EU fines Microsoft half a billion euros

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fuuucckkers
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EU fines Microsoft half a billion euros

Post by fuuucckkers »

http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/25/1 ... 52482.html
Partial quote, read the rest at the link above.
Brussels
March 25, 2004


European regulators have gone dramatically further than their US counterparts by imposing a record fine of ?497 million ($A817 million) and product changes on US software giant Microsoft for stifling competitors.


The European Union's competition commissioner, Mario Monti, yesterday announced at the end of a five-year investigation that he was fining the world's biggest software company for abusing its dominant market position.


The Italian commissioner also ordered Bill Gates's titan to offer a European version of its all-conquering Windows operating system without Windows Media Player within 90 days.


And Microsoft was ordered to disclose "complete and accurate" data to enable rival companies to offer low-end servers that can work with Windows within 120 days.


The financial penalty is the highest levied by the EU executive against a company.


The Seattle-based company, denying that it abuses its overwhelming dominance to illegally crush competitors, has already vowed to appeal the verdict at the European Court of Justice.


Monti said the sanctions laid down a clear marker for the future conduct of Microsoft, which escaped fines in a US anti-trust investigation.
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Post by Anthony »

This quite frankly is getting out of hand.

I fear this is no longer about the consumer, but instead a political act (and a nice way to make money :cough:).

All this shows me is no is doing it right the first time... Or even better.... Everyone is just corrupt - Even more-so then Microsoft (Until the EU starts donating millions and millions of dollars, provides free computer, free software, and million dollar grants I'm not impressed).

For every time Microsoft screws one person they help about 10...

God forbid they make money, and have the richest man as their chairman...
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Post by fuuucckkers »

PhaseDMA wrote:This quite frankly is getting out of hand.

I fear this is no longer about the consumer, but instead a political act (and a nice way to make money :cough:).

All this shows me is no is doing it right the first time... Or even better.... Everyone is just corrupt - Even more-so then Microsoft (Until the EU starts donating millions and millions of dollars, provides free computer, free software, and million dollar grants I'm not impressed).

For every time Microsoft screws one person they help about 10...

God forbid they make money, and have the richest man as their chairman...
It's not so much about the money...

It's more the fact that every piece of software included into the OS, and you can't remove it.
Take IE, for example. If you don't want it, too bad.. it's been embedded as part of the OS since Windows 95.
If you don't want WMP, too bad.. because even if you uninstall it.. other things won't work correctly, because other programs rely on it's shared DLLs and such.

It's just the way Microsoft has built its OS over the years, which is why others are attacking them so.

It's not giving others a fair chance for including their software into the OS, because Microsoft has already included their own software into it first.
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