the case, it doesn't matter how good your legal system is.
(Posted as AC because IE sucks a nut)
It is an embedded tax on the consumer.
Normally, this is true. However, when discussing a company with billions in the bank, I think this is false. The company is not forced to raise prices to recoup the loss. In fact, the entire point of the fine is that the prices were already raised.
A tax on a company is a tax on consumers when the company is just barely staying afloat (which really describes most companies)... of course the customers may leave if it gets bad enough so it's still not a tax. (And again, the entire point is monopoly abuse, that customers can't just leave, so again, I don't think your comment applies in this case.)
I don't think any EU customers are going to see price hikes as a result of this; that would just get MS another, probably larger fine.