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Microsoft Set To Be Fined $2.4M a Day
Nexum writes "The BBC is reporting on a European Union threat to fine Microsoft up to $2.4m a day for their non-compliance with the European Commission's demand that Windows be opened up. Back in March 2004 Microsoft was ordered to open up its Windows operating system by way of making documentation available that would assist work on interoperability with other systems, specifically: 'non-Microsoft work group servers [should be able to] achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers'. According to the article, Brussels has found MS to have not complied with the ruling, and, sounding somewhat exasperated, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has given MS a 5 week deadline before the $2.4m/a day fines begin."
Bet you wish it was just another pie now, dontcha' Gates!
Yes
Is today pro-Microsoft or anti-Microsoft?
I left my cheat-sheet at home...
"Microsoft Set To Be Fined $2.4M a Day"
That's what those bastards get for shutting down New York with that transit strike.... Oh, wait...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
and they could 'recalculate' the fine to be 2.4 dollars a day.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
They will send the case to some collection agency, who will call Bill Gates at home and at work asking when payment will be made or at least a reason why it hasn't been made yet. Then Bill will have no other alternative than to write the check to keep the monkeys off his back.
Can they by law do that?
They are the law. (to paraphrase Judge Dredd)
Oh no... it's the future.
How long before we see the 'Microsoft disclosure documentation of non-Microsoft work group servers for dummies' book?
"they have to respect the laws and governments of that market, no matter what those laws may be"
Next you'll be saying Presidents aren't above the law. That Vivendi can't push a French law through at Christmas making sharing a copy of music track with your mother a Euro300000 fine and 3 years in prison offence. Or that the *wife* of the CEO of Vivendi, can't push a similar law through the EU parliament at short notice.
The positively Un American and anti-corporation and therefore probably illegal.
Article 22 of unwritten law says Corporations can do whatever the fuck they want, as long as they claim jobs will be lost. Microsoft will simply invoke Article 22, say "Jobs will be lost in Europe because of this ruling" and it will be dropped.
Sure. I bet they have an intern right now looking underneath the cushions in the executive boardroom.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Monkeys yes, users not a chance!
if you were ms, i would tell you
"oh, please, please do not, our economies will crush, we will beg you to come back and have govt agreements with you later - please don't leave us !"
Rich
"You're right, I did lose 2.4 million dollars yesterday. I expect to lose 2.4 million dollars today. I expect to lose 2.4 million dollars tomorrow. You know Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of 2.4 million dollars a day, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years"
</citizen_kane>
Shades of Grayden
IQ does not correlate perfectly with IQ performance, specially at the high end of the curve.
And you're kidding right? The only time early UNIX machines were approached by people with IQs bellow 140 was when they were being transported from one place to another, and that's only when those people were idly standing near the truck - other than that even the truck drivers and the janitors who cleaned the rooms they were stored in held at least one PHD.
"Hmmm...3 day months?"
That's a typical work month in Europe, yes.
Would you like to:
-Lod
And the people of France can download pirated versions of Windows via P2P!
Any person with a IQ above room temperature will get the hint.
I don't know about you, but I keep the room temperature between 18 and 22 degrees Celsius. People with IQs that low barely know how to breathe. Of course, that hovers around the 295 Kelvin mark, but do you know how hard it is to find someone with an IQ approaching 200, let alone 300? Now I don't know about any other useful temperature units...except for some arbitrary system with no simple correlation between different units (even ones for measuring the same things!) and goofy names like furlong, inch, stone, grain, and Fahrenheit.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
And so it was that half the EU was wiped off the map with the hidden thermite that comes standard as part of Windows TCP/IP - Terrorist Controlled Protection for Intellectual Property.
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
Hey, they were important once! Napoleon, Churchill, The Beatles, etc.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
I think what he's stating, is that MS will just decide to STOP providing product and services to ANY EU country.
Oh please God, let it happen in the US too!
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
I don't read Slashdot to hear people admitting their own faults, and getting along. Stop it! Get back to misunderastanding, and calling each other names!