{"id":549443,"date":"2006-07-06T15:13:04","date_gmt":"2006-07-06T15:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/549443-microsoft-fine-inevitable.html"},"modified":"2006-07-06T15:13:04","modified_gmt":"2006-07-06T15:13:04","slug":"microsoft-fine-inevitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/549443-microsoft-fine-inevitable.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft fine inevitable"},"content":{"rendered":"

"I can’t imagine another way," Kroes said when quizzed about the issue during a visit to Berlin. <\/font><\/p>\n

No EU member state was fundamentally opposed to the imposition of a financial penalty, Kroes said, adding that the final decision would be taken by consensus. <\/font><\/p>\n

The EU competition watchdog is scheduled to issue its verdict soon, with competition experts meeting on Monday to decide the size of the daily fine to be slapped on Microsoft. <\/font><\/p>\n

Kroes declined to name a figure, but observers in Brussels estimate it could amount to $2.5 million a day. <\/font><\/p>\n

After a five-year investigation, the commission took its biggest competition decision ever in 2004 in ruling that Microsoft had broken EU law by using a quasi-monopoly in personal computer operating systems to thwart rivals. <\/font><\/p>\n

In March 2004, the European Union’s executive arm fined the software group a record 497 million euros for abusing its dominant market power. <\/font><\/p>\n

In addition to slapping the fine on Microsoft, the EU ordered the company to sell a version of its Windows operating system without its Media Player software and to divulge information about Windows needed by makers of rival products. <\/font><\/p>\n

Although Microsoft has paid the fine, it has fought tooth-and-nail over the information it is supposed to divulge to competitors. <\/font><\/p>\n

Frustrated that Microsoft has not complied with the ruling, Brussels has threatened to slap daily fines on Microsoft, backdated\u00a0 to December 15 – its deadline to respect the ruling. <\/font><\/p>\n

But Microsoft says that it has released reams of key computer code needed by programmers of rival products and claims therefore that further fines go too far. <\/font><\/p>\n

Inet-Bridge<\/font><\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft will almost inevitably have a fine slapped on it by EU regulators for failing to comply with a 2004 antitrust ruling by the European Commission, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549443"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}