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February 27, 2008
EU fines Microsoft another £680m for antitrust abuse
Latest fine brings tally to more than £1.2 billion
By Paul Meller, IDG News Service
The European Commission fined Microsoft a massive €899m (£680.66m) for continued failure to honour the 2004 antitrust ruling against it, Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes said Wednesday.
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Europe's top competition authority has already fined the company €777.5m (£588.62m) - €497m (£376m) in the original ruling plus a further €280.5m (£212.4m) for non-compliance.
The latest punishment brings the total of fines to just under €1.7 billion (£1.287 billion) "for a clear disregard of its legal obligations," Kroes said in a news conference.
"The Commission's latest fine is a reasonable response to unreasonable actions by Microsoft," Kroes said.
Microsoft finally came into compliance with the 2004 ruling last October. Kroes said the latest fine - the biggest yet - is for non-compliance up to 22 October, 2007.
The software giant has over the past four years repeatedly tried to avoid complying with part of the Commission's ruling that ordered the company to detail communications protocols used by its Windows server operating system so that other manufacturers could build systems that interoperate smoothly with Windows.
The latest fine punishes Microsoft for failing to licence those protocols to open source software developers at what the Commission views as a reasonable price.
Microsoft said it is reviewing the Commission's action. "The Commission announced in October 2007 that Microsoft was in full compliance with the 2004 decision, so these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved," it said in a statement. "We are focusing on steps that will improve things for the future."
Anticipating new fines, the company announced last week that it will make its biggest effort yet to help other companies make their products interoperate with its most popular software, including Windows and the Office suite which includes Word, Powerpoint and the Outlook email program.
The Commission reacted with scepticism, pointing out that it had heard similar promises before, and added that the move only addresses one of two new antitrust probes into Microsoft's business practices, which were opened last month.
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