Microsoft Hands Over Docs To EU

hankwang writes "Reuters reports that Microsoft has handed over technical documents to the EU in order to enable the competition to make interoperable software. So far, the EU has imposed fines of €497 M and €280 M onto Microsoft for abuse of its monopoly. The deadline for this documentation was today. According to Microsoft, the documentation is over 8500 pages."

Error in TFB

[hcdejong]

fines of E497 and E280 is off by 6 orders of magnitude. Should be E497M and E280M.

That EU Press Release

[giafly]

Competition: update on Microsoft's compliance with March 2004 Decision (23 Nov 2006) [europa.eu]

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[Noryungi]

*sigh*

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. The EU has judged Microsoft to be abusing a monopoly position in the global european market. That's a big no-no for the EU Commission, since the whole "European" idea is based on free circulation of goods, people and financial instruments. In other words, the EU is against monopolies and large companies locking customers in their line of products and services. Is that so hard to understand?

To counter-balance this monopoly position, the EU has asked Microsoft to supply its competitors -- including many European companies -- with the necessary documentation. That documentation was required to open Microsoft files (.WMV, for instance) and communicate with machines running Windows system (SMB protocol). Microsoft refused and was fined a lot of money. Microsoft said it was going to comply, then delivered the required documentation. End of story.

As far as I know, havin inter-operability between Microsoft products and competitors is a Good Thing(tm). You can thank the EU for that.

Re:shocking

[foobsr]

no presents for Bill's kids this Xmas

Probably xtra presents, maybe it is cheap for the effect: (from TFA) " At this point, some of the major commercial businesses which needed the documents have exited the market."

CC.

Re:Error in TFB

[DaPoulpe]

Well technically it should be 497M€ and 280M€.
For the Euro sign is a suffix not a prefix like $ or £..

Re:8500 pages

[stupid_is]

No [wikipedia.org]. Apparently they need €862Bn for the next 6 years (about €135Bn per year). They'd need to get this level of fine revenue every day to achieve this (or at least just under €400M per day). :-)

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[xoyoyo]

It depends on whether or not that company is a monopoly or not, and whether it is abusing that monopoly: it's "fair" competition, not just competition. If this were a monopoly in oil, they'd have to hand over some oil wells. As Microsoft is a company whose assets are IP that's what they have to hand over. The EU is new to this trust-busting business: the US has been doing it for 100 years.

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[October_30th]

And why should nation states and courts get involved in making other products work with Microsoft's?

Microsoft's not a monopoly: you're perfectly free to create your own standard (as the OO crowd is trying to do). Surely you'll admit that it's not Microsoft's fault that such standards aren't catching on?

Personally I don't use OO because I can't swap files with people with whom I co-author scientific articles. MS Office and Open Office equations STILL don't work right (and before you LaTeX fanatics step in, neither of us speak that language).

Since I get my MS Office for free, why should I even consider OO?

Recently?

[andersh]

I believe the truth is that the Euro has been more worth than the U.S. Dollar for most of its existence and certainly since July 2002 [ecb.int]. At its introduction in 1999, the euro was traded at US$1.18. It declined and rose again. Over the last 365 days it has been worth an average 1.25 Dollars - never falling below 1.1697 since Dec 2005.

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[Cylix]

The rules are different when you are a monopoly.

Everyone seems to forget that they were found to be a Monopoly in both EU and US.

On the European side, they were found to be illegally abusing their monopolistic powers.

On the US side, basically a few people sued them and nothing really big came from it. (Of course this is the summary and you can go read all the archives regarding this long ordeal.)

So yes, when some raging abuse of a corporation has grown out of control... the government steps in and evens things out a little bit.

Well, there is the unenlightened summary of why monopolies can be beaten with a stick and it's alright.

(It's turkey day, I'll leave it to someone else to go into a discussion about the benefits of interoperability and monopolistic standards.)

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there's just one fatal flaw to your argument. Microsoft has been found to be a monopoly. It has also been found that Microsoft has abused its monopoly position.

Re:Error in TFB

[darien]

I'd be interested to know why you say that. The EU's own English style guide [europa.eu] uses it as a prefix (check out e.g. page 90)...

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[xoyoyo]

http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/antitrust/cas es/index/by_nr_76.html#i38_381 [europa.eu]

How to get them

[Scarblac]

For those of you asking how to get the documents: they're not available free of charge. Microsoft has handed over documents for checking, and has explained how it wants to license them.

The EU is going to decide three things: whether the documents satisfy their requirements, whether the price is reasonable (based on Microsoft's original contribution instead of their monopoly position), and whether the proposed license is reasonable.

If they decide this will do, then Microsoft has to make the documentation available for people wanting to buy it under those license terms for that price; if they decide against, then Microsoft still hasn't complied and will get more fines.

It never was about documentation available without strings attached, that would be too unreasonable.

See the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]: The Commission's decision, it recalled, required Microsoft to "disclose and license complete and accurate interface documentation [...] and Microsoft could face further fines if the Commission finds that the price was based on Microsoft's exercise of monopoly power, rather than on the originality of its product.

Re:Error in TFB

[DaPoulpe]

Because that's how it's used throughout France and the other European countries I've been to.
Never ever saw a price written with € as a prefix.
The United Kingdom doesn't use Euro and English speakers are more familiar with the prefix usage ($ and £), that would be my guess why this English document is written that way..

Re:Error in TFB

[Ed Avis]

The Republic of Ireland is more or less the only country that uses both English and the euro. It is normal for the euro sign to be written as a prefix, see for example the Irish site for Komplett [komplett.ie].

In languages other than English there are different conventions. But you wouldn't argue that an amount of one and a half euros should be written 1,50 instead of 1.50 just because lots of Euroland countries use a comma instead of a decimal point.

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[arevos]

Free markets aren't a magical solution to all economic problems. Ayn Rand thought they were, but such thinking is naive at best, and ignorant at worst. There are a number of logical thought experiments, such as the Prisoner's Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons effect that demonstrate the inefficiencies and problems inherent in free markets.

Re:Bullshit

[KokorHekkus]

Huh? The complaint that led to this came from... Sun Microsystems. Not from some EU goon or even an european company. And can you show any bias in how the EU has given preferential treatment to european companies compared to US ones when it comes to anti-competition judgements? All lists I have seen are firmly dominated by EU companies. If you can show me any factual background I might change my mind... if not then I can only look at your statement as an Bill O'Reilly type rant.

At the time I wrote this you had been modded insightful... why any reasonable modder would do that I don't know.

Re:Nobody To Cheer For

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Microsoft's not a monopoly: you're perfectly free to create your own standard (as the OO crowd is trying to do).

This has been discussed before. Microsoft is a monopoly, under the legal definitions of several jurisdictions. And it makes sense. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

Primary characteristics of a monopoly

• Single sellers - Check. Only Microsoft gets to set prices for MS Office.
• No close substitutes - "Personally I don't use OO because I can't swap files with people with whom I co-author scientific articles." This is probably the weakest characteristic, but it still applies under a wide variety of circumstances.
• Price maker - This is the big one. Microsoft can charge pretty much whatever it wants for Office/Windows, and people will still buy, because they have to.
• Blocked entry - Competitors can't enter the market because they can't interoperate with Microsoft's offering. This is what the EU is trying to address.