EU Gives Microsoft 8 Days Until Fines

kaysan writes "European Commissioner Neelie Kroes has presented Microsoft with an ultimatum: Before Thursday next week, Microsoft must hand over all secret information on Windows protocols to its competition. Should the company choose to ignore this demand, it will be severely fined. Microsoft's history with EU fines so far amounts to approximately Euro777.5 million. Both linked websites are Dutch, but then again, so is EU commissioner Neelie Kroes."

Comments

English article

[Aphax]

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,194 8086,00.html

Why the Dutch?

[spellraiser]

A simple Google News search turns up a whole lot of items on this story in English.

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[Rogerborg]

> Microsoft is not a monopoly

Oh, beg to differ. Microsoft is a convicted monopoly abuser. And down comes your pretty house of cards.

Re:Ridiculous.

[KiltedKnight]

Remember: they bought the software, Microsoft didn't bash down their doors screaming "YOU WILL BUY OUR SOFTWARE!!".

That's not entirely true. Microsoft did make the deals with the PC OEMs to include a Windows license with their computers. Once upon a time, you actually had to purchase the PC operating system separately. Once Microsoft made these deals, OEMs were forced to install Windows on the machines. Based on recent experiences, the OEMs are not allowed, contractually, to sell the computers without Windows installed.

So they didn't exactly bash down the consumers' doors and force them to buy their software. They forced the PC OEMs to force it on them.

And you are correct with some of the xenophobia. Basically, the EU nations do not want to be purely beholden for this type of thing to a US-based company.

Translation and Original Story

[smooc]

quick translation:

New Ultimatum for Microsoft bu the EU

LONDON - The Eurpean Union has issues a new ultimatum against the American software giant Microsoft: before next Thursday the company has to turn over all (bdb: information about the) secret protocols in its Windows-OS to its competitors.

If Microsoft does not comply with the demands, the company risks more fines, threatened EC Neelie Kroes in Wednesday's edition of the British newspaper the Guardian. "I do not live forever" Kroes said about the tightened pressure.

Accoriding to her Microsoft has not given all relevant information yet. She compared it to a puzzle from which certain pieces are missing.

In March 2004 the European Commission already fined Microsoft by an amount of 497 million euros in alledged abuse of market power. In July an additional fine was set which can go up to 280,5 million euros.

original story in the guardian: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1947759,00 .html

Re:I don't get it, who does this help?

[abigor]

"Without ridiculous laws against reverse-engineering, and ridiculous patent laws, anyone would be able to dissassemble any file format and then write software to use that format. Your State prevents you from doing this and entering the market, hence prices go up and service goes down, dig?"

Reverse engineering of file formats is legal. It is a very difficult process, particularly for highly complex binary file formats like Word and so forth. The reason why .doc compatibility sucks has nothing to do with "the State". Please stop trying to wedge everything into your paranoid political mold.

Re:What exactly is microsoft being asked to give u

[raddan]

SMB/CIFS, MAPI, Microsoft DNS, RPC over HTTP, Office APIs, and so on... The list is here.