“Microsoft suffered a decisive antitrust defeat in Europe on Monday, sending its shares down 2 percent in pre-market trade,; David Lawsky and Michele Sinner report for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: Lawsky and Sinner report on Microsoft. How apropos.
Lawsky and Sinner continue, “A European Union court backed a European Commission ruling that Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, illegally abused its market power to crush competitors. Europe’s top competition regulator said the ruling could lead to a ‘significant drop’ in Microsoft’s 95 percent market share.”
Lawsky and Sinner report, “‘Its clearly a major defeat for Microsoft. There is no doubt it will spur the Commission on to regulate Microsoft much more significantly,’ said Chris Bright, a British competition lawyer. ‘They will find that future innovation by Microsoft will be hampered quite significantly.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Hamper what? Microsoft innovation is an oxymoron.
Lawsky and Sinner continue, “The court upheld a record 497 million euro ($689.9 million) fine imposed on the company as part of the original decision… More importantly, it endorsed Commission sanctions against Microsoft’s tying together of software and refusal to give rival makers of office servers information to enable their products to work smoothly with Windows.”
“Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith was downbeat in speaking to reporters at the courtroom, promising the company would obey the ruling in full. He said there was no decision yet on whether to appeal to the European Court of Justice,” Lawsky and Sinner report.
“Since the original decision, the Commission has fined Microsoft a further 280.5 million euros, saying it had failed to comply with the interoperability sanction. The EU regulator is considering a further fine for non-compliance,” Lawsky and Sinner report.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “The Dude” and “RadDoc” for the heads up.]
Proud to be European
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This is one instance where I just love the current Dollar/Euro exchange rate. Muahaha!
Make MS bleed…!
I hate MS as much as anyone, but if anyone thinks that this will actually change anything, you are pitifully naive. Government intervention into business never solves a damn thing.
This is just “Euro power” speaking here, they need to find some way to get back the billions they foolishly gambled on Microsoft when they are perfectly able to develop their own operating system.
You see they could have effectively replaced M$ in their marketplace with their own OS, but didn’t because they still want the US as friends, as we them.
So they come up with these “abuses” to get the money back as there is a major imbalance.
Think about it, there isn’t really a alternative company backed alternative to US operating system companies, it’s Apple or Microsoft. Both US companies.
So they are spooked. Their computers too. Microsoft just got exposed doing a stealth update to Windows. So it’s obvious there is a backdoor. Apple also has one too with EFI based Mac’s.
But then again the Europeans are our good friends and we them. They just want to be friends and not OS slaves to Uncle Sam’s spies in the machine.
If Microsoft software was as good as Apples, with company ethics of Google, perhaps there wouldn’t be any trouble.
“must share code”
Code!? Code!? We don’t need no stinkin’ code!
Especially not a stinking pile of crap code from MS.
However, this is good for customers in that we will now have more software that runs well with, and can compensate with, that stinkin’ pile of crap software from MS.
Ok… sanity and reality check folks!
Microsoft will just file all of it previous “business” practices as protected IP and then there is no way the courts will jump on them. Sorry, IP rights work like that. Go read the rules at wipo.org if you are really interested.
Also:
FFII PRESS RELEASE — [ Europe / Economy / Innovation ]
Microsoft will trump EU competition ruling with patents
Brussels, 17 September 2007 — The Foundation for a Free Information
Infrastructure (FFII) says that Microsoft was expecting the 17
September verdict of the EU’s anti-trust case, and will exploit software patents
to keep its monopoly grip on the global IT market.
FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, “The decision seems positive
but it is five years out of date. During that time, Microsoft has
lobbied for software patents in Europe and bought patents on many
trivial concepts. It has claimed patent violations against Linux, put
patent timebombs into its formats and interfaces, and turned fear of
patents into a core part of its business strategy. It will now open its
formats, because that lets it extend its software patent franchise even
further.”
Microsoft recently published its MCPP (Microsoft Communications Protocol
Program) patent licence which requires competitors to pay royalties for
each copy of software distributed. For example, a free software project
making a print server would have to pay USD$8 to Microsoft for each copy
downloaded.
“The largest monopolist in history has faced down the largest economy
in history,” says Benjamin Henrion of the FFII’s Brussels Office.
“Microsoft will appeal, and the fines if ever paid are just a month or
two of profits. Meanwhile Microsoft now has the time to crush its only
real competition, the free and open source economy. We regret that the
EU Commission and ECJ are blind to the real threat of software patents,
while Microsoft cleverly exploits Europe’s own patent system against EU
businesses. This is a defeat for Europe’s anti-trust, a defeat for the
global economy, and I’m sure they’re popping the champagne in Redmond.”
About the FFII
The FFII is a not-for-profit association active in over thirty
countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the
public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards.
More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have
entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions
concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data
processing.
need I say more?
Microsoft can afford to drag this out until someone gets appointed or elected that is more favorable to them. That strategy worked well for them in the U.S.
Besides any fines less than 1 Billion dollars is nothing to Microsoft.
Yes, it’s business and playing hardball is part of the game. I’m getting a little put off at Apple playing hardball: iTunes > artists must provide exclusives or they won’t get listed in ‘featured’ sections of the iTunes store. The reputed ‘divide and conquer’ strategy in Europe with mobile carriers. Win-win is good with partners. If Apple is the only winner there’s going to be a lot of business people with long memories of how they got screwed over. Hey, i LOVE Apple but it’s starting to feel a little Microsoft (without the illegal stuff).
The EU did what the US couldn’t. It’s becoming a habit
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The fine is just part of the cost of doing business for Microsoft. How many “settlements” has it reached with the likes of Stac, Caldera, Sun, Apple, et. al. for hundreds of millions of dollars – more than a billion in a few cases – yet Microsoft keeps on its chosen path.
The more damaging solution would to encourage the move to alternative platforms like Mac, Linux, Solaris, etc. That’s difficult, of course, because the enforcement arm is independent of the procurement arm. I always found it ironic that while the US Justice Department was pursuing Microsoft in court, it was mandating that all new desktop computers run Windows and Office.
Not good.There’s no chance that some EU bureaucrat will improve the average user’s computer experience. I want to beat M$ as much as anyone, but I want Apple (and others) to do it fair and square–by consumer choice–not because some government agent is holding back M$.
I’m not so sure that any government can really do anything to significantly set MS back – and ultimately it isn’t any governments fault, and it’s not Apple’s fault, it’s our fault for buying into this stuff in the first place. Even with all of this reality checking happening it’s amazing that people, and at the corporate level that means IT managers, still insist on building and reinforcing their infrastructures with MS products. If anyone really wants to do something about MS then just stop buying and implementing it – just stop – now – not next year – now.
Now the europeans have to do Clinton’s work, yet again.
Maybe if Hilary wasn’t sitting on Walmart’s board of directors before Bill ran for President, we wouldn’t to deal with that nuisance either.
Just my $0.02
It’s our EU way of saying we just hate most American stupido’s…just take your shit and go away, you mostly have no style, no history and lately it seems you have almost no money left hahahaha
Microsoft & innovation
victory in Iraq
f__cking for virginity
freedom is slavery
Microsoft is a corporate thug and predator. Their primary skills are fighting, stealing/reverse engineering and cheating/lying.
They will, I am certain, appeal this, simply because that is the way to continue the fight. They will also given token, limited attempts at ‘compliance’, pay fines, but basically, not change because the kinds of changes needed are not possibly until they have a wholesale change at the top. I’m also not sure these changes, on their own, will have much of an effect – Microsoft does not appear to be trainable, and doesn’t seem to understand civilized, normal behaviour.
Now, however, is not the time for organization change – I’m very happy with the leadership of Ballmer – losing altitude while gaining speed is just the ticket for a corporation such as Microsoft.
The only sad thing is why it took so long, and what an utter failure US regulations have been. That, and the fact that the industry and society has been held back needlessly by the Microsoft monopoly and the resulting lack of innovation – why haven’t the laws worked/been enforced/fixed? And the pendulum seems to be going in the other direction – de-regulation. And as long as it is legal in the US for corporations to bribe politicians (campaign ‘finance’), sadly, I don’t see much change coming.
But at least, on the surface, Microsoft got yet another slap, which can’t hurt and is richly deserved.
@tz
don’t forget bombing for peace
Good News:
MS made to pay.
Bad News:
Unfortunately M$ have all their money in a Northern Rock Building Society account.
Excellent news!
Another nail in the coffin of Redmond.
Dont expect any flowers from me you bastards.
/spit
R.I.P. Microsoft.
“Microsoft is a corporate thug and predator. Their primary skills are…
…finding millions of mindless moron-lemmings that buy their product…. easily!
Chairs be flyin’ in Redmond!!
You people who support this are complete idiots. It’s not going to make any difference just like the last EU ruling didn’t make any difference. It’s just a way for the EU to get easy money. If anybody starts to take down Microsoft it will be from innovation and not some stupid legal garbage which Apple is already doing. Let’s be honest here, Microsoft became popular because there software was the best at one time. Internet Explorer was better then Netscape and Media Player was better then Real and all their spyware garbage. This isn’t true anymore mainly because of Apple and you are seeing the tides starting to change. Apple is not afraid of Microsoft and they don’t need any help from some silly lawyers.
Let’s hope the fine was in Euros and the cost to Redmond will be more ( given the slump in the dollar ) now than if it had paid up smartly.
Ultimately, the only thing that will make a difference is the consumer: a single consumer is irrelevant to Microsoft, but millions of them switching platforms is the only thing that will hurt them (a single bee sting is a nuisance; ten thousand stings will kill a person).
For the record, the quote is:
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
That Orwell was a smart guy.