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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."
Would MS even feel a $2.4M/day pinch?
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Imo a fixed number for fines is all wrong. large companies can afford to pay it because actually playing by the rules is more expensive for them :/
it should be % based on their global income, that way it would "hurt" both large and small companies equally in terms of how badly they are affected by it.
still, should provide a bit of insentive for ms to hurry up and comply
And M$ will predictably wait until the last minute to provide documentation. I'm sure the documents that M$ provides will be bare minimum in scope just to get off the hook. Nothing to see here. Move along...
My humor is probably your flamebait
If Microsoft wants to operate in a particular market, they have to respect the laws and governments of that market, no matter what those laws may be.
and they could 'recalculate' the fine to be 2.4 dollars a day.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
Is today pro-Microsoft or anti-Microsoft?
I left my cheat-sheet at home...
Today is "different people have different opinions" day. Same as any other day.
Glad I could clear up that confusion of yours.
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I'm not sure Microsoft's shareholders would share your sentiment. I'd like to see the market reaction to that announcement: "Our customer base is now halved."
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If they don't like the fact that they don't provide the documentation that they want, they should not buy their software in the first place.
Irrelevant - this is about competition, not past purchasing decisions. Microsoft either do what the EU says, or they pay the fines, OR they stop trading the EU. Simple.
To do business in the EU, just as you have to in the US, you have to have licenses, permits, etc. All of which require periodic renewal. If Microsoft simply said "See ya!" and let the fines rack up, they would not be allowed to renew those items. They would eventually no longer have the legal ability to do business in the EU. Then they would either have to settle (for a far smaller sum if history is any indicator) or pay up to be able to regain that privledge.
Also, since they have headquarters and subsidaries in the EU, those would be shut down when the licenses and permits expired.
Plus, if the EU really wanted to be mean, they could order seizures of Microsoft products being sold in EU stores.
Will any of this happen? Unlikely, but it works on paper.
Without the legal ability
>"ok...well see you later Europe."
Of course you would. This would be following:
Security... well see you later!
Interoperability... well see you later!
Open standards... well see you later!
Competitive prices... well see you later!
Eventually all this will (if it hasnt already) bite them serverly in the ass. Losing the Europe market isn't an option. Its huge. The stockholders would get management replaced if they pulled a stunt like that. Not to mention the EU is right and is doing what America is unable or unwilling to do herself.
This isn't stupid. When you do business in some foreign country, then you have to respect that countries laws. Earlier this week ABN AMRO, a large Dutch bank, was fined (in the USA) 80 M$ for violating USA banking laws.
If European businesses have to obey US law when doing business in the USA, then American businesses have to obey Europen law when doing business in Europe. And MS violated European laws repeatedly, so now they have to pay - just like any other compagny violating European laws.
After all, MS doesn't have to do business in Europe. If they don't like Europe and it's laws, then they are free to leave.
The market does want that, but when there's an 800lbs gorilla in the market, the market no longer works as intended. That's what being a monopoly is all about - shutting down the forces that makes a free market work. Something needs to negate that influence to jump-start an active and free market again. In this case, the European Commission is doing that.
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Why? Grandparent post should be marked as flamebait, if anything... I'll bite.
>but keeping this information to themselves is something that has been done in the computer industry since the beginning.
"Something's right because we've always done it this way" is never a valid argument.
>I can't believe the EU would be so fascist as to compel Microsoft to release this information... and with a fine post-dated to Dec 15!!
Better believe it...
>Microsoft should suspend all sales of Windows and Office until this is resolved.
Sure, and lose hundreds of millions of revenue, instead of a few million due to fines. It's not like they're stopping development - they would stop selling software for which most of the costs have already been incurred... that'd just be dumb.
> Europe is much more heavily dependent on windows than the US... they would most definitely feel the pinch.
What are you basing that on? Seems I see a lot more Linux headlines about Germany/Norway/Sweden/whereever than about the States...
> Hell they might be able to talk Apple into joining the boycott...
Yeah, sure. Maybe they'll even convince Apple to curl up and die.
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Odd thing, for some reason a lot more people then a few percent seemed to be able to work with Linux long before Windows ever made an appearance. Of course they called it unix in those days but what's in a name?
Earlier computer systems were even more primitive and being operated NOT by MIT graduates but by a girl promoted from the typing pool. For that matter how do you think the earliest word processors and such worked? Point and click? Nor were they being used by harvard graduates. Just girls with barely a diploma in home economics.
Nah, linux is easy. It is just called hard by the amazingly lazy who do not want to be bothered having to relearn their leet button clicking skills.
In the real world, people have used all kinds of systems and continue to do so. You would be suprised how many companies still run their essential software via ancient telnet terminals that make you wish you were running DOS (oh okay maybe not DOS).
Here is a tip for succesfull management of your employees. Do not hire people with skills if office package X (and that includes oOO). Hire people with an average intelligence and tell them I pay your wages, I choose the software, here is a manual. Any person with a IQ above room temperature will get the hint.
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If Internet Explorer was locked-out, or it was made extremely difficult to operate with Apache, there would be an outcry.
If Apache was closed-source and used a proprietary protocol, Firefox was closed-source, and Apache and Firefox were developed by the same company - providing seamless integration between the two - and if Microsoft was given no help to allow its browser to operate with Apache, I'm sure that Bill Gates wouldn't just sit down and say "Ah well, fair's fair."
Microsoft has had plenty of time to address similar issues that it has brought about, and the company knew of the consequences.
What's to complain about?
What other option does the EU have?
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Europe is much more heavily dependent on windows than the US
Many people are heavily dependent on Windows.
It's not because Windows is so superior, it's due to the lock-in situation proprietary file formats, protocols and APIs have brought about.
That's why the EU wants to put a stop to it.
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This is equal to a habitual speeder getting pulled over for the 10th time in a month, and the penalty is his wife can no longer work. The justification; she makes allot of money and bought him the car. Should we tell MS that they can no longer sell Office unless they give Open Office their source code too?
Wow, where to begin. MS is one legal entity called a corporation, not two individuals. This is a lot more like restricting a child molester out on parole from going near playgrounds. MS has illegally used their monopoly multiple times. Now the courts have forbidden them from activities that could lead them to abuse it again. It sounds pretty reasonable to me. If MS wants their server and other operations legally separate they can just make them separate corporations. I'm all for splitting up MS and letting them actually compete.
As to the source code, you're mistaking EU ruling. They order them to open up the protocols and make them interoperable, not to open the source code. That is like saying they have to open up the .doc spec after abusing their monopoly to make .doc the default specification. It is not like saying they have to open up the source to Word. The only issue is MS won't release the spec, and what they have released is not what they are actually using. After so many times of them lying and giving a spec that is not the real spec, access to the source code may be the only way anyone can determine what the real spec is.
MS server api/code being required to be exposed is border line criminal in my opinion. This is MS IP (good or bad it's theirs), and forcing an Open Source model on the world is a dangerous road... regardless of your opinion on OSS.
Where do you get this crap? Opening an API is not open sourcing the code that implements an API. It is documenting what is used and making sure others can use it equally. It is akin to one company having a monopoly on cars, and then switching all their cars to use a non-standard fuel. The courts just said they have to tell everyone what the specifications for the fuel are (not even the formula for it or the process used to make it) so that they can't use that monopoly to take over the fuel market. I hope you are being paid to spread this FUD. If MS does not want to be punished they shouldn't break the bloody law.
This is an attempt to throw a bone at competitors of Microsoft...
This is an attempt to stop MS from illegally putting more people, with better products, and who actually innovate, out of business.
The fact that the foes of Microsoft resort to beating them on the server front like this just goes to show you that MS really has made a good product with Windows 2003.
No, the fact that MS is gaining market share with such an obviously inferior product is what prompted this response.
The cold hard truth is that this has very little to do with MS or monopolies. The EU is just trying to hurt the US economy by hurting the largest American company.
I doubt it, or they would be picking on a lot more corporations. Nope this is about power, and making sure foreign companies don't put local ones out of business by breaking the laws.
MS chose to break the law as part of their business model. They have a gajillion lawyers and know full well when they are breaking the law. They have just gambled that it will be more profitable to break the law and pay any fines and settlements that result than it will be to comply with the law. So far they have been completely correct in this gamble and it has paid off amazingly well. Even with a few million dollars a day in fines they will still be making money in Europe, thus further justifying their business plan. This tells corporations around the world something most of them already know. Laws are an inconvenience for corporations, not a deal breaker. Crime pays, especially when it is on a very large scale that allows you to bribe corrupt politicians left and right. Additionally, you can get sympathy from uneducated, ignorant, nationalists who are willing to support breaking crimes in other countries. Brilliant!
I work for a company that sells hardware and software, and the demand for more Linux support has gone up dramatically from overseas - and we're responding with success.
I personally think that their Linux requests are a bit out of spite (they have MS contracts, the project managers involved are just sick of Microsoft) -- but whichever way you cut it, Microsoft should probably begin playing nice because that's where they're going to lose customers. And Korea.
Berto
This is an antitrust issue. Your whole EXACT SAME issues thing is a non-sequitor because:
- Apple is not a convicted monopolist
- RedHat is not a convicted monopolist
- SuSE is not a convicted monopolist
Microsoft *is* a convicted monopolist, that is why they are being fined. They are being fined because they are using their desktop monopoly to force out competitors in other markets, such as the server market. Additionally, they are using their desktop monopoly to cross subsidise their entries into other markets and sell things like the XBox below cost price, which will eventually force other competitors without the luxury of using a monopoly to subsidise their games market to exit the market.
Linux distros, on the other hand, use open and documented protocols. It is no problem using a Sun Solaris NIS and NFS server with a Linux desktop client, or a Linux server with a Sun Solaris desktop client. RedHat and SuSE do not have desktop monopolies which they use to lock out competitors from the server market (and vice versa).
Additionally, MSDN doesn't exactly document the proprietary and non-standard extensions to Kerberos that prevent anyone other than Microsoft from creating a server that can provide Active Directory to Windows clients.
Microsoft would not be being fined if their business conduct did not include using their Windows monopoly to subsidise their entry into other markets. It is not fair game for MS to counter sue for bias and prejudice because there is no bias and prejudice - all the other people you cite do not use Microsoft business practises.
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Obligatory Simpsons ref: Mr. Burns is hauled into court for dumping nuclear waste in the city park. He's fined $3 million. He whips out his checkbook and says, "I'll take that statue of justice too!"