Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 27th Feb 2008 18:33 UTC, submitted by JJ
"Microsoft was fined a record 899 million euros (USD 1.35 billion) by the European Commission on Wednesday for using high prices to discourage software competition in the latest sanction in their long-running battle. The executive arm of the European Union said the U.S. software group defied a 2004 order from Brussels to provide the information on reasonable terms. Microsoft has now been fined a total of 1.68 billion euros by the EU for abusing its 95 percent dominance of PC operating systems through Windows."
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Member since:2006-01-06
The difference in the WMP case and in this case, is that in the WMP case, Microsoft was force to offer to version of Windows for the same price and with one version beeing inferior to the other one.
How much is Media Player worth? IE? Notepad? Paint? Solitaire? Quite frankly, if you say anything but $0, I'm going to be very surprised, because there are tons of free alternatives on the market that have necessarily reduced the value of Media Player to $0.
While in this case Microsoft is asked to release documentation about Windows API and protocols, for a reasonable price.
According to MS, "hundreds of Microsoft employees and contractors have worked for more than 30,000 hours to create over 12,000 pages of detailed technical documents that are available for license today." The EU claims that the documentation wasn't sufficient, but isn't required to provide independent analysis by anyone outside their payroll. Quite frankly, given the amount of money at stake here, I'd question the EU's objectivity on this issue. I say let ISVs tell us whether the docs are sufficient or not, not some hired flack from the EU.
Member since:2006-09-10
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Member since:
2006-02-01
The difference in the WMP case and in this case, is that in the WMP case, Microsoft was force to offer to version of Windows for the same price and with one version beeing inferior to the other one. While in this case Microsoft is asked to release documentation about Windows API and protocols, for a reasonable price.