The European Commission (one of the highest institution of the European Union) punished m$ to pay a 500 million € (over the thumb thats the same value in $ ) for abusing its monopoly power
thats the highest value ever used by the commission

in the official statement on the commission's homepage it says:


man, they are speaking from my heart!

500 million Euro is just over 600 million US dollars.

I wonder how much impact that will have on Microsoft?

More significantly (this side of the water) the decision should do the European Commission's reputation no end of good!

Cheers,
David.

Thats good, but:

#1 500 million is peanuts to microsoft.
#2 Will/have they actually paid?
#3 What does it really matter if m$ is allowed to continue to violate even the tiny fractured remnants of anti-trust laws that still remain in the US (The Regan and first Bush administration got rid of most of them, and the Clinton administration cleaned out a few more)?

US corporations are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want these days and if the American government isn't about to stop them it is sure as shit that the EU will have no power to do so. If any of you want to know why it is a bad thing that corporations have so much control I recommend that you watch the up-coming documentary The Corporation, or you could read some books by Noam Chomsky or Naomi Klein.

edit: typos

yep its peanuts, but it shouldnt be forgotten that its not only the fine, but m$ also has to release a Windows version without WMP for computer vendors in 90 days. (afaik HP already announced to release their computers with itunes from now on) and make Windows more "transparent", giving more information about the OS to competitors, so they can directly compete with Microsoft products, in a period of 120 days

also its a precedent case for to come similar cases (like the commission also pointed out) and with this decision the commission pointed out that they will not tolerate business policies like the one from m$


m$ has to pay in a period of threee months from now on, also the commissions statement points out that till now no company didnt pay.
the only chance m$ has is to fight against the decision at the european court


well there are presidential elections in some months in the US, time to change the policy there (or move to europe)


i dont know if i really understood your sentence right, but i think that it will even more help the commissions reputation in not behind weak when it comes to big companies, and not being weak when it is prooven that companies break the law
who knows why the US didnt go the same way...

They'll appeal, the court will grant a stay, and MS will have to release a Windows version without WMP around about 2009. By that time, WMP will be called "Windows Sound Source" or something, and will be integrated into the kernel. heh...

BTW, the ~$600 million amount is approximately 1% of MS's assets, if I remember reading correctly.

I don't think this will do much except give MS and excuse to charge more for Longhorn MS has so much dinero in cash reserves that they can probably write a check on any day of the week for $600 million.



Fat chance. MS has repeatedly made large contributions to both major political parties in the US. We only have two parties here and anyone who contributes enough to both of them can pretty much get a pass on most anticompetitive issues.

again the decision was not only about money
we will see how long the court takes


well thats what i meant, time to vote for someone who doesnt make policy for big corporations (note that i am not talking about the iraq war here)

I realize that, but forcing MS to make a version of XP without WMP built-in and forcing them to be more transparent about integrating third-party apps will only give MS another excuse to delay and delay and then to charge more for their next version. And the problem with that is the consumer ultimately gets screwed and will continue to get screwed.

Here in the 'States MS has been paying out money to customers for overcharging on Windows and Office in the past, but it doesnt seem to have affected the cost of the current OS or the current Office Suite one bit. So what's the point? I get to wait for months to have the pleasure of depositing fifty dollars or so in my account because I overpaid by twice that much for each of three versions of Windows and two versions of Office?

The same is true for CD prices - the music clubs (I belong to BMG, and it's a good deal if you only buy on the "$2.99 CDs" month) have been sending out checks for overcharging their customers as a result of the "CD MAP Antitrust Litigation", but the regular price on current CD's appears to be exactly the same.

At this point I don't think most any action short of imposed price controls are going to do anything except make legions of lawyers rich, and I dislike price controls except when it comes to essential services and health care.



I'm doing my best!
The problem is the "two party duopoly" (as Mr. Nader, who I somewhat dislike, is fond of saying) has turned politics in this country into the equivalent of a football game.

"Betting" as a corporation on both "teams" when the payoff is 10:1 or 5:1 either way means you literally cannot lose if you give both "teams" enough money

edited punctuation