Microsoft woke up today to the news that the European Union is tired of the software giant not adhering to a 2004 anti-trust ruling (which cost them €497 million at the time plus another €280 million in 2006 when they were judged to be thumbing their nose at the original 2004 ruling). So as a result the EU slapped Microsoft with a fine of €899 million ($1.337 billion U.S. at current exchange rates, which is kind of ironic as 1337 in hacker talk is elite). To save you the trouble of doing the math, Microsoft currently has been fined €1.7 Billion thus far by the EU because they won’t play nice with their competition.
Now this sounds like a big deal, but it’s not. Simply put even being fined billions of dollars won’t stop Microsoft from being a bully in the software industry. Why? Let’s do the math. Microsoft’s net income was around $14 billion in 2007. This fine is basically just a rounding error from Microsoft’s perspective. They’ll pay it and continue to be bullies. This won’t even get Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mad enough to throw a single chair across his office.
So how do you make Microsoft behave? Maybe we should all switch to LINUX or Mac and perhaps then they’ll get the message.
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This entry was posted on February 27, 2008 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags EU, Fined, Microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Microsoft Gets Slapped By The EU – Or Not
Microsoft woke up today to the news that the European Union is tired of the software giant not adhering to a 2004 anti-trust ruling (which cost them €497 million at the time plus another €280 million in 2006 when they were judged to be thumbing their nose at the original 2004 ruling). So as a result the EU slapped Microsoft with a fine of €899 million ($1.337 billion U.S. at current exchange rates, which is kind of ironic as 1337 in hacker talk is elite). To save you the trouble of doing the math, Microsoft currently has been fined €1.7 Billion thus far by the EU because they won’t play nice with their competition.
Now this sounds like a big deal, but it’s not. Simply put even being fined billions of dollars won’t stop Microsoft from being a bully in the software industry. Why? Let’s do the math. Microsoft’s net income was around $14 billion in 2007. This fine is basically just a rounding error from Microsoft’s perspective. They’ll pay it and continue to be bullies. This won’t even get Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mad enough to throw a single chair across his office.
So how do you make Microsoft behave? Maybe we should all switch to LINUX or Mac and perhaps then they’ll get the message.
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This entry was posted on February 27, 2008 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags EU, Fined, Microsoft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.