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
Member since:2006-01-02
Charging more and more? When did the price of Office change? If anything it's gone in the opposite direction of inflation. If you want XP Home, that's a $99 upgrade and it does a whole lot more than Win9X.
MSFT hasn't changed prices on things in ages. And they won their markets partly by undercutting their competitors on cost. Sure, office costs a lot at ~$300 for the full packages. But they were competing against office packages that weighed in at $600.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-04-09
You need to ask? They will integrate every new tech on Windows and win by force.
Integrate and set as default Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Windows Media Player, force you to use Windows Media Video, Windows Media Audio, ActiveX, Messenger and other proprietary bug ridden security holes. This killed Netscape, WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, etc. You usually buy more and get less.
Windows is the most expensive consumer OS in the market, MS Office is the most expensive suite in the market, etc.
This is harming the consumers, they are suffocating the rivals even by selling stuff cheaper than the building cost per unit.
And as you know, most computer users don't even know how to set Firefox as a default browser. Microsoft also makes it impossible to remove most bundled apps and refuses to comply to standards, even html standards.
Look at what they tried to do with Sun's Java.
What do you think this fine was for?
Sorry my english.
Member since:2006-02-04
Consumers are being harmed because:
1 When a company becomes powerful enough to intentionally corrupt the accepted standards of a global resource and the only way to then fully access that global resource is to use that companys product, the consumer is harmed.
Examples: HTML, JAVA, Active X, etc . . I do not use MS products and am damn tired of the mess of incompatibility that IE and Microsoft has created on the Web.
2. When a company becomes powerful enough to dominate global communication / documentation protocols and refuses to document those protocols then the consumer is forced to purchase that companies products to communicate with the masses, the consumer is harmed.
Example: Office. I do not use MS products and was declined for an interview because I was unable to submit my resume in .doc format.
3. When a company becomes powerful enough to "influence" third party vendors to make it really difficult to NOT buy first companys products when there is no intention of ever using those products, the consumer is harmed.
Example. Windows preloads. I do not use MS products and I am tired of the fact that I have probably purchased 25 licenses for software that I don't use, will never use and cannot be reasonably reimbursed for those unwilling purchases.
Do I need to go on?
Bill
Member since:
2006-04-09
Microsoft isn't evil but it is too powerful, and consumers are being harmed by it. They're limiting the available software, and charging us more and more for it. So I support the way EU is dealing with them. It is the right thing to do.