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Microsoft's Price Fixing Penalty, 9M Euros
freakxx writes "Microsoft has been slapped with a fine of 9 million Euros by German regulators over illegally fixing the price of its Office-suite in an anti-competitive manner during a retail-promotion fair. Microsoft has accepted the fine and decided not to take this issue to any higher level."
I have never understood why a company should consider the detriment to its competition when pricing its products. Can anyone explain this to me? Should a person or organization be free to set the price of its products, whether too high or too low, and likewise be free to succeed or fail based on its actions? Isn't any answer besides "yes" an indication that people have a right to the product. Either that, or one would have to argue that people were somehow coerced into buying the product.
I have no idea what taxes are like in Europe, but I'd have to imagine that that's probably significantly less than the amount of sales tax collected on the sale of those licenses. At that point, it's just another minor cost of doing business. No wonder MS didn't feel a need to appeal.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
They most likely expected the fine and included it into their costs for running the promo. They probably figured that the amount they would make off the promo would probably offset the cost of the fine enough to make it worthwhile.
Easy. $9 million is not only pocket change to to Microsoft, it's very likely that $9 million < the legal bills to fight it.
They could pay the lawyers > $9 million to fight it, or they can just pay the fine.
Either way, the outcome is the same.
Sometimes you just take the practical way out.
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If parking tickets where 2cents I could park where ever I'd like. I think the same holds for Microsoft in this case.
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