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."

Comments

Re:Nice to see some backbone

[pyros]

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.

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.