EU Deadline Approaching for Microsoft

doga writes "As reported by various publications, Microsoft is facing its deadline tonight at midnight central European time. The commissioner has then to decide whether it implemented correctly the measures (windows without media player and interop documentation) or if it should be fined up to 5% of its daily sales." From the article: "European antitrust regulators, who have been at odds with Microsoft over its efforts to comply with its order, hope to make a decision by July 20 as to whether Microsoft has submitted an acceptable proposal for compliance, said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European Union. That date is the last meeting of the European Commission before its summer recess."

Comments

Re:25 minutes to go!

[Spad]

There's no real doubt that Microsoft will submit a proposal, however, given their previous efforts, it's likely to be another "Well we'll do *bits* of what you asked and charge people for it" proposal.

20 days from now means something like $100,000,000 in retroactive fines even *if* Microsoft then immediately handed in an acceptable new proposal on the same day.

And I'm still not sure if they've actually paid the ~500 million Euro fine that was imposed originally.

Re:Microsoft's take on the matter

[Thanatopsis]

Sorry but your friend working on Longhorn is hardly unbiased isn't he? So there are things that MS won't budge on heh? Well they are about to get the lesson in sovereign nations. I doubt very much that MS will take their ball and go home and right off a market of 400 million people.

Re:Microsoft's take on the matter

[BasilBrush]

Microsoft do not have the option not to budge. If the EU makes a final demand upon them then they have to comply, or face having the fines frozen in any European accounts the company owns, any stock, fixture and fittings, property they hold in Europe confiscated etc. And any future attempt to do anything in Europe would also be seized until the fines are paid. And as the fines grow by the day, that would never end.

Meanwhile, the bottom would drop out of MSFT stock, as every single product line has it's potential sales slashed by the the number of sales they would have had in Europe. Profits would turn to losses. And the end result of that could only be company directors losing their jobs. Bye bye Ballmer.

I'm sure MS employees like to talk the talk, but the company certainly can't walk the walk. Not on this one.

Re:Microsoft's take on the matter

[mrchaotica]

Well they are about to get the lesson in sovereign nations.

Exactly. If they were to pull out of EU, then it would be completely reasonable to simply stop honoring their copyright (as opposed to jeopardizing national security by crippling their IT infrastructure). No profits for MS, and no harm to the EU.

Re:This will have repercussions...

[yuriismaster]

those rat bastards will find a way to pass the costs onto the consumer.

You sir, have no idea how right you are. Basically, whenever a tax is levvied, the supply curve (how much product a producer produces) shifts up and left the tax amount. (See first few diagrams on this page)

When you have a monopoly position (like MS does), that demand curve (the "\" curve) gets more and more verticval because you kinda need MS prods to survive. Thus that "Deadweight Loss" to consumers, not to MS, is much higer than that of MS.

Sucks balls, huh?