http://blog.veni.com/?p=312
As the New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/technology/17cnd-soft.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin>announced
just 20 minutes ago, the EU court finally said
it: Microsoft is a company that misuses its monopoly:
The European Court of First Instance, in a
starkly worded summary read to a courtroom of
about 150 journalists and lawyers here, ordered
Microsoft to obey a March 2004 commission order
and upheld the ─497.2 million, or $689.4 million, fine against the company.
The court▓s presiding judge, Bo Vesterdorf,
reading a summary of the decision on his final
day in office, said, ⌠The court finds the
commission did not err in assessing the gravity
and duration of the infringement and did not err
in setting the amount of the fine. Since the
abuse of a dominant position is confirmed by the
court, the amount of the fine remains unchanged.■
The court said Microsoft had violated European
antitrust law by exploiting its near dominance in
operating systems to shut out competitors like
RealNetworks in digital media players and Sun
Microsystems in workgroup exchange servers, the NYT reports.
<http://www.news.com/EU+court+crushes+Microsofts+antitrust+appeal/2100-1014_3-6208274.html?tag=nefd.top>CNet
reports it as ⌠a landmark 2004 European
Commission antitrust decision against Microsoft
on Monday in a crucial victory for the European
competition regulator over the U.S. software giant.■
This is a remarkable decision, which - hopefully
- will be followed by all EU members, including
Bulgaria. Few years ago Bulgarian Competition
Protection Commission decided that Microsoft does
not violate the laws in Bulgaria. But then, that
was before Bulgaria joined the EU, and under the
heavy lobbying from Microsoft▓s office in the
country - office which became notorious for its
dirty business deals with the previous Bulgarian
government, where it rented 30,000 copies of
Windows for what is today more than $ 48 Million,
paid in rental fees by the government.
best,
veni
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