Since the U.S. government is bought and paid for by Microsoft, the European Commission has ended the 5 year long case and appeals by fining Microsoft $497 euro ($690,000,000 US dollars)

THis is about friggin time! This company has broken so many laws, pirated everything it could get it's hands on - overcharges and cheats it's customers - it is about time they paid a price.

As I understand it - there are no more appeals - this is final.

WHOO HOO!!!
Way to go European Commission!

wow the dollar really crashed

Much as I abhor M$ :

2006 Financial Report :
MSFT Annual Report 2006
Revenue : $44,282 M (Fine = 1.1%)
Net income : $12,599 M (Fine = 3.9 %
Total assets : $69,597 M (Fine = 0.7 %)

The fine is pocket change.

And who'll be paying it in the end ? The M$ end user.

That would be Western Governments - some of the largest customers of Microsoft.

Apparently, Microsoft does best when purchasing decisions are far removed from application users (as is the case in governments and very large multinational corporations).

And I agree, the fine is a small pittance - a mere 'symbolic' punishment.

Microsoft has already spent that much in court defending itself against the charges. Move it a decimal place and then we'd be talking!

Uh - no it's not. Doling out 4% of your profits as a fine is a helluva big fine, probably one of the largest fines in recorded history....annnnnd it's not over, U.S. courts have started similar suits, and upon seeing the Euros win that much money - there will be renewed efforts here.
Hopefully this will also hit the news tommorrow, and your average joe will become aware that M$ just got handed a HUGE anti-trust suit...this will certainly be a PR hit...annnnnnnd sine the Euro government found M$ guilty - just exactly what do you think companies who have been pirated by with M$ are going to do.
Believe me this will start a whole new litany of suits against them.

If one makes $3 billion in profit from doing something, and pays $500 million in a fine for doing it, that makes good business sense.

For a fine to have any effect at all on behavior, the size of the fine must exceed the profit from engaging in the act. Microsoft's European profits far exceed the value of the fine.

Yes, but if you fine them out of the market, what do they replace it with?

Matt

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In absolute figures it may be a record fine, but it isn't in relative figures, not at all. Fines on the order of 200% of a company's turnover (yes, that's turnover, not profits) have been issued in similar cases, though not by this particular Court. This Court could have gone up to 10% of revenue, which would have meant 4,428 million US$. If you got a speeding ticket where the maximum fine is 100$ and you'd had to pay only 11$ on it, how would you react ?

The verdict isn't about piracy (alas) but about the 'illegal bundling' of Media Player with the OS, thus violating the right of choice of the consumer. I don't see much applicable issues here which could build on this jurisprudence. I haven't used M$'s recent products (lucky me ) such as Vista so I don't know what comes bundled with it. If e.g. the email cient is not seperately (un-)installable then that would be an example of another case of 'illegal bundling'.
As for the end user, I suspect (s)he will continue to buy computers with whatever OS is already on it without actually realizing it.

Hey, I'm sorry to quell the enthusiasm of a fellow Linux afficionado but it's really but a slap on the wrist for Microsoft. Alas.

I understand - I am exciting because despite their $Billions and arrogance - they lost.
More than anything to me - it gives Microsoft the message..."you cheated, we know you cheated, you know you cheated and so does the entire industry...your gonna pay for it, please try it again."

What so many people do not know is that the computing world prior to M$ was THE most dynamic industry, with almost daily giant leaps - things were advancing at an unparalleled rate - industries and software companies were growing incredibly fast.

What the M$ supporters like to say is "prior to Microsoft, the computing world was a mess, nobody's systems worked with each other, there was no conformity"

That is somewhat true, not entirely true just partially true.

However after M$ - the computing world has come to a virtual standstill, innovation is nearly dead. The operating system is little different than it was 12 years ago - more stable clearly, but besides gaming and graphics - pretty much what you can do today - you could do 12 years ago.

1. That is not a proper consideration of the court in any ajudication of a criminal or civil matter.

2. To fine Microsoft out of the market would require a fine in excess of $10 billion and probably much more than that. I suggested no such thing.

3. Fines must match or exceed the value of the profit of the offense or the fine is merely 'symbolic' and may be taken as a mere 'cost of business' by the offender. This is a general principle of justice, not Microsoft-bashing.

4. It is not the government's responsiblity to 'replace' (or protect) Microsoft as a monopoly provider of desktop computer operating systems. The government may only rightly be concerned with the general public interest. And the general public interest is rarely ever served by rewarding illegal behavior.

You might also like this article:
PC World - Is Apple the New Microsoft?

This doesn't mean I'm trying to defend Microsoft or Apple. I think both a big bully businesses. I just found the article to be interesting.

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Those who argue for complete secularism are funny. They see what government does and then argue that we don't need it to start with prayer.

If there is anything more proprietary than M$ - it is Apple....however Apple's innovation beats the sh*t out of Microsoft.
Apple's OS has taken several giant leaps in the last 10 years...it is completely different than before, yet supports nearly 100% of old software.
Put it this way...Apple's crash so few times that there are actually video's on youtube showing it happen.

Just one question: why is this an environmental issue?

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Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

I was just about ask the same thing DGG!

And just incidently Microsoft do have the option to appeal this further, they said they'll read the 200 odd page ruling and then decide what action to take next.