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EU Court Upholds Microsoft Antitrust Fines
a_n_d_e_r_s writes "The ongoing saga of Microsoft's misuse of their dominant position in the EU marketplace to block competitors may be finally over, with the fine set to 860 million euros (just over 1 billion dollars). In 2004 Microsoft was ordered to provide certain information to competitors but failed to do so and was given an hefty fine. Now the EU General Court in Luxembourg has upheld the EU Commission decision and ruled against Microsoft."
This is a minor reduction (4.3%) of the original fine because of a minor technicality. Microsoft, naturally, is unhappy with the result.
So Microsoft are running the EU bailout now?
Not sure about that. Since 2004 they sold at least a billion pricey products ; that makes a pretty juicy ROI.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Mod parent up. It's a couple of month's profit for Microsoft. Spread it over eight years and it's not a bad investment.
No sig today...
The verdict was handed down in 2004. It's the appeal where Microsoft managed to reduce the fine by about 30 Mio €.
Inflation will have reduced the fine by a lot more in 8 years.
This is indeed a conspiracy. The EU knew about the impending financial crisis in 2004 and decided that instead of averting it with that knowledge they would fine MS to raise a small amount of cash that won't help very much.
...here in the United Kingdom both central and local government will consider this ruling and act in the manner which they consider appropriate;
So they will make absolutely no effort consider alternative suppliers and reward Microsoft with more lucrative contracts for software and services.
Wow, that is a chunk of change - the EU could really use the money right now too (conspiracy ???). This could pay for the bailouts being debated right now throughout the EU.
The fine is 860 million euros. The Spanish banks are getting up to 100 billion euros. The Irish got some 60 billion euros, Greece has gotten several hundred billions so far. These 860 million euros are chump change in comparison.
Now they need to go after them for secure boot UEFI
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
Really?
Are you literally 'forced' into buying MicroSoft Software when buying a new PC in the mainstream dealers? Can you buy a PC/Laptop (without going through a large number of hoops) from the likes of Dell, HP etc without Windows? Do you have a choice?
Apple represent approx 10% of the PC market. That is not way a monopoly or can be construed as being anti-competitive.
MS will be in for more trouble if they stop no MS Software from running on hardware that is produced by other makers when Windows 8 comes out. Apple don't stop you from installing Windows or Linux on their Hardware. Infact they even go so far as suppliying drivers for thier hardware when you install Windows. Please explain in great detail for the rest of us how this can be construed as anticompetitive?
Just wait for windows on ARM. Then you will see what truly restrictive licensing really is. I fully expect MS to try to stop people rooting their ARM devices (especially Surface) and use not only the DMCA (in the US) but any law that they think can work to keep their monopoly intact.
I would be very pleased if they just shrugged their shoulders and said nothing if people rooted their ARM with Windows device.
Microsoft has to report that they're unhappy with the result. They have to whine and complain. If they didn't, it wouldn't be seen as sufficient punishment.
The ______ Agenda
Actually, it would be MS shooting themselves in the foot, because if we assume MS is keeping price where they think they get most revenue, moving it away from this sweet spot will just lower their profits.
Microsoft's competitors and consumers aren't too happy with the result either. I'm sure they would have preferred that MS not have engaged in such practices in the first place.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Wow, that is a chunk of change - the EU could really use the money right now too (conspiracy ???). This could pay for the bailouts being debated right now throughout the EU.
You really don't have any idea what the fuck you are talking about.
Assuming that there genuinely were hoping to encourage competition to Microsoft products then that result would help them even more with their goal.
Really?
Are you literally 'forced' into buying MicroSoft Software when buying a new PC in the mainstream dealers? Can you buy a PC/Laptop (without going through a large number of hoops) from the likes of Dell, HP etc without Windows? Do you have a choice?
Yes you have a choice. Dell has sold Ubuntu laptops. Hp has sold WebOs. I believe that both have made Android devices... and ChromeOS devices. If you don't want a Windows device you can buy one of those.
Furthermore, there are lots of other companies you didn't list. Why not buy a Linux PC from System76. Do as Richard Stallman does and buy a Lemote.
Windows never had a monopoly because there have always been alternatives. The fact is that there is no public demand for alternatives aside from Apple. That's more due to the failings of Linux and others than it is about monopolistic practices.
Microsoft must open-source and stop trying to lock people in with docx and other microsoft ONLY file formats...
and stop bullying households in selling home users multiple licenses, that's what we call extorting a paying customer...
it's a criminal and they must for for extorting the European consumers, this amount is small compared to the profits they sucked out of our people and our governments.
they are doing the same in your country and over 30million Americans don't have health insurance also because of these kinds of criminals...
Apple represent approx 10% of the PC market.
How much of the tablet and phone market do they represent?
MS will be in for more trouble if they stop no MS Software from running on hardware that is produced by other makers when Windows 8 comes out. Apple don't stop you from installing Windows or Linux on their Hardware.
I have no idea what that first sentence even means. But MS has never stopped you from installing anything you want in Windows, either. And no PC maker has ever stopped anyone from installing an alternate OS. The only company that does this is Apple--which stopped you from installing an alternate OS before bootcamp, stops you from installing OS X on anything other than Apple hardware, and stops you from installing non-App-Store software on any iOS device.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Europe acting on anti-trust type of actions on big companies. I remember a time when the U.S. did that and we had decades of prosperity. Ah the good old prosperous days of the 50's and 60's with 90% top tax rate.
Yes and no. Certainly a price hike would make competing products more attractive, but not everyone will abandon MS products. It would raise the overall cost of software in Europe in the areas in which Microsoft plays. If I'm a MS competitor who isn't giving away his stuff for free, and MS raises prices by 25%, my optimal price point is probably not "exactly what I'm charging right now". It's somewhere between "what I'm charging right now" and "25% more than what I'm charging right now".
It would foster competition in the same way U.S. tariffs on foreign sugar cane foster "competition" between U.S. corn-growers and foreign sugar exporters. It places a de facto tax on the consumer in order to create artificial competition where it would not normally occur.
The practice of what?
Daring to include a browser in their OS? THOSE BASTARDS.
Or not sharing enough details about their software to their competitors? THOSE BASTARDS.
People around here like to paint MS as some great evil, but honestly I just don't see it. All I see is a company that gets penalized for acting like everybody else.
The claim made in many of these lawsuits, especially from Neelie Kroes the European Commissioner for Competition is that Open Source/Standards is better. (From Wiki: "Kroes has stated she believes open standards and open source are preferable to anything proprietary")
Does this mean that *any* company with a significant revenue (say $1 billion or more) is required to release all their file formats under some "interoperability" thread of lawsuit from the EU, or is it just Microsoft?
I'm curious to see how many other companies in other domains have they gone after. Photoshop is dominant in their domain, so will they be sued for a closed format? ( I used them as an e.g. - I haven't checked if they actually have opened their formats recently)
There are plenty of EU antitrust rulings against EU (and other non-US) companies, your ignorance of them probably shows your bias, not theirs.
Astra Zeneca (a UK company) are up for 50 million euros.
Telefonica (Spanish) are up for 150 million euros.
Examples are not hard to find....
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Do you really think you know more about what "monopoly" and "monopoly abuse" is than the bloody courts?!?!?
This is not a trivial sum. Who gets it?
Apple are the worst offenders and is the most anti-competitive company in the industry, they're worse than Microsoft.
Totally!!
Well, except for the fact that they have nothing approaching a monopoly in any industry in which they operate and consumers have the easy choice to go with alternatives should they dislike Apple's offerings whereas Microsoft had ~95% of the desktop market at the time the anti-trust cases occurred (and still have ~90% of the market).
Other than that, you're right - totally worse than Microsoft. ...
That is called "abuse of dominant position". I'm sorry these laws are inconvenient, but I thought it was fairly well admitted that monopolies are a bad thing for the economy, or is that another common sense economic notion that is now labelled "socialo-communist" ?
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Can anyone point me to something indicating what information the EU feels Microsoft should have provided but did not provide? (or information competitors of Microsoft believe Microsoft should have provided but did not provide?)
The spec documents at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd208104(v=prot.10) seem to cover a lot of the things that competitors might want access to so whats missing?
Yes you have a choice. Dell has sold Ubuntu laptops. Hp has sold WebOs. I believe that both have made Android devices... and ChromeOS devices. If you don't want a Windows device you can buy one of those.
My Dell desktop machine here is a n-series, which means it didn't come with any OS at all[*].
There is no way to buy an Apple without Apple's OS, on the other hand. Nor a way to buy third party compatibles.
As for monopoly, Apple's marketshare in several business segments is large enough to be affected by anti-monopoly legislation. They're not above the law of the countries they decide to sell in.
[*]: It came with a FreeDOS CD because the law prohibits OS vendors from penalizing someone for selling a competitor's product, and lawyers (ptui!) argued that no OS isn't a competitor's product, so they could freely penalize Dell and others for selling machines with no OS. Of course it's a competitor's product, it's just that the competitor is unspecified and left up to the user. Of course, no one expects the buyers to ever install FreeDOS.
You fucking freedom hating commie! You shouldn't be allowed to post such things! There should be some congressional committee to subpoena you or something.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
If this was a speeding ticket it would have at least 100% in fees and interest added. Microsoft made money on the appeal, more in just interest than the lawyers got paid.
That said the EU could do some REAL HARM if they string armed the money in the next 30 days. That would upset the decision makers enough to bungle all the Win8 launches.
Subpoena ? That's sooo 2001 ! Just label me soft-terrorist, extradite me to US and send me directly to Guantanamo ! I always wanted to meet Assange anyway...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
They were charged guilty by the highest court in the US... and nothing.
Microsoft just complained that it was hard to comply and dragged their feet. The US did nothing. No fine, no nothing, until it reached stature of limitation. Then Microsoft, a convicted criminal, got off the hook without even a slap on the wrist.
In that aspect, The EU was much smarter. They gave Microsoft time to fix their stuff, and when that time expired, without Microsoft doing anything, they started fining 1 000 000 euro for every additional day of non-compliance. That is where the 980 000 000 euro fine is coming from.
Microsoft is not the only case like this.
When Microsoft will increase the software licensing fees for EU organizations.......
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
More EU companies have been hit by antitrust than non-EU ones.
Now lets look at how Apple (USA) vs Samsung (Not)...
Actually, if MSFT was smart, it will cost them nothing. As soon as they knew there was a risk that they could be fined, move $4-5 billion to a high interest bank account, say 3% per year over 8 years. They would be able to pay the fines on the interest earned alone.
According to the Sherman Antitrust Act monopolies are not bad. In fact we have several of them (post office, amtrak, the electric company). Monopolies are only bad when they abuse their power, as defined by the act.
As for "economic notions", in a truly free market no monopoly lasts forever because new competitors rise-up and take it away. I think we're witnessing that now, as Microsoft has lost its 90s and early 2000s monopoly over browers and OSes. They have to share the spotlight with Mozilla, Google, and Apple.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Because banks never go broke, right?
Completely riskless, never in all of history has a depositor lost their money
UEFI boot comes to mind, just off the top of my head.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Not in america, apparently, and if they do they just get a bailout.
Waiting to see if Apple gets the same treatment. After all Apple is in the dominant position in the tablet market. Many would say the smartphone and mp3 markets as well. Apple even gets courts to block other companies from bringing in a competing product. Is that not considered abuse? Even Apple has said that the ipod/iphone sales have lead to higher Apple computer sales.
They better make them pay up asap or don't allow them to do business in the EU.
This lawsuit was about documenting proprietary protocols/formats/services, for interoperability. Has Apple done all of that ? Are all of their formats - iwork, pages, garageband, itunes etc all open?
The problem with MS is only exaggerated because customers have overwhelmingly chosen to use them consistently over the previous decade. Third parties are effectively shut out because they can never overcome such a massive market barrier to entry.
...Microsoft is still unlikely to pay the reduced fine. A Microsoft spokesman was quoted as saying "Awww, the widdle EU antitrust court thinks it can fine us. Isn't that just precious?"
0 1 - just my two bits
You can't get arbitrary identical hardware with a reduced price that reflects the absence of an OEM copy of windows. That means you don't have a choice.
As for "economic notions", in a truly free market no monopoly lasts forever because new competitors rise-up and take it away.
The thing is, because they can prevent exactly that, that's why monopolies are generally considered an undesirable side-effect of free market. A sufficiently big actor can actively prevent a new entrant inside a market. If it was not forbidden, Microsoft would be forbidding OpenOffice and LibreOffice to run under windows, would prevent any other browser than IE and any other web search engine than Bing. Things are even worse in fields where there is a huge initial investment to enter the market.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.