The European Commission fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros ($357.3 million) on Wednesday to punish its failure to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust ruling.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Donate this money to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
It probably resembles the amount of money that the EU governments have spent with Microsoft over the years.... good on them.
I think though that they should give the money to something like the EFF, or some body that will help architect open source software development of systems that governments use. At least that way they can reduce their dependency on single corporate entities and whatever work they manage to do all governments (including first and third world) can benefit from.
Member since:2005-11-30
Member since:2005-07-06
"the EU has an agreed budget of €862 billion for the period 2007-2013" - that's €123 billion per year.
As for Microsoft, for the financial year 2005 - that's July 2004 to June 2005 (2006 full year results aren't out yet) - they made $40 billion in revenue and $12 billion in profit.
€280 million is pretty much a drop in the ocean to both parties, if looked at in context.
(edit - typo)
Edited 2006-07-12 17:16
Member since:
2006-07-04
That is a large amount, me starts to wonder what the EU will do with this money?!