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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 ($613 million). The most important reason for the fine was the refusal by Microsoft to share more information about its products with competitors. Mario Monti, the EU competition commissioner, decided to impose the fine after talks with Microsoft broke down last week." The last estimate was a mere 100 million Euros, and it's noted: "If the full European Commission backs the fine as expected on Wednesday it would exceed the 462 million euro penalty imposed on Hoffman-La Roche AG in 2001 for being ringleader of a vitamin cartel."
Half a billion dollars is nothing to MS if they are allowed to continue their practices.
Thats just cost of operating to Bill.
It's only fitting that the ringleader of a virus cartel (the majority of viruses out there either specifically target M$, or require M$ software) get fined more than a vitamin cartel! Go EU!
A friend will come and bail you out of jail, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "damn that was fun!"
that's an interesting idea, but unlikely.
If MS flatly refuses to comply and 'pulls out it's european opperations'- it would have to do it FAST (because the EU could cease there (european)holdings if they thought they were trying to evade a court judgement), and even if sucessful the EU could attempt extridition of the funds from the US microsoft (weither or not the US would actually do that leaves to be seen, but the treaties for these extriditions are in place)
Even in the scenario where they mannage to pull out and the US dosen't honor extradition; the EU dosen't loose it's microsoft products, they don't 'self-destruct', they just cannot be updated to new purchased versions, piracy runs rampant (perhaps with government sanctions: Since the product is not a legal peice of software in the EU)- and over several years the slow change to another system takes place.
The EU becomes a nation that is either running several years old MS oses, or non-MS oses, and is surviving- that's a scary thought to MS, which is why they won't do it.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
It was "The cartels were established in products covering vitamins A, E, B1, B2, B5, B6, C, D3, Biotin (H), Folic acid (M), Beta Carotene and carotinoids." according to an article I link to in my reply to parent titled "The gateway vitamins". (I'd link it here, but won't for fear of being modded redundant. I'll probably be modded redundant just for saying that. Or that.)
Priceless. I take it you don't realize selling everything other than Windows and Office at a loss (bundling Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player into the OS, making them "free") to drive competition out of business is pretty much what landed them in trouble in the first place.
For that, we killed how many thousands of civilians with bombing?