A Record $1.3 Billion Fine from the EU
February 27, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under Computers
The European Union today threw down a $1.3B fine on Microsoft for their unfair pricing towards competitors for their software information.
EU regulators said the company charged “unreasonable prices” until last October to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows desktop operating system.
I’ll give you that Microsoft has strong-armed a variety of businesses and competitors when it comes to promoting their business. But there’s a part of me that says laws that require a company to make their intellectual property easy and cheap to obtain aren’t helping anyone.
If software companies don’t like how they have to pay to play with Microsoft then stop writing software for their machines. Start writing Linux or Apple software. Or just write web applications, or mobile applications, or develop your own OS and start writing applications for that.
I’m sure I’m oversimplifying everything, but I’m just a regular guy that thinks there are a bunch of whiners saying someone’s not “playing fair”. Like a kid on the playground. As I would tell my own kids. Ignore the whiney kids and or shut-up if you’re the one whining and go play by yourself.
I also don’t want to sound like I’m against international business and trade, but the seeming power that the EU holds over Microsoft is annoying me as well. If I were Microsoft, I’d pull everything out of Europe for a couple of years and see what happens.
Will this additional fine impact Microsoft’s ongoing offer for Yahoo!?
Source: EU fines Microsoft record $1.3B
I wonder how much is due to European company influence and politics. Europeans tend to have protectionist policies and this smacks of it. Microsoft does leverage it’s position to the max but that is because they have earned that market leading position over decades. I’m with you; they are a bunch of manipulative whiners.
I can’t understand how IT guys can share this point of view. Closed standards don’t do any good to the IT world. Can you imaging having proprietary IP like protocols (which was the case in the early days of the Internet), proprietary E-mail protocols, no interoperability due to closed standards.
EU might have some agenda behind this fine, but it also is about increasing interoperability, openness, broadening our choice.
Microsoft and most big companies don’t do much good to the market unless they have to watch their back to check what’s their competition is up to.
It is about healthy competition which is only good to us – end customers.