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EU Fines Microsoft $613 Million, Officially
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported by CNN.com, the European Union has hit Microsoft with a record US$613 million fine after a five-year investigation, finding the company guilty of abusing the 'near-monopoly' of the Windows operating system. Microsoft has been given 90 days to make a European version of Windows available without a media player and 120 days to give programming codes to rivals in the server market to allow 'full interoperability' with desktops running Windows. Microsoft plans to appeal the decision." Other readers point to coverage at
the BBC, ZDNet, Reuters (here carried by Yahoo!), and abc.au.net.
There is no question.
You get fined for speeding you don't get to choose to pay it using luncheon vouchers.
You pay cash and it goes to the EU's exchequer.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Read the EU press release from their own site (in your own language): http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p _action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/382|0|RAPID&lg=EN&disp lay=
"I wonder who'll be picking up their copy of the relevant code in 120 days to help with Linux coding efforts to provide Windows interoperability?"
No one, since it is explicitly stated that they are ordered to release API info, NOT source code.
Real life is overrated.
An appeal doesn't mean you walk scot-free during the process. If I'm found guilty of murdering 50 people, I can appeal but I'm not going to be set free to walk the streets just because I appealed the verdict. The only way I can be set free is if the appellate court agrees to suspend the sentence and it's unlikely to do so in this case. So Microsoft will either comply pending an appeal or have their EU assets seized landing a few of their EU execs behind bars in the process
And this was modded Interesting???
0 ,1 129,603206,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicalscience/story/
In 2001 the same comission fined Hoffman-La Roche (Swiss) for 462m, and BASF (German) to the extent of 296m, for vitamin price fixing.
You may go back to your freedom fries now.
PS: One can only hope that an appeal will not be granted. It does not have to be, you know.
You can easily buy a PC without Windows on it... and if you don't like Microsoft you can use one of the many alternatives. If you are a business owner and want to stream media content, you can choose from one of the many alternatives.
Nonsense. I may be able to buy some sort of PC without Windows on it, but suppose, like most businesses, I have standardised on one supplier (like Dell). I go to their website. I pick my PC. Where is the Linux Desktop option? As for alternative media content. Downloading alternative players and installing them takes time and effort. This may not be much for an individual but for a company with 10,000 seats its time and money.
Until I can go to most major PC suppliers and get the option of alternative OSes and features pre-installed and configured for hardware there is no true competition.
If releasing the full Windows APIs is part of the deal, it should be possible to provide a Mozilla based DLL to replace the IE one. Ditto Opera and others. If enough functionality is released to allow WindowsUpdate to work, any browser war will be formally over.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Switzerland is not part of the EU. Until last year, Switzerland was not even part of the UN!
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
According to an article in a German newspaper (sorry, it's in German) the money will go to the EU budget, reducing the money the EU member states would have to contribute by the same amount. For Germany that would mean 100 million Euros less to pay to the EU in that year.
So for the same business behavior, it is fair when you are small and it is unfair when you are big. I would say Microsoft is punished for being too successful, not for unfair practice.
If Windows was 30% of the market share, MS could add a media player and increase value, sure.
What they could *not* do is threaten to jack up prices on OEMs that include rival media players, because the OEMs would use one of the OSes that made up the other 70% of the market.
They didn't even get in trouble for just bundling. They got in trouble specifically for *illegally leveraging monopoly power.* This is something you cannot possibly do without a monopoly, so market share DOES matter.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?