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.

Comments

Before you start bashing EU as anti-American

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you all start moaning that EU is anti-American, note that the complaint was made by Sun & Real (both american companies) which resulted in this ruling.

Re:Before you start bashing EU as anti-American

[MrIrwin]

Actually the predominant complaint in Europe has been that the EU only has teeth for EU companies whilst overseas companies (big US ones with big legal budgets in particular) get away with things that EU companies don't.

Allthougth it is the biggest fine imposed by the EU, it is only 8% of thier EU sales, other companies have been hit harder in real terms for monopolistic practices.

The fine means nothing really, it is the other conditions which hurt, but the US courts have on numerous occassions ruled against MS monopolistic practices. Had they achieved thier stated aim there would have been no case.

Re:I hope....

[dtperik]

I think there is a lot more hope that EU will stick to it's guns than the US (and I say that as a US citizen). There is much less financial/economic risk to the EU to do this vs. the US, being that MS is a US company. So it will be easier for them to actually keep to their judgement.

Re:I hope....

[leifm]

I don't think I agree with this suit. Media Player isn't near a monopoly in media players. Almost everyone has Quicktime installed, Real comes preinstalled on Dells, DivX is out there. There are things Microsoft has done that I don't think were right, but bundling software with the OS isn't one of them. Anymore I expect some type of media player, a browser, and e-mail client, whatever to come with my OS, be it OS X, Windows, or Linux.

Things like the BeOS lockout are what I'd think should be the focus of antitrust type suits against MS, not value add to Windows.