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They dont come up with the figure from thin air you know, just the same way a judge comes up with a figure for you to pay something. From what I've seen it's based on a percentage of what you earn or gross.

Microsoft earn alot of money so the fine will be big to you and me, if a smaller company did the same thing it wouldn't be the same figure because they profit less.

Edited 2008-02-27 19:12 UTC

Yeah its almost like RIAA wants you to pay a million and a half per album you pirated.

do you actually know what the EU does?

Yes, the fine is big, BUT microsoft would not have those kind of sums in the bank had it not denied the competition

The reason no-one wanted the non media player version was it was the same price as the version WITH (in the uk at least)

It has nothing to do with creating a lucrative market for basic apps. It's about allowing software to compete on the platform. If you delete RealPlayer, it's gone. If you delete Windows Media Player, it respawns itself before your eyes, and when you run it, you get an advertisement of your choice from among a handful of Windows Media download services offering files that require Windows Media Player on Windows to keep playing. The de facto installed position of that software allows Microsoft to create dependence before customers are aware of lock-in or alternatives. The EU sees that tactic as abusive. I tend to agree.

That was easy: a lot of guys working on Samba came from Microsoft and left because Microsoft wanted more compatibility with older software, the developers didn't like it and joined (or started?) Samba. So specs where not needed.

Just like fines from the judge, pay them and you do it again, it's not like the EU can imprison all the CEO's and people responsible. If you had a court bindded by the rules of law what would you do?

What law have they made up, Microsoft should think themselves lucky since they got broken up during the Clinton era. It's a good job Clinton didn't have another term because from those video interviews I seen Bill Gates was sweating.

The difference in the WMP case and in this case, is that in the WMP case, Microsoft was force to offer to version of Windows for the same price and with one version beeing inferior to the other one. While in this case Microsoft is asked to release documentation about Windows API and protocols, for a reasonable price.

How much is Media Player worth? IE? Notepad? Paint? Solitaire? Quite frankly, if you say anything but $0, I'm going to be very surprised, because there are tons of free alternatives on the market that have necessarily reduced the value of Media Player to $0.



According to MS, "hundreds of Microsoft employees and contractors have worked for more than 30,000 hours to create over 12,000 pages of detailed technical documents that are available for license today." The EU claims that the documentation wasn't sufficient, but isn't required to provide independent analysis by anyone outside their payroll. Quite frankly, given the amount of money at stake here, I'd question the EU's objectivity on this issue. I say let ISVs tell us whether the docs are sufficient or not, not some hired flack from the EU.

Actually there are external adjudicators from the industry that have been appointed to judge the quality of the documentation.

Ok Mr Tomcat, explain why someone would pay EXACTLY the same amount of cash for two systems, one with all the "goodies" missing ?

Change the prices and then we will see.

Because, as I've pointed out on this thread, a Media Player isn't worth more than $0, when there are numerous free alternatives on the market (ie. WinAmp, etc).

Maybe so, but there is a huge sway of people who think for things to run properly on Windows, they need to say "Windows" in front of the name, and better yet, if it says "Microsoft".

Does many free alternatives to MS Windows (ie. Linux, Open/Free/Net BSD, OpenSolaris, ...) make MS Windows worth nothing ?

The DG Competition can ask 5% of the daily turnover for each day of non-compliance. Microsoft had to be compliant within 90 days after the Court of First Instance decided they did need to comply.

What they did is count the number of non-compliant days multiply with the daily fines, and subtract the non-compliance fine from 2006.

Back in 2006 the DG Competition did not fine the full 5% (if I remember well 3%) and warned the remaining money would be fined if Big M would still be incompliant. Apparantly this is what happened today (plus the full 5% daily fines after the 2006 fine).

It should be noted that Microsoft now is being considered compliant (the new terms allowed Samba to buy the documentation), but apparently they didn't get forgiveness for the non-compliant period since the previous fines in 2006.

Easy.

The calculation is made on the period in which Microsoft broke the law and is a percentage variable between 3.5 and 11.4 depending on the gravity of the illecit income made in consequence of the felony.

Funny fact.

If the morons at Microsoft had just paied in first place instead in dragging the discussion for years (hoping the EU will starve on the way) they would have to pay less due to a shorter period of infringement.

Well written Law are such a bitch

Microsoft did pay the fine in the beginning before making the appeal.

Probably the same formulars used by the USA when someone sues a fastfood chain becuase the hot coffee that they ordered was... wait for it... hot!

Edited 2008-02-28 16:48 UTC

Promote? I think most of the people actually interested in using an alternative operating system could give a damn about a 1.5 bn promotion.

When you force something down someones throat, they tend to demand it be worth it.

When you do things like improve the product, they vote with their feet.

It is not in the interest of anyone in the EU to promote an alternative operating system.
That was not what the whole case was about.

You're not making sense man. The EU cannot do anything else but fine M.$. Would you be happy if they just didn't do anything? It's not like they can come to M.$ and put the company behind bars for breaking the law. Sheesh get a grip on reality.

The figure btw. is like the cost of matchbox for you really. M.$ earns it back so fast it's hilarious. Multiply by 100 and then we can talk about impact.

Edited 2008-02-27 19:21 UTC

You didn't read his post very well did you?

He's not saying they should punish them in a different way.

I did, and he's basically just saying he disagrees with the fine. So I'm just saying that the EU has no other way but to fine M.$. They cannot do anything else short of ignoring a law-breaker.

He's suggesting that the EU is watching for any little excuse to take money from Microsoft. That they aren't really looking out for the people of the EU, but that it looks good to beat up a big American company and get more money for the EU.

Actually they do have other options.

During the hearing at the European Court of 1st instance a so-called "think tank" produced a list of options the EC has available according to the EU treaty.

For example the commission could impose a ban on competing for governmental contracts using Microsoft products.

Since this is a huge market (Administration offices, schools, etc) this would be far worse from Micrsoft's point of view than any fine.

Actually, that figure represents about 2% of Microsoft's yearly income.

Let's see:
0.02 x 365 days is about one week. I wouldn't call that a long time. It's more comparable to a 1000$ fine for an ordinary person which is actually quite adequate if they repeatedly break the law and don't give a damn about it.

Indeed. Supersized corps require supersized fines to even get their attention. As you demonstrate, that number, which sounds huge to those of us who file our yearly 1040EZ forms, is really just a very reasonable and life-sized fine relative to the entity being fined. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a certain amount of leniency has been shown.

The good news is that, despite my fears to the contrary, we actually have started seeing some improvements in their behavior as a result of the legal interventions of the last 10 years. But it is hardly time to let up. There is still so far to go.

True, and if the EU really wanted to hurt MS they would of charged a real billion and not an american billion. That would have put real pressure on MS's wallet

...umm, they charged them with 1.37 billion USD. If they can look at that fine without breaking a sweat, then I doubt the extra 101 million Euros would have mattered much. Balmer probably causes that amount of damage with office furniture every week.

Try looking up what a billion is in the US and then see what it is in most of the rest of the world that can count. We're not just talking about differences in currency value ;-) ok

Edit: Comment removed because not accurate.

Edited 2008-02-27 19:47 UTC

The EU is definitely NOT against US-based companies.

If you look at the list of companies that get fined, you will find that MOST of them are EU-based.

And about the height of the fine: None of the EU-based companies were stupid enough to go to the stage where they get slapped with daily fines, nor was any of the companies as big as Microsoft. Both factors are rising the fine.

The rules are simple: Don't act in a way that makes the market dysfunctional. If you do, you get fined. The fines are steep enough to make bad behaviour be a slow way towards bankrupcy, so misbehavior does not make economical sense.

Microsoft obviously thought they could do with the EU commission what they did in USA, but alas, they were wrong.
Had the fines been less high, Microsoft would just have continued their behaviour, because the loss by compliance would have been more than the loss by fines.

What happens with the fines?
The fines go into the EU budget, paying for subventions, the administrative costs and GALILEO.

The EU bureaucracy is a big myth. The Europian Union is one the most efficient administrations in the EU, compared to national and local administrations. Compared to the work produced, the EU has a reasonably low amount of people employed and burns little money.

Yes, all the translation etc. costs money. Yes, the moves from Strasbourg to Brussel cost money. However, these are part of what the EU stands for. Even with these costs, the EU bureaucracy burns far less money than most member states governments.

Edited 2008-02-27 21:20 UTC

What? Do you know how many people work for the EU? 23,000. Compare that to the 43,000 civil servants working for the city of Paris (inner city only, 2 millions inhabitants).

As for Gallileo (of which the EU is funding only one third), the EU is promoting international competition and the development of high tech companies and research. You can always argue that cooperation would be economicaly more sound, that may be true in the short term but in the long one? We all know where monopoles lead.

fixed

0.9B Euro is a drop in a EU budget. It's also removed from the pool that EU members have to contribute, it doesn't increase spending.

Except that there is no EU welfare state. Most of its member countries are "welfare states" (open market with social security) but not all as this is a matter that its members decide for themselves and of course those aren't paid by eu fonds.

That game can be played both ways and the U.S economy while strong isn't going to be the winner in the end.

Yeah, we have all seen how good the US economy is these days...

Edited 2008-02-27 19:22 UTC

Well, I am not saying anything about the Economic power of the EU vs the US but note this:

Taking goods and services together, the EU and the USA account for the largest bilateral trade relationship in the world. The significant amount of bilateral trade and investment illustrates a high degree of interdependence of the two economies.
This was taken from an EU website. http://www.eurunion.org/profile/facts.htm
clearly a trade dispute is not in either the US or EU's benefits.

Yes, it's not viable for any side to do any kind of economic damage to the other. Who would end up "less poor" in the end is questionable.

You do of course understand that the US market is minuscule in comparison to the EU, the worlds biggest market ?

If the US decided to go for a trade embargo, they would be doing more than shooting themselves in the foot, they would put the US further back into bankruptcy than it is at this minute.

That would be great, except you are comparing a single country to almost an entire continent.

Until the EU becomes a single country, your statement is PHAIL.

Something new to learn everyday.
Until now I thought that the USA were actually a union of states, covering almost an entire continent (North America).

Must be Canada then.

Something new to learn everyday.
Until now I thought that the USA were actually a union of states, covering almost an entire continent (North America).

Must be Canada then. "

The U.S. Civil War was properly known as the War of Secession. The outcome was the loss of States' rights. A state may no longer secede, making it nothing more than a jurisdiction rather than a fully independent state ( state as in Nation ) which had a membership in a the Union of American States ( a.k.a. The United States of America ).

The Civil War had NOTHING to do with slavery. Slaves were originally only "freed" in the states which had seceded so that those states would lose their work-force and home-turf defense. The freeing was technically not legal, merely a proclamation by the U.S. president that slaves defecting from the seceding states would be welcomed to the North as freed men, causing the famous "Underground Railroad." At the end of the Civil War the abolition of slavery was actually issued in order to alleviate the risk of the few Northern slaves acting in revolt.

The seceding states, mind you, had legal rights to succession in many cases ( others had terms to their membership ), especially Texas. In fact, Texas, to this day, remains ultimately legally capable of seceding and is basically considered a Nation State. One evidence of this is flag height. A State must fly its flag below the U.S. flag's height. It is ILLEGAL to fly ANY State's flag at or above the same height of the U.S. flag, except for the Republic of Texas, whose legal entity name in U.S. law is Texas or "State of Texas" or "State of the Texas Republic." ( not certain if the last entity name/title is still considered for new document/law usage )

So, basically, the U.S.'s experiment failed with the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. It became a singular nation of States and Territory's and soon began to expand beyond the borders of the seas, doing so by taking advantage of every possible opportunity to expand. The last two states were added in 1959. Alaska was purchased from Russia. Hawaii's royal family was taken out of power and they originally became a U.S. occupied land, then U.S. ally, then a territory, then a state.

Just check out how many "nations" the U.S. either is occupying, allied with, or calls a territory. These are merely the various stages a land must traverse for the U.S. to "quietly" assimilate them into the matrix.

U.S. history classes all have sections describing "Imperial America," but they always speak of it in the past tense, and few are able to recognize that current events are tomorrow's history. Even though they know it, they don't understand what it really means because they were trained in schools to not form connections, or else they will be called "nuts" or "conspiracy theorists."

<psycho rant>
End result: One crappy nation ruled by special interests with governmental officials having almost no clue as to their job description because they cannot connect the past to the present either.
</psycho rant>

Hmm, well just a little history lesson :-)

--The loon

raver31
Member since:
2005-07-06

You do of course understand that the US market is minuscule in comparison to the EU, the worlds biggest market ?

---------------------------

What kind of rot are you talking about?

2007 GDP for US was 12.57 trillion, the EU 16.6 trillion.

Last I checked, 12.57 vs 16.6 is not minuscule unless you decided to single handedly change the definition of the word.

Sources:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/brazil-becomes-worlds-biggest...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

Yeah, but us trillions are like EU billions

While I'm often critical of my home country, and strongly support the EC in taking the action which we in the US have failed to take, I do believe in sticking to reality when making criticisms of the US. The US GDP is 40% higher than that of the EU-15.

http://tinyurl.com/2maaj8

That said, neither the US nor the EU can afford a trade war. And US citizens like their SUVs too much to consider risking our precarious economic standing over this issue.

EU-15?
I am counting 27
http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm

Hmmm, I think my original link was talking about the 40% higher *per capita* GDP for the US, which is not really what we are talking about. (Though it does have some bearing on the comment that someone made about the US ecomony being in bad shape.)

Perhaps this is a better comparison:

http://tinyurl.com/y2pn7u

Looks like overall the EU-27 is ahead by a nose. (5.5% in 2007.) The original assertion, to which I was responding, claimed that the US economy was "miniscule" compared to the might of the EU's economy.

Whilst I don't think the US would be stupid enough to try that sort of stunt with Europe, I'll add a +1 to your post as it seems someone is modding people down again incorrectly.

Dave

The EU is not the least bit afraid of the USA anymore. The EU is far stronger economically and the US would be hurt far more.

"far stronger" my ass. the eu is more populous but the usa is richer. both economies are of comparable size. and i really don't think that the us-government is unhappy about the decision of the eu.

This is not an EU vs USA issue. This is EU vs Microsoft. You guys love trying to make everything issues either with the entire USA or with Bush...lame.