Microsoft criticizes EU's 'unreasonable' judgement Microsoft has opened its promised appeal against a European Union court fine of $1.4bn (899m euros), calling the charge "unreasonable" and "error prone". The Commission ruled in February Microsoft had used high prices to discourage competition, and that it had failed to comply with earlier sanctions levied by the Commission. …
Wow, and I though MS was taking it to new levels sneaking IP via the back door, but now the dad has found the dirty sneaks in with his daughter and he is heading for his gun :)
Bamm bamm said the EU. "arg no, but I only have a small one!!" - pleads MS.
I wonder if its cheaper for MS to pay the fines than to grease the wheels, as there is a lot of wheels on the EU tractor.
On a more sensible note, yea i have to say i rather like being a European when they do things like this makes me want to kiss a French woman more than normal.
-p
...How keen the commission would be to bring MS to book, if it was originally a european company, than an American one...
I can kind of understand if Uncle Sam doesn't want to hurt one of it's world market leaders' businesses too much, although I'm glad the EU commission stands up against Ballmer & Co. ... at least they do for now...
According to Microsoft, the Commission made a "manifest error" in deciding its prices were unreasonable saying the prices were "intended to facilitate negotiations between Microsoft and the prospective licensees."
What negotiations... microsoft is a take it or leave it type system...
Among other claims, Microsoft said the Commission had ignored evidence from patent experts on the subject of whether Microsoft's trade secrets were innovative.
Guess what... EU doesn't and hopefully will NEVER have swpats... so there is no innovation there...
I so hope microsoft looses again... and they should be given a bonus fine for being unreasonable...
Perhaps the EU could investigate the practice of charging £60 over and above the cost of the useless Vista in order to get an OS that sort of works.
Dell are currently offering the actual verbal gymnastics form the web site is:
"Genuine Windows® Vista™ Business with XP Pro installed and Vista Media - English [add £60.00]".
Would this happen in any other industry. This is surely a prima facia case of market abuse by a monopoly supplier. The market place wants old (relatively) reliable XP and the monopoly suppiler insists you must buy a product you dont want then pay an extra suppliment for the product you do want.
What if Merecedes insisted you buy one of thier silly Smart cars before you could have an option to buy a real one?
Well, MS would certainly know about that since every OS they release starts out unreasonably priced and bug-ridden.
To be fair they're not the only ones, but they *are* the living proof that "economies of scale" applies only to production costs when a monopoly or near-monopoly situation exists.
I seem to remember that Microsoft were being fined per day for being in contempt of court, after not releasing the protocol specifications that the court ordered it to.
In which case the size of the fine is purely of Microsoft's making, and were presumably calculated to maximise their profits by holding up the development of competing products for as long as possible.
Thumbs up for the EU, because in this case they are the 100% good guys.
UK would stop being the fkn 51st state of the usa and join the EU fully....
Like USA would ever want Brent Crude priced in Euros while it still flows...
Like UK.gov would ever want direct price comparisons in the same currency to stuff on the EU mainland...
Like Hell would freeze over .... ;o)
And then I woke up....
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