In February 2008, the European Commission fined Microsoft for the record-breaking amount of 899 million Euros, for not complying to the 2004 ruling from Brussels. Today, Microsoft announced it has decided to appeal the fine. “We are filing this appeal in a constructive effort to seek clarity from the court. We will not be saying anything further,” the company stated.The 2004 ruling consisted of three parts, and the 899m Euro fine dealt specifically with the third of those three parts, namely the part dealing with the licensing structure Microsoft had set up for its interoperability protocols and patents. The purpose of the fine is to allow competitors to make products that interoperate with Microsoft’s products.
The European Commission said it is committed to push through with the fine. Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European Commission, said: “The Commission is confident that the decision to impose the fine is legally sound.” If the fine indeed goes through, the EC will have fined Microsoft for a total amount of USD 2.6 billion.
I hope the European Commission will increase the fine.
Why? Can you give a good, well thought out reason? One other than, “Because I hate MS@!@222111!!”?
And don’t come back “It’s obvious! They are evil!!”.
It amazes me the number of people that jump on the MS hate bandwagon without actually really knowing the companies history…
Edited 2008-05-09 21:26 UTC
I believe hating microsoft is more than hell of a good reason, as they did way more than enough to be hated.
Also, i think it’s a good way to force them interoperate with everyone else in the future..
Well I really don’t think that hating someone is good enough to place a fine on them.
If so, you better get ready because you will be paying for my kids college.
Unless he hates you back more
On the contrary… because we know of MS history is why we hate them.
Anyway… just to make a long story short and not repeat what is elsewhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft
Take their agreement with Stac, for instance. They had an agreement to add compression to MS-DOS and at the last minute, they canceled the agreement and they put the compression in by themselves. They ended up paying Stac in court.
How about what they did with DR-DOS 5 and Windows 3.0 where the installation spread FUD since MS-DOS wasn’t installed or the fact that they did the same thing with DR-DOS 6 and Windows 3.1? Andrew Schulmann showed, using Periscope, how they were not checking for safety’s sake–they were checking for DR-DOS.
There were many other incidences, so which history are we supposed to remember?
At this point, the only thing that amazes me is that no one has (yet) accused you of being a Microsoft employee/shill/Bill Gates himself/etc.
Personally, my (cynical) attempt at an explanation is that “anything-but-Microsoft” posturing so become so popular that it’s the first choice of those who wish to appear insightful – but can’t be bothered with the effort of gaining actual insight.
The irony – and the sad part – is that when peoplle criticize Microsoft solely using simplistic rhetoric, it accomplishes the exact opposite of the intended effect. Speaking personally, it makes me want to go out and purchase Microsoft stock just to be contrary – in the same way that strident anti-smoking propaganda makes me want to go chain-smoke a pack of Lucky Strikes.
It’s certainly not as if there is any lack of legitimate, specific reasons to criticize Microsoft and their software.
Edited 2008-05-10 20:13 UTC
yeah, I’m actually surprised they haven’t yet, too
Microsoft has history of monopolistic behavior that goes deep in the past. It is in best interest of the computer users, consumers and developers of cross platform applications to keep Microsoft under constant pressure and at disadvantage.
That way there is more chance to have many products to choose from by different vendors and at lower prices.
Figuratively speaking Microsoft’s head should be kept under water all the time, except very brief periods to let them breath some air. This is not about Open Source, FSF and those things it is just pure interest.
I do not think that the fine will be increased. However, the fine was for specific types of violations and only covers up through last fall. The EC has not yet investigated the field where the most damaging of Microsoft’s skeletons are buried.
The current dog an pony show that Microsoft is conducting, in which they proclaim their new devotion to openness and sharing, is intended to head off such an investigation, although it appears the the EC isn’t buying it.
Laws cease to be effective when they become unfair. Slapping an additional fine for appealing?
It’s like giving an inmate double his sentence for appealing his trial. Come on.
You may hate Microsoft for every reason under the sun, but that would set a dangerous precedent.
Who said they’re getting an additional fine for appealing?
Nobody said that, I just said I hope they increase the fine. If I were the judge, Microsoft should already file for bankruptcy.
the fine is pocket change… but also a record amount.. that’s the problem. For a normal company a few million in fines would hurt the balance sheets and do damage, for Microsoft they “mattress” so much money it’s impossible to pick a reasonable fine that will damage them… and DAMAGE is the point of fines. Just like locking your or I in Jail, it’s intended to be unfair and hurt. For these fines to hurt Microsoft the EU would have to make it $100Billion to really soak up all the profit they’ve made just during the time they’ve challenged this in courts. As a matter of legal precedence the fines have to be based on legal statutes, so they can’t just adjust the fines until they hurt.
Because if corporate rules you can’t arrest members of a corporation for fines owed, and you wouldn’t get the policy makers anyway. Perhaps banning their products from sale in EU space is the only option. When you go to jail you are not allowed to conduct business affairs (such as write rent checks, review contracts, etc) perhaps disallowing Microsoft from doing business would count as “jail”. Cut them off from ALL business, no paying rent, no paying taxes, no paying employee wages, you can’t “take” the money in bank accounts but you can order it frozen and not to earn interest (the banks would love that!) hurting their employees and contract holders would force them to file more suits to recover their damage, when ever Microsoft is allowed to do business, as well as do damage to their reputation, again, that’s what normal people go to jail for and it’s considered just fine.
No, it’s not.
The point of fines in the area of European market laws is to remind cooperations that they are being watched and can’t just do what they want.
Lets take the Volkswagen case for example: they wanted to improve their sales in Italy and thereforea had special deals at their Italian dealers. Naturally people close by, mostly Austrians and Germans, started buying in Italy instead in their own countries.
Volkswagen then thought it would go unnoticed that they instructed their Italian dealers to not sell to foreigners.
Unfortunately for them it didn’t and they were fined about 100 million EUR.
Volkswagen was smart enough to take this hint (like a slap on the wrist) seriously.
Some other companies are not and they might get to a point when the EU has to consider other options, e.g. barring the market violator from participating in call for tenders of governmental projects. There is most likely no industry which wants to lose this part of the market.
We’ll see if Microsoft will understand early enough that the European Commission’s patience is based on the assumption that cooperations usually just need a hint rather than issuing regulatory measurements.
it’s more like a late fee. If you don’t pay a speeding or parking ticket they keep tacking on a few bucks per month regardless of any appeals, this is no different. Other than MS already said they’d “comply” and got key members on their side, now they’re appealing the fine. This is the problem with Corporations, there’s nobody to lock in Jail. If you don’t pay a parking ticket, eventually, they catch you on a Friday nite and you spend the weekend in jail. There needs to be an equivalant for companies that don’t comply.. shut them down, lock the buildings, something to get their attention. This is the typical corporate case where MS has run the clock down on the original grievance for so long that the EU is now the bad guy and the damage to other companies that warranted the fine, and the years of non-compliance that multiplied it, is forgotten.
Is it just me, or did the line “The great and powerful Oz has spoken!” pop into anyone elses’ brain?
If I was in charge of the EU I would stick Microsoft on a fine escalator for recalcitrance and slap a 50% monopoly tax on every copy of Windows sold here. I would like to see the money spent teaching European children how to program computers rather than slavishly learning how to repaginate Word documents – its no wonder they prefer games consoles.
Unless EU also wants to set a price control on the cost of Microsoft software, the EU consumers would suffer greatly in the short term because the tax would be passed on to them. If the EU were to impose a price control, it could start a large trade war.
It’s a reminder that despite appearances, nothing has been finally settled.
Microsoft have done well out of their strategy of stringing out legal proceedings and then seeing the fine or court costs as the price of continuing to gain market share through practices that will only be ruled out of order years later. The wheels of justice grind slowly and, for Microsoft, amazingly lucratively. Just consider the value added to the company since all this started quite a few years ago now. It is many billions more than any putative EU fine, and would be even if you doubled or quadrupled the fine.
.. to prevent the obvious comments like some of the above on news like this.
For example, that you must be called Neelie Kroes to actually post here.
But that might be impractical.
Till then, I would like to advise all people named Pavlov or otherwise to just get laid.
UC it’s much more fun than Microsoft bashing, it’s also much more useful and it actually improves some of your social skills too, potentially at least.
Another alternative pastime might be canoing, pottery, campaigning for hopeless female presidential candidates or baking apple pies.
It’s really that easy not to think of your hatred of Microsoft!
Guys, we are software users, all of us. How can we not hate Microsoft for making us pay more than we should. How can we not love open source for driving the prices down? Do you really think that Microsoft lowered the price for the Windows license for eeePC because Microsoft cares for us? Microsoft lowered the price to crush Linux. And after Linux dies, they’ll up the prices again. How can we, as customers not hate Microsoft for what they did with eeePC in Australia? How about the Mandriva OLPC for Nigeria? How about Netscape? How about OOXML? The fine they got is nothing. What’s one billion when they made hundreds of billions by enforcing their monopoly?
How can we not love open source for driving the prices down?
I personally love open source because it’s free as in libre, not because of it’s price. Sure, price is a big deal too but it shouldn’t be the most important thing aspect of open source software.
And what good does fining Microsoft do? The executives do make insane amounts of money monthly anyway, and I’d imagine Microsoft will just raise the cost of some service or software to get the money lost on the fine back..And please do bear in mind that not all employees there are “evil”. There are those who do work there just to be able to support themselves or their family.
While I do very much dislike the things Microsoft has done I still think that the tactics of just coming up with some excuse to fine them then finding another excuse and do that again and again isn’t any better. Even if others play unfair one should maintain their integrity and play fair..
That’s just it, they don’t have to come up with excuses when Microsoft keeps on playing unfair after being told not to.
Why is something unfair when Microsoft does it, but perfectly fair when IBM, Apple, Oracle, Sun, Novell, or anyone else does it?
I think this ‘unfair’ thing and the litany of abuses, like Netscape, OOXML, eeePC, BeOS and others are just catchphrases that the ABM crowd likes to throw about assuming that, ‘everybody knows Microsoft is evil.’ What exactly is evil about competing and winning?
I’m sure some groups within Microsoft did ‘evil’ things. But Microsoft is a huge company and suffers more from disorganization than evilness. The company was more aggressive when it was smaller and when there were more competitors like OS/2, Apple, Sun, Novell, and others, but those companies were aggressive too, and simply lost because they either were not as well managed or because Microsoft eventually produced better products than them. The answer, as Google, Apple, and Mozilla have demonstrated is to make better products than Microsoft’s.
“The answer, as Google, Apple, and Mozilla have demonstrated is to make better products than Microsoft’s.”
There are better operating systems than Windows. But how can they compete when 95% of the computers come bundled with Windows?
The slaves go to Best Buy and don’t have a clue. They pay without even having a choice. Better than fining Microsoft would be forcing the vendors to not bundle the computers with Windows and present a few alternatives. If the customers still want Windows, OK then, but at least let them know that there are alternatives.
Edited 2008-05-10 18:04 UTC
The actions of a monopoly player in a particular business area have different qualitative effects and far greater quantitative effects than the same actions performed by a non-monopoly player. Also, the most logical business strategy for a monopoly player differes from that of a non-monopoly player. Thus it is logical to hold monopoly players to a stricter standard of behavior in order to preserve competition and benefit “We the People”. I’m surprised that you would ask the question.
Edited 2008-05-10 19:01 UTC
Microsoft is poorly managed but hardly disorganised. How about all the little things that ended up in their Office product like “wetbacks” as a synonym for Mexicans? That’s not evil?
Besides, IBM went to court over anti-trust allegations and was fined and ordered to un-bundle their large systems.
Apple does dubious things all the time, like the situation with Java 1.4.x when Safari was new. They made third party products jump through hoops while the fanatics laughed. When they added functionality to Sherlock to be able to search for movies, flights, etc., it was just like another, third party product. A few people complained but mostly it didn’t matter because both products are history. Apple shouldn’t be dominant any more than Microsoft should be.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as the saying goes. Someone needs to pay their fine now or see it increased.
Wetbacks? Huh? Do you have a link?
No I don’t have a link, though you might find it online. As far as I know, the various periodicals didn’t have web sites at the time I read it. Also, even older (1990?), you might search on the original order of the Webdings characters as 3 of them were said to have meant something even worse.
I am surprised that they still even sell Windows in Europe with these large fines. Windows much cost a lot more in Europe because of this but I am only guessing. I don’t understand why people complain about paying for software. It’s not like an army of engineers and developers are going to live off of air. It’s simple, if you don’t like Microsoft products, don’t buy them. Obviously they are doing something right.
Dano
Neither party has to option. The EU only has the legal power to deny a company to its market if measures to make it behave fail. Neelie Kroes has hinted that she was considering revoking Microsofts access to its markets, but as Microsoft is now apparently behaving, their access to the EU market cannot be revoked.
For Microsoft, leaving the EU is no option either. First, the EU is their largest market and due to the strong euro getting more important for them each day, but second, leaving the EU would mean a lot resources would become available for writing alternative Microsoft compatible software. This software would compete with Microsoft in other markets, i.e. kill their monolopy world wide.
It should also be pointed out that if Microsoft leaves the EU Market (forced or voluntarily), it would still have to fullfill all its support contracts. After all, if you have a contract with Microsofts, it is not your problem that Microsoft does not want to comply to EU law, and you can simply enforce them to do their contractual duties.
Edited 2008-05-10 08:11 UTC
If legally blocked from a market I would argue “frustration of contract” to avoid doing any further work on them.
The real answer is for the EU to mandate none IP encumbered standards be adhered to for all its software. Then anyone can compete. “But no one would innovate” is total crap as the most likely counter because if money can be made providing the software people (legal persons to include corporate) will do the work and if it is open anyone can compete. Which is why Microsoft do the things they do and is clearly therefore the way to make them play a game with real competition.
Microsoft’s strongest point is monopoly. It would be insane for them to drop Europe, even if they had to charge 1/10 of what they charge in USA, because that would mean losing control and actually competing on quality and value.
PS Windows buyers are not paying just for the salaries of programmers and engineers. If they did, Windows *would* cost 1/10 of what it costs now.
Edited 2008-05-10 11:00 UTC
the only thing they have done right, is perfectly predict the enormous level of stupidity in the vast majority of the population, to simply accept whatever Microsoft is putting up their asses.
Did you know that the EU’s GDP is actually slightly larger than that of the US? As a citizen of the US, I was surprised by that fact when I first looked it up. Microsoft has not the option to stop selling in the EU, and they must abide by what the EU’s lawful authorities and courts decide. Resistance would be futile. 🙂
Quite a few of my fellow Europeans are surprised by that fact as well, as was I when I first heard it.
Another good reason for Microsoft to want to continue trading in Europe is that European consumers are willing to pay more for commodities than their US counterparts. MS and any other global manufacturer and retailer can, and do, charge Europeans more for the same products.
Which goes to show that with a little cooperation between people or peoples, remarkable and surprising things are possible. Symbolically speaking, it is interesting to note that within the same 4 month period of 1993/1994 the EU was formed and Linux 1.0.0 was released, thus completing the “GNU OS” being developed by the FSF.
In “The City on the Edge of Forever”, Edith Keeler says “Let me help.” and Kirk replies that “A hundred years or so from now, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words, even over ‘I love you'”.
Edited 2008-05-10 14:13 UTC
What you guys still haven’t figured out is that the US currency is dropping in value and that the Euro is increasing. That’s what is affecting the GDP the most.
http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD&to=EUR&amt=1&t=5…
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=USDEUR
The funny thing is it’s dropping because people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and other richest people are betting against it , by shorting it.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/warren-buffett-says-us-dollar…
So it might not look like it but the fine is actually increasing due to the USD currency falling.
Microsoft is in for a surprise , there stalling tatics are actually accounted in the EC court system , the more they stall the more the US dollar fall and the more the Euro rise. They also ask for court fee and interests.
If they like spending more money on extremely pricy lawyer and finnaly pay more in fine in the end ….
I think pretty much everyone knows that.
You don’t think that they can afford to keep an economist on staff? Microsoft is a global corporation and deals with relative exchange rates on a daily basis. They are hardly inexperienced tourists trying to figure out how many euros are in a dollar.
Edited 2008-05-10 17:13 UTC
Since a few months just the eurozone GDP (rather than the full EU) is also larger than the US GDP.
Why should that be surprising?
Btw. the reason is NOT the weak dollar. That would only be the case if you’d look at the nominal GDP. If you look at the GDP PPP you see (afaik) that the EU is still slightly behind.
Didn’t you know? We in the US live in the most successful country in the world. Blessed by God, even. Just ask any one of us. 😉
Edited 2008-05-10 19:38 UTC