EU Slaps Microsoft Again
Published by: Codrut Nistor, in News
February27th2008
About one year ago, federal juries in San Diego made Microsoft pay $1.52 billion to Alcatel-Lucent for infringing on two MP3 audio patents with its Windows Media Player, this being the largest patent ruling in history. Now, the European Comission broke the European record, slapping Microsoft with another huge antitrust fine...
Back in March 2004, the European Comission ruled that Microsoft must hand server information to its competitors, because they were extending their monopoly in the workgroup server market by not giving away information to allow rivals to offer product integration. The fine Microsoft got today came as a consequence of this fact - according to the Comission, they were still charging unreasonable amounts to grant access to the server information, until October 2007.
According to Neelie Kroes, competition comissioner "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. I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance."
Did I forget to mention something? Oh, the amount... Here you go - 899 million euros, or simply $1.3 billion. Even considering Microsoft's huge revenue, I guess this isn't quite easy to handle, but I am sure they'll survive, as they always do...
Back in March 2004, the European Comission ruled that Microsoft must hand server information to its competitors, because they were extending their monopoly in the workgroup server market by not giving away information to allow rivals to offer product integration. The fine Microsoft got today came as a consequence of this fact - according to the Comission, they were still charging unreasonable amounts to grant access to the server information, until October 2007.
According to Neelie Kroes, competition comissioner "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. I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance."
Did I forget to mention something? Oh, the amount... Here you go - 899 million euros, or simply $1.3 billion. Even considering Microsoft's huge revenue, I guess this isn't quite easy to handle, but I am sure they'll survive, as they always do...
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