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EC threat to fine Microsoft £2 billion | |
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| Time: 17:02 EST/22:02 GMT | News Source: E-Mail | Posted By: Todd Richardson | ||
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The European Commission yesterday gave Microsoft a final opportunity to co-operate with its antitrust case, or face a potential fine of up to £2 billion. The Commission presented the software giant with a final statement of objections against its business practice, alleging it is still unfairly dominating the market, where it provides over 90pc of operating systems, despite rebukes from US courts. The statement, the third and final in a case which has now run for four years, picks out two areas where Microsoft is allegedly guilty of breaking monopoly regulations. | ||
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| #1 By 1295 (216.84.210.100) at 8/7/2003 5:24:35 PM |
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"Microsoft has a month to respond to the claims. The EC said potential remedies include opening its servers' code to other firms and bundling alternative media players with new copies of Windows - or not including any player at all.
If Microsoft does not co-operate and is judged to have broken antitrust laws, it faces a fine of up to 10pc of its annual turnover, which in June was $32.2 billion (£20 billion)." Boy wouldn't the EU just love to force MS to open up its code to EU companies? Boy wouldn't the EU want to take 32.2B from MS to fuel its own economy. With the EU I think one major fact is that they don't like all that money leaving the EU and coming over here to the US. It will be interesting to see what MS does if they do try and get MS to do either of these things. I can't see MS just opening up source code or writing a 32B check to the EU. |
| #2 By 16302 (64.201.211.161) at 8/7/2003 7:29:46 PM |
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I would object to them taking WMP out of Windows.
Along the same lines, should they take out TCP/IP, disk defragmenter, backup, memory management, browser, LDAP (Active Directory), DNS, fax, VPN, instant messaging, netmeeting, IPV6, DirectX, .NET framework, ....? Each of these applications infringes on other products offered by other companies and has been incorporated into Windows. Where would this stop? I don't see any logic to forcing them to remove WMP; it is their right to innovate their own product. I also don't want to have to download 50Mb of add-in programs after I install. As a developer, I am glad I can count on certain components being installed on client machines (I jsut wish I could count on particular versions....) Finally, if they are allowed to distribute it via download, then it seems utterly stupid to disallow them to include it on the CD. |
| #3 By 12071 (203.185.215.149) at 8/7/2003 7:59:03 PM |
| #4 Would not be suprised.... it did wonders for them in the US of A. Have to love the legal system. |
| #4 By 135 (208.186.90.91) at 8/7/2003 11:11:09 PM |
| Ok, this argument was lame when we beat it to death 3 years ago. |
| #5 By 61 (24.92.223.112) at 8/8/2003 1:54:28 AM |
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Jolly Roger: Microsoft is NOWHERE near the largest company in the US, let alone the world.
Moving on... Nobody had a problem with WMP6 or even WMP7 because people didn't really use it very much because it was mostly sub-par. Now we have WMP8 and everyone is crying fowl because it is a great media player. This makes no sense at all. Same thing happened with IE, no one gave a damn when IE was bundled with even the original version of Win95 (it came with IE2) simply because it sucked big time compared to other browsers. IE4 gets shipped with Win98 and everyone claims fowl because IE4 blew Netscape out of the water. Also, embedding a media player is just an evolution of the OS. Many products use WMP as a sort of API, they can embed WMP into their own apps, knowing that WMP will always be there. Same thing with IE. These are simply evolutions of the OS. Is Microsoft not allowed to bring new and updated tools to it's OS simply because it is the market leader? How is that fair? |
| #6 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 8/8/2003 2:03:46 AM |
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chalk,
Interesting that you say Microsoft's TCP/IP, DNS, IPv6, etc. implementations are OK, but it's MPEG decoder is not. Last time I checked MPEG was considered a standard. By your logic, Microsoft's player for the standard of MPEG should be something they can include in Windows. Anyway, perhpas you didn't know that Windows has included a Media Player since the 16-bit days. Despite this, Real has made quite a showing against WMP. This tying claim is bogus. I might give on the tying issue with IE, but claiming that with WMP is about as lame as attacking Windows for including notepad and wordpad, two other apps which have been included since the 16-bit days. |
| #7 By 1845 (12.209.152.69) at 8/8/2003 2:07:03 AM |
| CPU, based on market capitalization, Microsoft is the largest company in the world. Doh, they just slipped behind GE again. They've been neck and neck for months now. In terms of revenue, though, they aren't the largest. |
| #8 By 61 (24.92.223.112) at 8/8/2003 2:29:07 AM |
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JWM: Simple, you make a better product or provide a better service and people will use it, being that it's worth the cost.
Most people still go out of their way to download WinAMP DESPITE WMP being included with Windows. Explain that. Splitting them up will do absolutely nothing. They could get the same effect by telling Microsoft "Ok, you can't ship these products within Windows". Though, as it has been said many times, that would break compatability with many things, being as application developers depend on these apps being there. [edit] Which proves the benefit of having the application in the first place[/edit] It's not right to tell Microsoft they aren't allowed to improve their product. How is it unfair to competitors that Microsoft owns the OS as well as the app (such as Office)? Because Microsoft somehow uses some sort of hidden API to make their apps run better? That is just a scapegoat for "Our software is crap." It's not like the Office engineers work on the Windows project, they are completely separate groups. Current anti-trust law is unfair in the computer age. This post was edited by CPUGuy on Friday, August 08, 2003 at 02:31. |
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