The European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg backed the European Commission’s decision in 2004 to fine Microsoft a record 497 million euros ($689 million) and force it to disclose proprietary data and strip music and video software from a version of its Windows operating system. It upheld part of the company’s appeal on whether it must pay for monitoring its compliance.
“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,” the tribunal said in its 248-page judgment today.
This was not unexpected albeit the Court has had had a tortuous journey in arriving at its decision. I wonder how long it will take Microsoft to enter yet another appeal? About as long as it takes to unscrew (not uncork) a bottle of Stormhoek I should think.
What difference will it make to Microsoft’s business? That depends on how you look at it. Mary Jo Foley doesn’t think the impact is likely to be that great:
Despite Microsoft flying lots of its legal and marketing teams to Europe to prep for potential PR damage, I think Monday’s ruling won’t have much, if any, new impact. And I also disagree with Microsoft competitors like Salesforce.com’s CEO Mark Benioff who claim little, if anything, has changed and that Microsoft would like to halt innovation, if it could.
I agree. The Microsoft execs I’ve met in the business division are not posturing they’re out to rule the world in the way they might have been 5 years ago. If anything, they seem positively angelic when compared with Marc Benioff, the bombastic and at times outrageous CEO of Salesforce.com. Apart from a change in style, Microsoft has found out the hard way that in the end, the market dictates what happens. It still holds a significant monopoly in regard to the desktop market but its grasp on Internet technologies has slipped. It knows that regardless of how it proceeds or the investments it makes, it cannot turn back the clock. In the short term, that means that choice will flourish. In the long term? The market will decide.
There is however at least one slight impact – the fine. Even so, Microsoft can well afford it in taxes saved through its Irish operations and will have already reserved for it as a contingency.
