Thursday, February 28th 2008
EU Fines Microsoft Record 899 Million Euro
The European Commission fined yesterday US computer giant Microsoft for defying sanctions imposed on it for anti-competitive behaviour. Microsoft must now pay a record 899m euros ($1.4bn; £680.9m) after it failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that it abused its position. The ruling said that Microsoft was guilty of not providing key code to rival software makers. EU regulators said the firm was the first to break an EU anti-trust ruling. The fines come on top of earlier fines of 280m euros imposed in July 2006, and of 497m euros in March 2004. "Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement. "As we demonstrated last week with our new interoperability principles and specific actions to increase the openness of our products, we are focusing on steps that will improve things for the future," Microsoft responded.
Source:
BBC News
74 Comments on EU Fines Microsoft Record 899 Million Euro
Take it with a grain of salt if you will. Im not saying any country should be a complete free market economy. Of course I believe there should be government controlled limits on every economy. I just think that that government control should be limited like it is in the US. Whereas the EU is doing too much government control of the semi-free economy.
Again The US is the closest country to a free economy, but even were only a semi-free economy. Seriously think about it mdm-adph. Im content with the government regulations on our economy for the most part here in the USA but overseas in Europe I see it as too authoritarian and an overuse of government control to the extremes.
Example: I mean do you care about fair trade in 3rd world countries and the fines and sanctions that are imposed on them as much as this nonsense ?.
Plus you can not insult or judge the people of an entire union consisting of many countries on the actions of the few and vise versa.
Cheers
Gam
Cheers
Gam
Allied Simicondutor is American
Intel is American
AMD is American
Nvidia is American
Microsoft is American
Apple is American
IBM is American
So whats the leave them, oh i know S3 graphics and Cyrix based CPU's. Remember these are American compaines that Europe consistinly fucks over. I say let Europe provide for them selves. Name me one product besides a car that is actully sold outside of Europe that they make?
As a corporate entity in WA state, Microsoft has the right to produce products and perform services (P&S) at whatever price point they set, and must follow the state statutes that cover business activity in WA.
When MS started selling P&S in other states, they then were invilved in iterstate commerce, which falls under the jurisdiction of the US Federal Government. They then had to follow federal laws pertaining to business activity.
When MS went international with their P&S, they now were required to adhere to the business laws of each soverign country they conducted business with, or in the case oif the EU, the ruling authority.
If the EU feels that MS is doing something anti-competitive they reserve the right to call them on the carpet (as they can do with any company). MS then has two options, follow the rules or get out. MS, of course, will never stop making their P&S available in the EU as they are making way more money than the fines they are incurring. It is really just a nuisance to MS, and is not detrimentally harming their bottom line.
Each sovergn country has the right to do this. Some do, some don't. It's their call. In each case a company can comply or leave, that's their call.
It's really just business as usual for a global company.
now that the usd broke the 1.50 mark vs. the euro a lot of european companies don't want to sell their goods on the usd market anymore .. because they would lose money. personally i have lost about 15% of my income vs. last year because i'm mostly paid in usd