EU fines Microsoft with $1.35 billion
The European Commission (EC) fined Microsoft 899 million Euros or $1.35 billion for non-compliance with the Commission’s March 2004 decision. According to the EC, Microsoft has become the first company in fifty years of EU competition policy that receives a penalty for failure to comply with an antitrust decision. The organization found that Microsoft did not follow the obligations imposed under a decision dating back to March 2004 prior to October 22, 2007. Back then, The EC fined Microsoft 497 million Euros or almost $700 million for charging “unreasonable prices” for access to interface documentation for work group servers and had abused its dominant position under Article 82 of the EC Treaty. According to the decision, Microsoft was required to disclose interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve ”full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers at a reasonable price.” This ruling was upheld in September of last year.
The $1.35 billion fine is imposed in addition to the original $700 million. “I hope that today’s Decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft’s record of non-compliance with the Commission’s March 2004 Decision and that the principles confirmed by the Court of First Instance ruling of September 2007 will govern Microsoft’s future conduct,” said European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a statement. The EC said that Microsoft initially demanded a royalty rate of 3.87% of a licensee’s product revenues for a patent license and 2.98% for a license giving access to the secret interoperability information (information license). In May of last year, the company reduced its royalty rates to 0.7% for a patent license and 0.5% for an information license for sales within Europe, while leaving worldwide rates unchanged. I guess Microsoft will not hesitate with sharing the source codes after this experience…
Source: TG Daily
Comments(48)
There’s a trojan in there, DONT DOWNLOAD IT!
There’s a trojan in there, DONT DOWNLOAD IT!
There’s a trojan in there, DONT DOWNLOAD IT!
can’t you ban spam?
Anyone stupid enough to download that? Wonder if hipple did
OWNED LAWL
Guys, this number sounds way less in Euros
Anyway good decision, but too late.
LMFAOROFL
they should use the money to provide us with original windows
IN. YO. FACE.
ah thats just loose change for uncle bill
ok there’s one thing i do not understand:
whgen you buy a microsoft product for your server, you are very much aware of the cost of documentation and other services microsoft offers. it is all on the web. So if one makes an informed decision fo buying microsoft products why do they cry about the high costs for documentation?
apart from that i do not believe there was a microsoft hitman holding a gun at the corporate executives head forcing him to choose microsoft. there are other products on the market, if microsoft’s is too expensive, then dont buy it. nobody if forcing you! especially in the case of servers where unix based servers are afaik much better than microsoft ones.
maybe somebody can enlighten me here.
thx.
oh btw, this is the first time i post on rlslog, after reading what y’all had to say on all them different topics for 2 years, feels good to pitch in once =)
goddamn keyboard… sry for the typos
nope, i think america should go to war with europe over this, this is a load of bs…don’t pay microsoft…america must keep its economy strong, were not going to let a bunch of fools take us!
phx, it’s about interoperability…microsoft makes it hard for their products to work with products by other manufacturers, and that’s anti-competitive…it seems a good principle to me, the only problem being that microsoft can afford this without much trouble, so it won’t make much difference.
ms got pwned!!! big time!!!
Ou yea!
aw come on. €899 million or $1.35 billion is nothing to microsoft, theyll go on doing what they always do.
man this thing is not posting my comments.
(bako1 nope, i think america should go to war with europe over this, this is a load of bs…don’t pay microsoft…america must keep its economy strong, were not going to let a bunch of fools take us!)
Bako1 If MS don’t pay then the EU will seize MS’s european assets, as for war you really need to go back to school and actually learn something about world politics moron.
If you don’t think Bill had all his goons working on every conceivable outcome of this for the last few years you guys are off. No doubt about it,that smart bastard knew exactly what he was doing and what the advantage of doing it would be. He may be a fascist commie, but he aint no dummy.
the money will just get spent on another motorway for ireland!
@ 19: really? call me daft but i took what (bako1) said as a joke…
Even if Microsoft pays the fine, all they’ll do is release another supposedly helpful set of specs they claim will assist third-party developers in creating products that will “work better” with MS software and the EU will go along with it. That is, until they realize that they’ve been given another lock without a key because the key is a proprietary trade secret. Then it will be back to square one and they’ll levy another fine. They certainly won’t freeze Microsoft’s European assets, since that would frighten other business away and kill what’s left of the economy.
Ultimately, until Microsoft is actually blocked from doing business in countries where they are in violation of the anti-trust laws, they will consider such fines as merely “the cost of doing business”. It is far cheaper to pay fines than it would be to give up the monopoly which brings in one hundred times or more the paltry sum imposed on the company by the EU.
But this too will never happen. After all, those very same countries earn far more through jobs and taxes on Microsoft business than they would get from a piddling little billion Euro fine. They’d also piss off a large segment of the voting population. And these people are, after all, political appointees and politicians as well as businessmen and women.
the problem with Europe is that they hate the american monopoly monster(Microsoft) and I’m an european citizen by the way.
@23
Microsoft will pay the fine, just like they did the last one, if they don’t the EU will seize their assets and arrest every top level MS employee they can get their hands on, that’s how governments works. As for the voters in Europe, well they really have little interest in what happens to MS. And since only a few thousand people work for MS in Europe and don’t think job losses will effect what the EU will do. BTW the EU is the world largest economy and MS has much more to lose by pissing it off then the EU does for pissing off MS.
@12 (bako1)
Do you buy all your Microsoft software? Like the OS-es, Office, and get your servers/software licensed? Probably not.
So how can you justify what you just said when even you do not pay MS for their products? And if you don’t use MS at all, then you definitely can’t justify it…
I wish everybody would get off microsoft’s back. Buy their products and services or DON’T. There are alternatives to literally everything that company does.
@22 (zvw)
It may be that bako1 said that as joke, but then he formulated it wrong. Doesn’t sound funny to me…
@10 phx well..I’ve never really managed to create smth like Active Directory on linux …
I didn’t find enough documentation while on windows after a few clicks it was done..but I know that unix is better in the first place, especially cause it’s free 
@24 (redzo)
Well if it wasn’t for the monopoly MS products wouldn’t be so expensive in the 1st place
and SO the EU finance problems caused by allowing the old IRon Curtain countries to the EU..
shortage of money??
nelie smit Kroes,responsible for a lot a millions of mis-investments during her period in the NL.
now she owns it and fines everytime there is a shortage Microsoft
lol !
first vista now this !
they’ve gone down hill since win ‘3.1 i tell ya.
Just get a pirated copy of windows and run it on your Mac…
[IMG]http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/satcat69/macvista.png[/IMG]
@29 actually, unix is not free GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (with clones) are. Anyways good thing someone actually tries to stop those damn monopolist companys. Id like to see Intel suffer some of it too, they’re just as bad.
Here;s the image ….
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj138/satcat69/macvista.png
@25
I didn’t say they wouldn’t pay the fine, I said that even if they did it wouldn’t matter. Even if they paid a thousand similar fines it wouldn’t matter. They will still get away with business as usual.
As for how government runs… Since I’ve worked in both the public and private sector on the international level for over 25 years, I can tell you that governments are run by politicians who are mostly businessmen or those who sit in the pockets of businessmen. Trust me when I say that the honest ones are few and far between. And yes, they can be gotten to as well if their own financial assets are threatened. It’s as easy as making sure that at the next election a company donates big money to the opposition party and a few nasty rumors are spread. I’m not saying Microsoft would bother to do this, but there are other businesses who are a lot less savory in their dealings, which go far beyond Microsoft’s anti-trust violations and bundling practices.
back @ the store:
simple buyer1 : i want a pc that does it all.
storeowner:you can buy this pc for 500€ with windows installed and it can do whatever you want it do do.
or
simple Buyer 2 : i want a pc that does it all
storeowner: you can buy this pc for 500€ but you have to pay
150€ for cd burning software
50 € for DVD-player capabilities
30 € for a internet explorer
20 € backup software
50 € for media player
yes you can download most from the web as opensource
but john Doe doesn’t care and only wants a direct out of the store PC
and that is where the non-democratic Decision makers from the EU forget to think
Micro$oft makes a Billion clear each month. So it’s not even 2 months income.
“the problem with Europe is that they hate the american monopoly monster(Microsoft) and I’m an european citizen by the way.”
How’s that a problem? The world is mostly anti-USA apart from Southern Korea, “Isreal” and The Phillippines.
@38: 1 hate the EU
AIO (all in one) software/OS is fine as long as you can remove some of the parts completely and replace it with software that you want (IE wmp).
Your argument is from the point of view of a simple CONSUMER and not a COMPETING business (case of netscape[R.I.P (officially]) or a Company that needs to buy licenses for multiple pcs. Monopoly does not affect the simple CONSUMER as much as COMPETING businesses/Companies.
@40: Monkey
The world is anti-USA because the USA is always butting in other country’s business. Trying to be the STAR, the HERO, SAVIOUR of the world, DEFENDER of the UNIVERSE. Their reason for doing that(other than getting oil or selling war machines)? So that they could feel safer in their homeland as if all the evil is from outside the US.
@43 We don’t want/need/nor care about your approval. It’s cool that you speak for the entire world though! Amazing how so many posts, no matter the topic, turns into an anti-US debacle. Such obsession can’t be healthy.
@#43- That’s right, sweetheart. Now pucker up and kiss my red, white, and blue star-spangled ass!
All jokes aside, I agree with #44. It can’t be healthy and I wish you USA haters would get over it. We are not our government, most of us despise Bush & Co. more than you. Stop blaming and hating every American just because of policies or actions that we had nothing to do with. I could point out countless faults of European governments whose actions and policies on the world stage I dislike but I don’t go around badmouthing the citizens of those countries just because I disagree with something their leaders have done. Give it a rest and try having an honest dialogue with real Americans, not some jaundiced stereotype that may be fashionable to believe. You just might find that we are more alike than you ever thought.
Bill has more money than this in his dryer.
@45 Ben Dover
Nicely said
We hear a lot of bad things about that happens in USA or something the Government has done (in the media) so a lot of people here in Europe often generalise.
We don’t like being put in the same picture with the baddies ourselves so why should you!
I’m from Denmark btw so there’s a lot of fuzz in the media everywhere atm about the drawings of the prophet and I tell ya, there’s a lot of generalisation going on out there.
@44 TitosLoveSlave
Whoever said that I am a USA hater? Did I say I need your approval? Opinions don’t warrant/need approval from the affected party.
For all it’s worth i’m indifferent regarding the matter. I just told you what I read and hear. I’m not trying to start a debate
@45 Ben Dover
I agree that it is the US gov’t that the world hates. My post just wasn’t clear on that
More monnee to the EU $_$ o/
This should compensate for their constant transfer from Strasbourg to Brussels for few years.
hipple?! What file has a trojan in it?