Posted on 05/11/2005 5:23:04 PM PDT by Panerai
Microsoft is under growing pressure to comply quickly with the European Commission's year-old antitrust ruling, an EU representative said on Wednesday.
The commission's competition representative said that if the matter is not resolved within a matter of weeks, it may fine Microsoft a significant sum of money.
"Our patience is in terms of weeks rather than months," said the representative. "They've had over a year now. Microsoft knows that if they don't comply to our satisfaction, we can fine them up to five percent of their (daily global) turnover every day."
He said that Microsoft was aware of the specific date by which it must comply with the ruling, but the EC has decided not to publicize the date as a "negotiation tactic."
The initial antitrust ruling, delivered on March 24, 2004, demanded that Microsoft disclose information to rival server-software makers that would allow them to design products compatible with Windows. The commission also required Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without Windows Media Player, so that other media-software makers could more fairly compete in the market.
The EC rejected Microsoft's proposed solution to the server interoperability in March this year, citing four concerns. One of its main objections was the high level of royalties that Microsoft had proposed, the representative said. "The level of royalties should reflect the degree of innovation in the product, rather than (Microsoft's) monopoly power," the representative said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
Who do these pigs think they are..
I hope Gates tells them to go pound sand.
Uh, wait a minute that means MSFT could not conduct business in Europe.
Take a big guess who'll cave on this one.
Sounds like they want MSFT to give away their technology. Or maybe they just want to turn a successful American company into a new revenue source. Or both. This is a test case for them. If the EU gets away with this, it will only be the beginning.
Maybe the European's are finally about to do something right. If Microsoft was not the monopoly it is does anyone believe their crappy, bug ridden, insecure software would survive in the marketplace?
Let's get real. Microsoft needs to be broken up at worst and fined heavily every time a new hole is found in their software. We make GM, Ford, etc recall their products at great cost and repair the failure. Microsoft just says oops and releases another patch that then is patched again in a few months.
Cry not for poor abused Microsoft.
We will rue the EU. 5% of global revenues, my foot. MYOB!
Gates should literally tell these twerps to GET BENT and then announce that after this certain day, no support calls will be taken from Europe. NONE.
That part has already been cleared up. It's a pretty stupid requirement in today's environment as all OSs now come with a player.
This is mainly about how Microsoft makes only its servers and clients play well with each other -- meaining all other server OSs are at a handicap when trying to integrate into a Windows environment. Microsoft in the past refused to publish these protocols that they used to leverage their monopoly desktop OS into significant gains in the server market. A monopoly itself isn't illegal, but abusing that monopoly power to gain an unfair advantage over the competition is.
Microsoft can't do anything. Apple, and probably Linux, will likely become dominant on the desktop if they pull from the European market. After that foothold, both will grow around the world. If there's anything Microsoft can't allow, it's loss of the monopoly, so they must give in. It's a much greater evil than the slight marketshare loss they'll see if everybody can interoperate easily with Windows.
As a Mac user I'll tell you I hope that Gates leaves Europe. What the heck are they going to do without Windows?
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