EU fines Microsoft £681.6m in antitrust case
The European Commission has fined Microsoft a record £681.6 million (€889 million) for failure to comply with obligations set out in a March 2004 antitrust ruling.
Regulators said that the software giant had charged software developers wanting to make products compatible with Windows at "unreasonable" rates until last October.
"Microsoft had abused its dominant position," the report said.
"Microsoft was the first company in fifty years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," said European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes.
"I hope that today's Decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance," she added.
This fine brings the total penalty against the software giant to almost £1.3 billion in the long-running antitrust dispute in Europe.
According to the Associated Press, Microsoft has said that the issues for which it was fined have been resolved and its products are being made more open. But Commissioner Kroes remained sceptical and was quick to point out that Microsoft is still under investigation in two other cases.
"Talk is cheap," she said. "Flouting the rules is expensive."
Kroes said that the Commission could have gone as high as £1.14 billion, but the end decision was for a smaller penalty. The question is: was the penalty big enough to prevent Microsoft from trying to abuse its power in the future? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyI mean, c'mon -- who doesn't?
It's a face that only a mother could love.
But hey, what do i know.
It does kinda feel dirty, however they have had it coming, they were asked to comply they agreed then dragged there heels for as long as possible. I suspect this is don't **** with me type of fine. However projects like samba have already benefited from this so i suppose i can live with it.
/Joke
That was the point I was trying to put across at the end - it's not as if that hurts a company that has an annual turnover of over $50 billion (and income around the $20 billion mark).
what he said ^^^
European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes sure has the balls in the ight place! Even if she is a lady...
And the fine could be of 1,5B€ instead of the 899M€, lets hope Microsoft learns the lesson.
My dreams will once again be haunted with that face. :(
I wonder what she does with all that money..
Maybe she wanna turn the moon into a "Death Star"
http://www.volkskrant.nl/multimedia/archive/00071/Eurocommissaris_Neel_71157b.jpg
Remember they are a public company so allot goes to the shareholders.
I wish that our government could react like this to some of our monopolies here in South Africa, TELKOM our only network operator until recently made 1.7 Billion Dollars in profit last year and we only have a population of 46Million, now that is a shocker!
Monopolies always abuse their situation, it is only right that they where fined, hope they learn from it.
And I have been 'forced' to pay taxes for things I dont want to participate in. (like the things above)
It's really not. The EC have so far charged microsoft over 1/7th of their yearly net profits. That's a big loss for any company.
edit: also, the commision rawks \o/
That and the "skim for a point" subroutine failed.
I really wish the US was more like the EU. The housing collapse is a direct result of insuffiecient regulation.