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Microsoft To Be Fined E500M By European Union?
An anonymous reader writes "According to a Reuters story, the European Commission is in the process of fining Microsoft 497 million Euros ($613 million). The most important reason for the fine was the refusal by Microsoft to share more information about its products with competitors. Mario Monti, the EU competition commissioner, decided to impose the fine after talks with Microsoft broke down last week." The last estimate was a mere 100 million Euros, and it's noted: "If the full European Commission backs the fine as expected on Wednesday it would exceed the 462 million euro penalty imposed on Hoffman-La Roche AG in 2001 for being ringleader of a vitamin cartel."
From the article:
The fine amounts to slightly more than one percent of Microsoft's roughly $53 billion cash on hand and did not impress analysts and critics.
"This is a traffic ticket for Microsoft," said Thomas Vinje of Clifford Chance, who represents Microsoft critics.
Neil Macehiter, an analyst with London-based technology research firm Ovum, said even a $3 billion fine would have been "an irritant to Microsoft but certainly wouldn't break the bank."
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
why would MS have to comply? Couldnt they just say 'okay, BYE' and not sell in Europe anymore? I know MS sells a lot in europe.... but who would be more injured by such a move, MS or the EU?
or is there some international law that says MS MUST comply?
not a troll, just some questions, as IANAL.
It's good to know that European courts aren't as flawed as our American ones.
It almost restores your faith in humanity. Almost.
- Sherman
The best part of a plan such as to what you are hinting... is that you can value your own product however you want...
"This, Windows 98 Super Ultra Deluxe Supremely Cool Second Edition is valued at 250 Million Euros, and thus for our settlement... we give you two copies... enjoy"
Course... that assumes the EU agrees to such terms.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
With $53 billion in the coffers, $613 million is a big ol' slap on the wrist.
The article says that the major reason for the fines is Microsoft's refusal to license information to competitors to ensure compatibility.
In other words, the actual software that these laws protects is horrible stuff like RealOne and Quicktime. Open source projects can't afford to license things. I'll be even more impressed than I already am if Mplayer and the like can continue their higher quality in the face of such crappy capitalistic laws.
Compared with the terms of the USDOJ settlement, this is nice to see. Could have the punishment here been harsher? Certainly. Should have it been harsher? Possibly. Is a 500m euro file harsher punishment than a US settlement that allows donations of a monopoly's product in partial lieu of payments? Definitely.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
Seems to me Microsoft might as well start playing hardball here - Drop the price of an Xbox to $0, offer tracks on the new music service for $0.50, charge $10 or give away copies of Enterprise Architect, take a few high profile clients and offer huge discounts for OS and Office site licenses.
If they don't, they will be accused of being monopolists anyway, leading to more and more fines, (just where does the money from fines go?) and more bad publicity. Since there is now a populist appeal to going after the company, they might as well create counter sentiment buy really becoming popular with consumers.
Microsoft doesn't have a business problem - it has a political problem. Anti-trust cases are inherently political, so we shall see if they learn to play that game. I still don't believe Microsoft is any more of a monopoly than Intel, but Intel knows how to play the game.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
The US military budget is greater than the next ten largest military budgets combined. I hate to burst your bubble, but the US has quite a a bit more military power than even all of the nations in the EU. Now, economically, the EU can definitely compete with the US, as is being shown by the falling value of the dollar in relation to the euro. And, if it's worth anything, I highly doubt that the US could win an all out war with the EU without annihilating the entire world in the process. So, it's not likely that we'll be invading Europe any time soon.
I'm pretty sure that at least one of the European Union countries is involved in Microsoft's Shared Source program. If they don't pay the fine, the European Union could seize the copyright (in lieu of payment of the fine), get a copy of the code, and sell the source code to one of their own software companies. That would presumably be worth the 500 million euros, even ignoring any other assets that may exist.
;)
:)
Microsoft traditionally outsources most of their development, so there is no reason to think that the new company couldn't continue development. Possibly with the same Indian developers as are working on the Microsoft code
Maybe they will even open source it to fix the bugs
A fine should at least make it unprofitable for me to commit the crime again. If I stole 1 million and was fined 1000 then that is not exactly going to stop me is it? So how much did MS make by violating the law? More then 500 million? Then they ain't gonna stop.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Agreed that 500-600 million is nothing for Microsoft, but what IF they took the money and used it to fund FLOSS. Assume the govts weasel 50% off the top! That leaves 250-300 million for FLOSS.
:) ]
This is where the real damage to MS could occur, if the penalty cash is dished out to the right FLOSS projects that threatens MS directly.
Proposed split based on what I think would help FLOSS and hurt MS:
50million for the Linux Kernel to get their security certifications finished for govt usage, driver improvements to the kernel, SE-Linux integration, whatever else Linus wants
50million for Apache Webserver, Tomcat, and other Apache-based projects that really eat into IIS market share
25million for OpenOffice with a focus on compatibility with MS Office.
25million for GNOME & KDE, split evenly on whatever they want, but with a preference on creating a Win2k-style desktop emulator so the riff-raff can change their screensavers like before
10million for plug-ins/features into Eclipse IDE that help emulate the best features of Visual Studio, and better integration of non-Java languages like Perl, PHP, C#/Mono, etc
10million on Bitkeeper replacement and/or Subversion to get great source code control mgmt, tied into Eclipse IDE enhancements above
10million on modeling tools for code or databases like SQL Navigator, or Rational Rose
10million for PHP on whatever they think they need
10million for Wine to get us closer to running lots of apps on non-MS Operating systems
10Million for ***BSD Flavors [Just because they have created so much with so little
10million for RMS and GNU with the promise he wont complain about everyone else's cash allotment
AND
25million for an investment fund that donates 50% of the yearly profits as grants to future promising FLOSS projects
There are still some definite similarities between the two leaders.
They were both first elected in dubious circumstances with less than majority support. They both support imprisonment without trial (one for terrorism, the other for communism). They are both strongly homophobic. They both pushed tighter regulations onto foriegners than natives, despite the fact that crime could come from either (think airport fingerprint checks, despite the fact there are terrorists already in America). Worried yet?
The US military budget is greater than the next ten largest military budgets combined.
CORRECTION: Once you include the cost for Iraq, the US military budget is greater than all the worlds military budgets combined. The USA=$399 Billion plus the $75 to $100 billion in Iraq is to be determined; versus the rest of the world with at $463 billion.