European Commission fines Microsoft with €561m !!!

2 years ago I was blogging about this - "The EC killed Internet Explorer" and I was happy because the Commission won the case against the IT giant Microsoft for the Internet Explorer browser monopoly on Windows operating systems.

 

Today, for the first time in history, the Commission fined a private company for non-compliance and did it with a huge fine of €561 million for failing to include the browser ballot in Windows 7 SP1. With 15 million people not shown the ballot, the EC is effectively fining Microsoft €37 per user.

 

Microsoft said the failure to show the browser ballot was a "technical error" but the EC was not convinced and motivated their decision by the fact that this failure is considered a serious infringement to competition and European enforcement policy!

 

An important decision of the EC that creates a precedent and maybe a new will give ideas for new ways to increase the European budget that faced massive cuts for the first time since the EU was borne.

 

This fine practically compensates the huge costs the EC pays for Microsoft licenses, so it's like the institutions will use Windows and Office for free for a long time :) way to go !!!! the next fine it will be for Oracle ;))

 

Reflection points:

• Microsoft didn't considered seriously the Commission warnings and legal commitments, but they will from now;
• The Internet Explorer browser is a very important piece of software for Microsoft and they are not willing to sacrifice it ... cheap;
• The Commission likes big fines but gave no explanations on how the cost of €37 per impacted user was calculated?

Read more: Microsoft fined €561m for missing browser ballot |

Note: The European Commission has fined Microsoft, the global leader in PC operating systems, 2.2 billion euros (1.8 billion pounds) over the past decade, making it the world's biggest offender of European Union business rules (source Reuters.com).