EU fines Microsoft record $1.35 billion
The European Commission fined Microsoft a record 899 million euros ($1.35 billion) on Wednesday for defying sanctions imposed on the software giant for antitrust violations, far exceeding the original penalty.
The Commission, executive arm of the European Union, has now fined Microsoft 1.68 billion euros for its original violation and for failing to comply with sanctions, more than any other firm. It said no other company had ever ignored sanctions.
"Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.
The company said in a statement that the fines concerned "past issues" and it was now looking to the future.
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Microsoft's New Openness Makes More Sense
When Microsoft announced last week a new openness philosophy, the first thought that came to mind was, “Well, that's a switch!.” Considering they'd been fighting tooth and nail against open source competitors for years – I seem to remember Steve Ballmer paying personal visits to mayors in France and Germany to talk them out of Linux – opening up everything to developers was a surprising move.
This week we learn the European Commission levied an additional $1.3 billion fine for failure to comply with an antitrust ruling, and the timing of everything becomes pretty clear. I live-blogged the conference call last week, and I remember Steve Ballmer breezing by with a couple of sentences, sliding them in at the end of large chunks of rhetoric and then moving on.
Bit More Here
Free [sic] Software
I suppose you know this already, but the 'openness' was more harm than good. it's about turning Free software to Free [sic] Software (using patents).
Microsoft should be slammed, not praised for it.