BBC.
They might make ~$5bn per quarter, but seeing $1.4bn walk out the door has got to hurt to some degree. Ouch.
Sucks for them that the is at record highs against the $
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Microsoft must pay $1.4bn to EU
- Thread starter edesignuk
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They might make ~$5bn per quarter, but seeing $1.4bn walk out the door has got to hurt to some degree. Ouch.
Sucks for them that the is at record highs against the $
They don't do themselves any favours do they?maybe the MEP's can spunk it for them
Mind you, the Westminster bunch are no better.
Actually this time I am on Microsofts side, their OS is their intellectual property, why should they release one line of code to competition when they spent their own time and money developing it. Mac has Safari and quicktime player built in the OS and no one is complaining about it but thats because Mac OS X is still a small player and doesn't grab the attention like a multibillion company of Microsoft.
Let EU design their own OS and see how much time and money it takes to get it all right and then share it with others for free. If they don't like it they can use Linux. Windows is not the only OS in the world so they are not a monopoly.
All EU does is fine successful companies and then wastes billions of Euro on unnecessary meetings and stupid laws that limit economic growth.
Let EU design their own OS and see how much time and money it takes to get it all right and then share it with others for free. If they don't like it they can use Linux. Windows is not the only OS in the world so they are not a monopoly.
All EU does is fine successful companies and then wastes billions of Euro on unnecessary meetings and stupid laws that limit economic growth.
This is not a definition of any importance to antitrust law. If it was, you might as well throw out all antitrust laws entirely because the standard could almost never be met. In any event, in antitrust law, monopoly isn't the illegal act, it's restraint of trade. This concept is often confused with monopoly, but it isn't the same thing, not by any means.
I suspect the "fine" is largely symbolic. The courts won't ever see a dime.
At least in America, this is often how judgements against corporate entities work.
At least in America, this is often how judgements against corporate entities work.
I think you need to brush up on your definition of 'monopoly'
Monopoly - In Economics, monopoly (also "Pure monopoly") is a persistent situation where there is only one provider of a product or service in a particular market. Monopolies are characterized by a lack of economic competition for the good or service that they provide and a lack of viable substitute goods. [1] Alternatively (a modern and less common usage), it may be used as a verb or adjective to refer to the process (see Monopolism) by which a firm gains persistently greater market share than what is expected under perfect competition. The latter usage of the term is invoked in the theory of monopolistic competition.
Anyway, as I stated, no one is forcing people to buy MS products, MS is a successful company that really grew large with the release of Windows 95. Till that time you had bunch of OSs around, you had OS/2, you had AmigaOS, you had Atari and CP/M, and you had Mac OS, MS wasn't that dominant back then, basically everyone had an equal chance, what made MS Windows 95 so successful was because it was an open architecture, it wasn;t tied up to proprietary parts like most of it's competition back then. Microsoft earned it, spent their time and money, and developed Win 95. I am not saying that MS is innocent and doesn't abuse it's power but to get punished simply for not releasing it's own code is a bit ridiculous to me. Bigger problem is MS buying out small innovative companies.
And as far as Mac OS X being open source, it's not as open as it used to be, Jobs made sure of that. I really don't see a big deal of an OS being open source or not. If you want to develop your own OS and give it away for free then it's your choice. I know if I was in charge of MS I wouldn't give anything away for free. You want to use/access certain part of a code you need to buy a license from me. As I said earlier, people are not limited to MS Windows/Vista, there are other choices, in this case I see a company being punished for being too big and too successful.
That's a simplistic summary that I presume is from wikipedia. Barriers to entry? Price setter? etc. Remember, this is about anti-trust laws regarding monopolistic practices.
Quoted from truth.
The point is, this definition is not relevant. A company can have a monopoly and not violate antitrust laws, and they can violate antitrust laws without a monopoly. The relevant concepts are "market power" and "restraint of trade."
You could look it up.
I am not a big fan of Microsoft by any means, I just think that in this case Microsoft is being punished for having too much market share in OS world. Again, how did MS violate any antitrust laws by not releasing it's OWN code for it's CORE product after spending it's OWN resources to develop it? I know MS is known for buying out small companies but thats not why they are being fined by EU here.
I thought the EU was pushing their luck when I first read about their case against Microsoft a couple years back. I'm not a fan of MS's business practices (nor their products, really), but this did seem a bit over-the-top.
However, lately it's been fairly obvious that Microsoft's *attitude* has been one of passive-aggressive defiance and obstruction in this case. Granted, having a crappy attitude is not technically illegal, but it certainly doesn't help your case any to metaphorically thumb your nose at the judge when you have your day in court.
ie: They were required, by EU mandate, to provide documentation regarding client compatibility with Microsoft servers. Their response was a late, half-assed attempt at providing the protocol documentation. The court found it incomplete and very poorly written, rendering the information so obtuse as to be useless. It is this behavior (as well as other things.. like them "offering" to license said horrible documentation for a steep percentage) that has caused what little sympathy I had for them in this case to evaporate.
However, lately it's been fairly obvious that Microsoft's *attitude* has been one of passive-aggressive defiance and obstruction in this case. Granted, having a crappy attitude is not technically illegal, but it certainly doesn't help your case any to metaphorically thumb your nose at the judge when you have your day in court.
ie: They were required, by EU mandate, to provide documentation regarding client compatibility with Microsoft servers. Their response was a late, half-assed attempt at providing the protocol documentation. The court found it incomplete and very poorly written, rendering the information so obtuse as to be useless. It is this behavior (as well as other things.. like them "offering" to license said horrible documentation for a steep percentage) that has caused what little sympathy I had for them in this case to evaporate.
Fan or not, the principles are the same. Microsoft publishes Windows APIs, but has also been known to hide some of them from competitors, in order to give their internal software developers an advantage. That's a classic abuse of market power and a restraint of trade. They are being punished for this behavior, not for having too much market share. Antitrust law is about what a company does with its market power, not about having it.
The EU doesn't get any more money (to waste or whatever); they have a budget to spend, and that budget is unchanged. What changes is the amount of taxes that EU tax payers have to pay to cover the spending; that amount will be reduced by 800 million Euros.
I don't think they are abusing any market power, again, they developed their own OS with their own time and money so they can do with it whatever they want, it's their intellectual property. If someone doesn't like it, let them design their own OS from scratch to see how many year and how much money it takes to develop the OS. I think that MS was willing to share parts of the code for a set fee which makes perfect sense in my book, I see absolutely zero reason why they should give away anything for free. Again, if MS was abusing their power, Windows wouldn't have the millions of available software titles available for the platform and other OSes would probably flourish because of it.
The media is not explaining the reasoning behind the order well, so people get the wrong impression. MS is not ordered to release its source code so that competitors can design better operating systems. It is to prevent MS from taking over other computer related markets unfairly. MS uses some of its hidden codes and hooks to leverage its dominant position in operating systems so that it gains unfair advantage in other software (office suites, browsers, media players.) Its competitors faces more difficulty designing software that runs on Windows in a reliable or efficient manner.
you should relieze that apple is next. The iPod iTMS and Fairplay DRM combo is a pretty easy target to go after. It uses it market power to keep others out of both markets. No music store is going to have access to a lot of songs with out DRM on it and they if they do have DRM it hurts not being able to work on the iPod.
iPod has some huge market power to keep from being knocked off by the iTMS tieing people to the iPod.
Apple is next in line.
iPod has some huge market power to keep from being knocked off by the iTMS tieing people to the iPod.
Apple is next in line.