BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- The European Union has found Microsoft guilty of abusing the " near-monopoly" of its Windows PC operating system and fined it a record €497 million ($613 million).

Full Story:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/BUSINESS/03/24/microsoft.eu/

I hope this in no way affects the xbox in the future

It' s bullsh*t that everyone attacks MS for being a monopoly. Yes, it has more business than any other company in its field, but that' s because it has the best product and everyone is willing to buy it. You can' t punish someone for having a good product. If other companies made products as good as MS they would be on top. MS is simply the best in the field and people want to make a quick buck by throwing around the " monopoly" claim.

If you want a monopoly attack the US postal service. No one can compete with them by law. Yeah there' s UPS and FedEx but they are only allowed to do packaging. They don' t set the prices on stamps and other US mail items. That on top of it being illegal to put anything in anyone' s mail box unless you are the owner or a US postal worker, makes it a monopoly allowed by law. Yeah, that was a rant

But still, MS is getting attacked for being the best and that' s not right.

wow got som very good points there . good rant good rant

What' s your view on it Mass?

LOL, I swear when I first read the title of the thread at the forum listing page I thought it read " Microsoft fined $61 Dollars"

Lmao! That would be hilarious!

to tell you the truth i never knew about the monopoly rule thing I always thought a company did good then they do good and knock the shit out of competition. I think its dumb that they have to keep the competition fair by sharing stuff.

A company makes a good product that sell extremly good then congrats to them, let them put others to shame .

I may not have understood this whole thing correctly but thats what i got from it.

I' m not sure you' re fundamental understanding of why the fine was issued holds up.

The bone of contention comes from the fact that for years and years, Microsoft have been trying to sue, cripple and economically ravage its competitors.


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4578566/

This timeline details all of the illicit practices MS have been found guilty of. I' m not going to go over the hows and whys of this, just read it and then you might understand why MS have been operating on the fringe of EU law for so long.

And before you jump to the defence of a giant multi-billion dollar company who doesn' t give a rats ass about you, you might want to think about the hundreds of companies Microsoft has put out of business, and the thousands of people they' ve made unemployed as a result.

Go Microsoft!

Agree with Preacher 100%. How anyone can " back" a corporation that honestly couldn' t care less about your existence is beyond me. MS has been releasing " updates" for years that may or may not be technically defined as an actual " update." Programmers everywhere are screaming that Linux is a hundred times more reliable, and MS has been tip-toeing near the EU line of the law for a VERY long time.

The fine is more than deserved.

Microsoft DOES care about me! Billy Goat Gates told me so himself! :D



....right before he had security escort me off the premises.

Windows ME was basically a crappy product, but, it sold, because MS is the only game in town. So, it' s not so much that they have the highest quality product, they have the only product. So, it doesn' t have to be great, just purchasable.

Just think if there was absolutely no competition. MS would be charging more than $300 for their operating system. They could charge whatever they wanted.

If McDonald' s was the only burger joint, you would be paying more for their hamburger. Competition is the only thing that keeps pricing affordable for average joes like us.

Does MS have a monopoly? That is debateable. There are not many options (and those that are available are not supported by other companies enough to make them viable options to most of us. We need to be able to buy products that work with the operating system we own. Most companies program for Windows, and MAC, but, not as much support for others. So, in a way, MS does have a monopoly.

Also, MS is notorious for buying competition, or shutting them down. If there is some technology they want or like, they offer to buy the company that makes that product, and put the MS stamp on it. If the company refuses, MS will make their own, package it with their operating system (usually for no additional charge) and try and bankrupt the other company.

I buy MS products, so, I don' t have room to talk, but, MS is as close to a monopoly on OS as any company can get.

EDIT: Also, the Post office doesn' t normally operate with a profit. (Even though I' m pretty sure they made money in the last few years). But, that is supposed to go back into hiring more employees to improve the service. It' s not really a monopoly, if it is a government service. That would be like saying the military has a monopoly on defending the country. It' s not that they have a monopoly, but, it was created for that very reason. Privately owned postal service would probably make prices go up and reliability go down because private companies are in business to make money, not break even. If there' s no money in it, private business will probably shy away.

How anyone can " back" a corporation that honestly couldn' t care less about your existence is beyond me.

That can be said for any multimillion or billion dollar corporaiton. I support Microsoft because they have made my life easier. They have high quality products and I' m willing to get them because most of the time they are the best on the market iimo.

ya i honestly dont know to many high profiting companies that go into business just for the ppl. face we not all abuncha saints these days, its all bout the green.

True, and that' s how you have to think if you ever want to have that kinda money.

But why defend any company? once you' ve handed over the money for your product, you owe them nothing. In fact, after purchase they' re obliged to owe you for as long as you use their product.

The sad thing is that companies rely on that kind of zealous support. They prey on the insecurities of (younger, more naive) customers who don' t want to open their mind to the idea that there might be a better product on the market that they don' t own. Whether you' re conscious of it or not, that' s the state of play.

Supporting a company with creative produce, like Sega, Coldplay or Coca Cola, is a different matter entirely. But that doesn' t mean you can' t enjoy other produce that are in direct competition with them. If you think that applies to the xbox, well, they don' t make the games, do they? They just host them.


I like Sega for instance, but if you think I' d even dare support the administration, the pencil pushers and the money grabbers that try and dictate what gets released and what doesn' t, you' d be dead, dead wrong. Sega' s dev teams, in my opinion, are amongst the best out there. The only reason I' d want their games to sell well boils down to crappy exec decisions like:

" if shenmue 2 doesn' t do well, no Shenmue 3. Screw everyone who invested in the series thinking they' d get to see the whole story. Gentlemen, a toast: to evil!" .

People and dev teams Like Yu Suzuki, Konami' s Tokyo dev team, Tetsuya Mizaguchi, Smilebit and Yuji Naka get my support because they aren' t influenced by money, rather they just want as many people to share their vision with as possible. Just because I support them doesn' t mean I lose the right to criticise them. If they don' t deliver, they hear about it, be it in a forum or by correspondence. Sonic Adventure, for instance: bag o ****.

As for microsoft having " high quality products" , you' d need a benchmark or precedent to relate that to. Seeing as Microsoft effectively has no competition in the OS market, how on earth can you say that they provide high quality produce when there' s no other OS on the market to compare it with? Sure, they offer a lot of support, but for a product that is for all intents and purposes the proverbial house of cards, I should think so, too.


btw deadmeat, I' d be interested to hear the reasons why MS isn' t a monopoly - your post neglected to mention any compelling evidence to suggest they aren' t. However, I wholeheartedly agree with your military comparison - couldn' t have put it better myself. And hell, what else are you gonna run your PC with? Love? We all use MS products, more often than not because there' s no reasonable alternative. If that doesn' t define a monopoly, I don' t know what does.

Mac has tried to take on Microsoft and so far they have put up a good effort but have not really put a dent in Microsofts sales. Personally I can' t stand Macs. I use them daily at school for computer art classes. They suck. Windows owns it in the face.

Microsoft also makes games, which you really didn' t mention. Yes they make the Xbox but they support it with games. The Xbox isn' t my main reason for supporting MS. I support MS because I love their products overall. I have been open to some of its competitors and I can see why MS is ahead.

I also agree that the people that are completely based on the money can be annoying as you said in the case of Shenmue. I' m a huge Sega fan aswell and I' m enormously pissed that they didn' t support a third installment(btw, Yu Suzuki now has his own developement team, no longer with Sega). You have to look at the fact that the game really didn' t make all that much money after all the resources that went into it. That along with the fact Sega hadn' t turned out a profit for years, they needed to stick with games that cost less and made more. If they didn' t cut games like they did Sega could have gone completely bankrupt meaning no sega at all. That' s what those " pencil pushers" and " money grabbers" are trying to stop. Their focus is on keeping the company alive.

And in your question to Deadmeat, I' ll give my input. You' re right that there is n' t any real alternative. That' s the point, if there is nothing good enough to compete how can it be called a Monopoly? If someone came out with something far better that what MS has to offer and actually put up some competition we wouldn' t have these claims. No one yet has anything to rival MS though and that' s not completely MS' s fault. I will admit they do buy people out and the yadda yadda yadda stuff, but I have yet to see anyone step up with a product just as good as what MS has to offer. Now if someone did, and MS tried to force them out of business and such, I' d consider that a monopoly.

As someone who uses both I don' t think Windows ever could own the Mac. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery they say and with that the MAC should be extremely flattered ;)

Both platforms do certain things better than the other, but when it comes to Audio -Video stuff, Windows is still licking the Mac' s boots. One of the best things about Windows is that it has support up the Whazzooo! You can find stuff of all prices for Windows, the Mac is a lot more limited in that area and tends to have more expensive stuff.

What I dislike about Mac' s is the lack of customization. I like messing around with my PC, but I can' t do that with my Mac.

" That' s the point, if there is nothing good enough to compete how can it be called a Monopoly?"


oh dear.


So what you mean to say is, the finest legal and financial minds in the E.U. and U.S. are wrong? Sorry buddy, but I think I' m going to take their word over yours. See, your lack of knowledge as to why MS is a monopoly doesn' t really make for a convincing argument. The offences, as laid out by the E.U. and U.S. Justice Department are pretty clear:

" The EU ruling finds Microsoft abused its Windows monopoly (the words of msnbc.com, rather ironically), harming consumers and competitors in the markets for digital media and server software."

Rampage, you do know why Microsoft have been fined by the monopoly commission, don' t you? The reason why a viable alternative hasn' t appeared is because Microsoft, from the very start, have walked the finest of lines with regards to economic competition legislation.

If you' re so ready to accept that Microsoft are just like any other company trying to do business, you' re consequently obliged to accept that there are rules of finance which every company, no matter how big or small, must adhere to. Microsoft aren' t and haven' t been for quite some time.


Windows defines modern PC use. Before this, there was DOS. For years, nobody thought about doing what Bill Gates did. So, when someone finally tried to offer an alternative, nobody listened because every application and piece of software known to man had to be Windows compliant - which is a very, very hard task. Basically, Microsoft had such a huge head start on everybody else that it never occurred to the consumer, jesus, the entire planet that there could even be an alternative to windows. Then when retail outlets started selling PC' s with windows, it was all over.

Unfortunately, every new, small company that tried to make a GUI-based OS was crushed by Microsoft, usually by legal or underhand financial strikes. Microsoft had gotten too big, too fast. That is why they are under the constant gaze of the EU monopoly commission - they eradicate competition before it has the chance. They don' t say to themselves

" well, let' s give these guys a chance and see what they can do, we' ll just watch the rest of this blind monkey knife fight" - they put an end to it before that can happen.


With regards to Sega, you can' t honestly defend the financial decisions they make, can you? everything they' ve done since the Genesis/Mega Drive has been a financial disaster, which is precisely why I have every right to criticise their decisions. If the administration were so smart, then maybe they wouldn' t have invested so heavily in a games series (to the tune of $80 million) without even knowing if it would sell. Almost all of the shenmue series' costs have been covered already, so making the game wouldn' t cost anymore than your average Sega title. Regardless of whether it sells well or not, the fact is people bought Shenmue expecting to see the end of the story. Yu Suzuki thought he' d see it. So did Sega.

And if by saying Microsoft make their own games, you actually mean Microsoft buy developers to make the games for them then sure, they make their own games