Microsoft loses $613M EU appeal
p2pnet news | Product News:- Microsoft has lost its appeal to have its 2004 $613 million anti-trust fine overturned.
“The EU court’s dismissal of the appeal will force Microsoft to comply with the 2004 order by EU competition regulators that it share communications code with rivals and sell copies of Windows without Media Player, a move the EU argues will give consumers more choice,” says Associated Press.
Microsoft and friends tried to claim, “the ruling would stifle new technology innovation,” says the story.
Microsoft insists it’s is already addressing two main points – selling operating systems without a media player and licensing computer server software to rivals, says and other AP item.
Now, to appeal or not to appeal, is the decision Buill and the Boyz are pondering, it says.
Also See:
Associated Press – Microsoft loses appeal at EU court to overturn landmark antitrust fine, September 17, 2007
AP- Microsoft considers appealing EU antitrust ruling, September 17, 2007
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September 17th, 2007 at 10:37 am
Stupid EU.
Then they should make Apple remove Quicktime and iTunes from Mac OS and do the same to all Linux distro’s.
Whats just as important as a level playing field is equalality.
What they do to one OS Creator they should force on the others.
September 17th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
As a inhabitant of EU I also agree it’s stupid to make M$ sell windows without the player wmp:
- it costs the same price to buy windows with or without wmp
- windows update put wmp in the needed updates
What I would like is to be able, as you can do on GNU/Linux, to easily uninstall (not hide) the media player, internet explorer, the defragmenter, etc.
September 17th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
It is possible, I’m running XP without M$ chat program. Although it wasn’t easy…
September 18th, 2007 at 1:08 am
The case was not about whether microsoft should ship wmp with xp or not it was to do with the fact that microsoft shipped it to deliberately hinder there main competition.
This left xp able to play a given set formats but for another company to make dvd playback software or .wmv or .wma etc… they needed access to Microsoft API’s which where deliberately not given to them. so as to make wmp have grater market share.
microsoft are doing this again with anti virus vista has a antivirus API making microsofts anti virus as good as whatever the competition can invent(samantec). and it will be free theres has to cost atleast as much as the licence fee for the API.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Who cares? Mac is way better anyway.
The 360 sucked, windows XP sucks, Vista is terrible, and the oragami… was it even out for more then a day?
February 27th, 2008 at 9:17 am
It just seams like the entire world will pick on you if you make a great product. Say what you will about Microsoft’s OS being buggy and insecure, but there is a reason why they are one of the richest companys in the world.