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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)"
That'll teach'em.
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...
Microsoft replied... "Cash or Check?"
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
EU: We fine you ... One hundred ... million dollars (pinky finger to the lip)
Microsoft Board : bwahahahaahhaahahahah
They may also wish these 100M to be paid in windows licenses, preferably to use in schools.
Legal fees: $5,000,000
1.2% of quarterly revenue: $120,000,000
Settling a lawsuit which slows your progress towards Complete World Domination: Priceless
Some things money can't buy. Everything else will soon be owned by Microsoft.
This is just business as usual for Microsoft. Fines are a blip on the bottom line for a particular quarter. The MS war chest is huge, diverting a small percentage of revenue to the chest allows them to pay fines with money they took from you illegally in the first place.
Better idea for the governments: take the money then spend it on promoting open source and non-monopolistic software within your own countries.
Trolling is a art,
Actually, this is not true! From Microsoft's latest SEC filings, it has a $US 52 billion dollar reserve.. 100 million would be avout 0.2% of that...
MSFT has 10,805,000,000 outstanding shares. An increase of $0.009 will generate the $100M in shareholder value. If the stock price
"Ain't I a stinka..." - Bugs
What's the incentive for Microsoft to stop their abuse? The abuse nets more money than any fine is likely to take away, and is the quickest way to make $$ back after the fine. This won't solve a darn thing.
The effective solutions (start multiple companies off with the Windows source code and have them compete, for example) are very radical, and I don't know if most of them are in the power of the EU. But if the US government is any example, the will to use them isn't there anyway, so Microsoft can write their check and go back to business as usual.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
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?
Hang on a minute, it was the U.S itself which brought legal action against Microsoft well before the EU commision began to investigate its business practices. The EU action is simply a continuation of something that the US started nearly a decade ago, so why the bitching and moaning?
And one might also speculate if there is any connections to the latest steel and Galileo-related trade wars.
No, see above. Besides which the EU went straight to WIPO concerning the steel tariffs and they were found totally illegal. The EU has already "retaliated" legally.
I am begging any europeans reading this to make a holy noise about "COUPONS FOR MICROSOFT PRODUCTS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED IN LIEU OF CASH". It's bad enough that we have Jethro Clampett in the US presidency, in charge of the USDoJ and the people's interest in the MS antitrust issue. Please help make sure the goon's mistakes are not mirrored in the EU! Also, don't accept any namby-pamby payment plans. Get the lump-sum immediately, or seize assets and slap extra fines for delaying payment.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Yeah, its one big anti-American conspirecy
Gee, don't see many EU companies in that list do we? Oh wait yes we do!
Actually, they would, and quite a few times _did_ happen.
You see, some of us still live in "backwards" parts of the world (e.g., Europe), which still cling to old beliefs.
Like: that courts of law are actually there to uphold the law, not to just bend over and grab their ankles if it's a big corporation. The sad mockery of justice that the US did with Microsoft would have not happened in any European country. Again, repeat after me: the role of a court of law is to uphold the law, not to promote the financial interests of big business.
Or like: that the law itself is supposed to serve the people, and not just be a way for politicians to reward their corporate friends.
Now I'm not saying that it's perfect. But it does tend to work. And so far it's never produced such ridiculous clown shows as the Microsoft settlement in the USA.
So rest assured that if your government is there officially just to brown-nose the rich people for campaign donations, other governments and politicians tend to be a lot more subtle about taking bribes.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
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.
OK, $000.30 or $0.3000. Seems to be the same amount. What am I missing?
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
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.
Flunkie: Mr Gates the EU is fining us 100 million Euros ... ... no response ... ... ... ... OK, there you go ... 100 million!
Gates:
Flunkie: Mr. Gates, did you hear me; 100 million!
Gates: Yeah, yeah, hold on a sec
Flunkie: Ummm, Mr. Gates
Gates: Hang on, I've got one more sofa cushion to go
[Insert pithy quote here]