Micro$oft punished for 500 Million €/$ by EU

[bond]

The European Commission (maybe the highest institution of the European Union) punished m$ to pay a 500 million € (over the thumb thats the same value in $ ) for abusing its monopoly power
thats the highest value ever used by the commission

mainly thats the case because of m$ windows media player instelled by default on all windows systems (used to push its wm9 crap formats, in a more and more important market)

read more (german)

now we have it from the official side what type of company m$ is. i hope this will soil their reputation and help open source alternatives

they deserve it!!!


and my personal opinion
dont use the windows media formats!!!

[GIR]

That's It!! I've had it, I've had enough of all this microsoft bashing, hmm, umm, nah, please continue the verbal onslaught for our viewing pleasure

[Wilbert]

The European Commission (maybe the highest institution of the European Union)

Sorry for being off topic But, the highest institution of the EU is the European Court of Justice.

[virus]

Originally posted by bond
now we have it from the official side what type of company m$ is. i hope this will soil their reputation and help open source alternatives

unfortunately, not one of these 500.000.000 euro will effectively go to support open source and/or freeware projects... that would have been great.

[bond]

Originally posted by virus
unfortunately, not one of these 500.000.000 euro will effectively go to support open source and/or freeware projects... that would have been great.

not directly of course, but many firms/governments will hopefully realise now that m$ _is_ abusing their powers (which effectively means that people have to pay higher prices for software products than they would have to pay if m$ wasnt dominating the market) and will therefore use other products (like some governments already use linux)

Originally posted by GIR
That's It!! I've had it, I've had enough of all this microsoft bashing, hmm, umm, nah, please continue the verbal onslaught for our viewing pleasure

well the point is the european commission doesnt enforce a half a billion penalty because they love bashing m$, or have an "anit-micro$oft" attidude
they do this for good reasons (or said the other way round, the reasons why m$ can be bashed are worth 500.000.000 € )

Originally posted by Wilbert
Sorry for being off topic But, the highest institution of the EU is the European Court of Justice.

well thats why i said the commission is maybe/one of the highest institutions of the EU
you cant say that there is ONE highest institution in any state, but if you make a list, its maybe the commission, the court, the council and the parliament

[echooff]

well the point is the european commission doesnt enforce a half a billion penalty because they love bashing m$, or have an "anit-micro$oft" attidude

Its a money grab, pure and simple. The proof will be when you discover none of the affected customers will be compensated.

[bond]

Originally posted by echooff
Its a money grab, pure and simple. The proof will be when you discover none of the affected customers will be compensated.

you are mixing different things up
the decision of the commission has nothing directly to do with affected customers

the commission is not a court where mistreated customers can sue on getting money back (of course they can still do this at the European Court of Justice or in their home countries, maybe with success)
the commission decides whether or not a company violates the european antitrust law and if thats the case it has to take steps to change this, not less not more

[communist]

Good
M$ already plans to appeal that decision - I hope they fail miserably

[Sirber]

What'S the big deal by bundeling WMP with windows? They do worse things!, like bundeling windows with every PC

[bond]

Originally posted by Sirber
What'S the big deal by bundeling WMP with windows?

in the official statement of the european commission on the 500 million € fine to punish micro$oft it says:

Commission concludes on Microsoft investigation, imposes conduct remedies and a fine
...
the investigation concluded that the ubiquity which was immediately afforded to WMP as a result of it being tied with the Windows PC OS artificially reduces the incentives of music, film and other media companies, as well software developers and content providers to develop their offerings to competing media players.

As a result, Microsoft's tying of its media player product has the effect of foreclosing the market to competitors, and hence ultimately reducing consumer choice, since competing products are set at a disadvantage which is not related to their price or quality.

Available data already show a clear trend in favour of WMP and Windows Media technology. Absent intervention from the Commission, the tying of WMP with Windows is likely to make the market "tip" definitively in Microsoft's favour. This would allow Microsoft to control related markets in the digital media sector, such as encoding technology, software for broadcasting of music over the Internet and digital rights management etc.

More generally, the Commission is concerned that Microsoft's tying of WMP is an example of a more general business model which, given Microsoft's virtual monopoly in PC operating systems, deters innovation and reduces consumer choice in any technologies which Microsoft could conceivably take interest in and tie with Windows in the future.

man, they are speaking from my heart, all the arguments the community brought up for years, finally confirmed by maybe one of the most important governmental organisations worldwide

"an example of a more general business model"
"foreclosing the market to competitors"
"controlling markets"
"reducing consumer choice"

my conclusion: dont use the windows media formats! use, point to and support the alternatives!

[echooff]

No Bond I am not mixing things up. If the true end result was forcing a seperation of the media player, there would have been a different penalty. Microsoft can write this off as a cost of doing business until they get the proper bribe into the proper pocket or political party coffer.

[mf]

What I find a definite outrage with the WMP bundling, is that in Windows XP SP1, though you do actually have a choosing applet thingie for app association (1st or 3rd party), when you deselect WMP, IT WILL STILL BE ASSOCIATED TO FILETYPES until you deselect all the filetypes FROM WITHIN WMP ITSELF! For some weird reason WMP goes around standard filetype association that other apps can control. What's even worse is I have to accept some license agreement that I don't even want to accept (though in my country clickthrough license agreements aren't lawfully valid), to access the app, so I can disable the file accosiations.

[albertgasset]

Originally posted by bond
The European Commission (maybe the highest institution of the European Union) punished m$ to pay a 500 million €

Also, Microsoft have to release a Windows version without WMP for computer vendors in 90 days. And make Windows more "transparent", giving more information about the OS to competitors, so they can compete with Microsoft products, in a period of 120 days.

[easybeat]

Sorry I just don't agree with this Microsoft bashing.
So what if they are a monopoly it's their competitors and the various governments involved faults for letting them get like that in the first place.
Would you expect Coca-Cola to include a can of Pepsi in every 6 pack they sell, or course not. Microsoft should be able to include whatever software they like and it's up to us the consumer not to buy it if we don't approve.
As for the $500million fin, well the EU have just decided to milk the Cash Cow rather than tackle some real issues.

[kilg0r3]

Read the second part of my signature ...

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by easybeat
Sorry I just don't agree with this Microsoft bashing.
So what if they are a monopoly it's their competitors and the various governments involved faults for letting them get like that in the first place.
Would you expect Coca-Cola to include a can of Pepsi in every 6 pack they sell, or course not. Microsoft should be able to include whatever software they like and it's up to us the consumer not to buy it if we don't approve.
As for the $500million fin, well the EU have just decided to milk the Cash Cow rather than tackle some real issues.

None of your statements make any sense. Coca-cola isn't a monopoly. They often aren't even the leading cola distributor. If Coca-cola had 95% of all sodas sold in the world, THEN your comparison would be valid.

It is not the competitor's fault MS is a monopoly - MS drove them under using illegal tactics. They have been found guilty of illegal business tactics several times.

It can be argued it is the government's fault for not making the punishment fit the crime when MS keeps losing in court. The current DOJ settlement is a good example. Breaking MS up would have been a good start to fixing the problem - the settlement wasn't even a slap on the wrist. MS is worse today than when they lost to the DOJ a couple years ago.

The EC is trying to do better than the US did - they gave a pretty big fine (not big to MS, but I don't think you'd get higher), and forcing MS to change how they distribute Windows and WMP. It's not much, but it's better than the stupid DOJ was willing to do to a convicted criminal enterprise.

They need to go back to the original punishment - breaking up MS based on its divisions. It worked for AT&T/Bell, so it should work for MS. Also throw the top brass at MS in prison for a few years. How many other executives can plot to destroy the lifes of competitors, carry out those plots, lie in court, bribe the US government, and get away with it scot-free?

[bond]

Originally posted by easybeat
Sorry I just don't agree with this Microsoft bashing.

again this goes beyond "simple m$ bashing of some unimportant users in some unimportant internet forum" there was a decision of a governmental organisation based on real laws after 4 years of examinations and negotiations

Would you expect Coca-Cola to include a can of Pepsi in every 6 pack they sell, or course not. Microsoft should be able to include whatever software they like and it's up to us the consumer not to buy it if we don't approve.

you dont get the decision:
the decision is not about helping mistreated users, its about helping mistreated competitors (which indirectly affects us users again, as when there are monopolies we have less product choice, higher prices, less innovations...)
also m$ isnt forced to include any competitors products into their software, the decision is about forbidding m$ to exclude/discriminate competitors products right from the start

Read the second part of my signature ...
-> Did you know that M$ has 53 Billion (Mrd.) Dollar of cash reserve?
...
As for the $500million fin, well the EU have just decided to milk the Cash Cow rather than tackle some real issues.

again you guys missed big parts of the decision:
m$ doesnt only have to pay the fine, it also has to offer windows without the media player and open important parts of their OS, used protocols/apis, so that their competitors get the possibility to produce products which can directly interoperate with windows, which wasnt the case till now


guys, take some law and economics courses at your university and you will better understand what this decision really means and what a big step this is

[Joe Fenton]

m$ doesnt only have to pay the fine, it also has to offer without the media player and open important parts of their OS, used protocols/apis, so that their competitors get the possibility to produce products which can directly interoperate with windows, which wasnt the case till now

They'll probably do like they did recently here in the US - offer a license for the SPECIFICATION sheet for protocols/APIs for $50,000 each.

"You need three different spec sheets? That'll be $150,000."

MS is arguing to the DOJ that virtually no one is buying their $50,000 API specifications proving that no one needs them, so they should be allowed to make them secret again.

[bond]

Originally posted by Joe Fenton
They'll probably do like they did recently here in the US - offer a license for the SPECIFICATION sheet for protocols/APIs for $50,000 each.

"You need three different spec sheets? That'll be $150,000."

MS is arguing to the DOJ that virtually no one is buying their $50,000 API specifications proving that no one needs them, so they should be allowed to make them secret again.

if you read the decision of the commission you will see that there will be a Monitoring Trustee, under the authority of the Commission, to ensure that Microsoft does not charge too high a price for the information.

[Joe Fenton]

Let's pray they do a better job than the DOJ.