“I don’t know what anti-competitive means”
A European Union court has backed a European Commission ruling that Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, illegally abused its market power to crush competitors.
The second-highest EU court dismissed the company’s appeal on all substantive points of the 2004 antitrust ruling and upheld a record 497 million euro ($689.9 million) fine.
The court said Microsoft was unjustified in tying new applications to its Windows operating system in a way that squeezed out rivals and harmed consumer choice. The verdict may be appealed only on points of law and not of fact and may force Microsoft to change its business practices.
Since the original decision, the Commission has fined Microsoft a further 280.5 million euros, saying it had failed to comply with the interoperability sanction. The EU regulator is considering a further fine for non-compliance.
Should be interesting to see what happens next – since Microsoft has exhausted any appeals based on content issues.
What if MS does what they did originally, and just winked at piracy? Then they could walk away from the European market entirely, and maybe charge money to depiratize your OS during the updates? They could charge for each update, and create the monthly subscription plan they crave.
38. Then they could walk away from the European market entirely
Get real…
#5
“Can someone please tell me how this statement does not apply to Apple iPods as well. ”
It’s quite simple actually, Apple products are pretty and everyone knows that Europeans will turn a blind eye to artsy looking artifacts.
I still don’t understand why the EU did the antitrust case, after all; the only decent software that ever came out of Europe is SAP and videogames, not counting Ultima Online.
Why is that unrealistic? Behavior like that is how they got their dominant position to begin with.
What if they just walked away, and stopped selling in Europe?
What would happen?
Along with a flourishing of Mac and Linux, do you think people would start using pirated copies of Windows? And what if MS then charged money for the updates based on the CD key?