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Microsoft Meets EU Antitrust Deadline

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the grumbling-like-an-old-man dept.

An anonymous reader writes to mention a News.com article, which reports on Microsoft's attempt to meet the EU's requirements in their ongoing antitrust case. The updated documents that Microsoft has delivered, they hope, will put off the leveling of a several-millions-of-dollars-a-day fine against the OS maker. Whether or not the documents have accomplished that task will not be known for several months yet. From the article: "The commission set a deadline of July but delayed it until a court proceeding finished in December, 2004. In July, 2006, the commission fined Microsoft $357.3 million for dragging its feet, on top of a fine of almost $646 million in 2004 for its initial violation. In a statement calling the submission of documents a 'milestone,' Microsoft said it had completed the review and editing of some 100 documents, which number 8,500 pages."

13 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. What about putting the fine in escrow by El+Cubano · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The updated documents that Microsoft has delivered, they hope, will put off the leveling of a several-millions-of-dollars-a-day fine against the OS maker. Whether or not the documents have accomplished that task will not be known for several months yet.

    Being that they have already dragged their feet for years on this, they should be required to pay the fine (or at least a percentage of it) into escrow (which can bear interest for the benefit of the EU citizenry). Once the documentation is judged to have met the requirements of the EU regulators, the money can be returned.

    Not sure if it would be possible, but I think it would help dissuade MS from future delay tactics.

  2. in other news by RelliK · · Score: 3, Funny

    Slashdot meets dupe quota. The number of duplicate stories is now 1,000,000. Slashdot spokesman and frequent poster Zonk called it a 'milestone'.

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    ___
    If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
    1. Re:in other news by bmo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Incredible. Taco posted this story _two days ago_ and the article itself is the _exact_ same Reuters report.

      Don't the editors and Taco talk to each other?

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      BMO

    2. Re:in other news by remembertomorrow · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'm beginning to think that Slashdot's "editors" are just poorly-written Perl scripts.

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      Registered Linux user #421033
    3. Re:in other news by RuBLed · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's called a re-run, much like what the tv stations are doing everyday. Microsoft is just making sure we get the point and that we get it correctly because after all they did meet a deadline.

    4. Re:in other news by eln · · Score: 3, Funny

      The truly amazing part is, if you don't count the dupes, or dupes of dupes, Slashdot has only had 5 unique stories posted in its entire history.

  3. Gasp! by Jaansen · · Score: 2, Funny

    I didn't know it was possible to meet the same deadline twice. Oh, its a dupe.

  4. The real plan by stox · · Score: 4, Funny

    The documents were submitted in Office 2007 format, with extensions that only run under Vista. Next month, Microsoft will announce the fast adoption of Vista by the European Commission. After all, if the commission is buying so many copies, it must be good. Soon, thereafter, they will announce a record adoption of Vista by leading open source developers.

    Moo Ha Ha

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    "To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
  5. Re:Fluff by a.d.trick · · Score: 2, Insightful
    There may actually be something within those pages this time. Maybe.

    Common sense tells me that after all this time and bickering they should have gotten it right by now. Unfortunatly, my experience tells me that my common sense doesn't work very well around Microsoft.

  6. expensive pages... by Tmack · · Score: 3, Interesting
    just over $1billion in fines already, and only 8500 pages to show for it after two whole years? That doesnt sound like much, and comes out to $118,000 per page. Taking the average of 275 words per page, that comes to $429 per word, or about $72 per non-whitespace.

    Tm

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  7. Re:that was stupid by KDR_11k · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Then you'd get fired. Because you forfeited a large market to the competition as well as committing a large scale breach of contract (causing Billions of Euros of damage which the government WILL recoup from your company). Your local assets (MS has subsidiaries in Europe) get confiscated, you might be subject to extradition and a group of twenty countries will heavily invest in opensource while software developers will need to make Linux or OS X (most likely Linux because that's supported on the hardware that's already out there) versions of their software in order to reach that market.

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    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  8. Any existing fine... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    ...is for crimes already perpetrated, so should be exacted in full. For that matter, this current case of delivering at the eleventh hour (making it impossible for the EU to validate until past the deadline) should warrant a suspended fine from the picosecond that the deadline ran out until either the documents are certified as adequate OR are rejected. Microsoft should have absolutely ZERO claim over whether there was a misunderstanding or not, precisely because they waited until the last possible moment. They have no excuse for doing so - they were quite capable of releasing most - if not all - of this documentation prior to the case ever being launched. They could also have worked with others to ensure that the documentation met requirements. Their choice of last-minute dashes and deliberate secrecy should not be usable as a defense for any failures on their part.


    Personally, I'd increment the fine by an order of magnitude each time they do this. Last time it was a million euros a day, this time should be ten million a day. Either that, or the EU should just seize Microsoft's European property on the grounds that Microsoft has clearly neither any intent of paying nor of complying with the law.


    (This isn't just a Microsoft thing. I'd say this about any company that perpetrated deliberate malpractice to get ahead. I can't understand why British Airways was allowed to bankrupt Freddy Laker and conduct several attempts to cripple/destroy Richard Branson. Sometimes I think the Romans err'd in wiping out the Druids - they would be so much more effective at bringing these corporations in line than the courts are being.)

  9. Re:that was stupid by slashbart · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Please mail your insightful comment to Steve Ballmer. I'm sure he'll implement your wise suggestion immediately. Imagine the joy the Microsoft shareholders would have from just telling us Europeans to go fly a kite. Imagine the sorrow on our European faces when we hear we'll no longer be privileged to use the magnificent software flowing from Redmond.

    Thanks