BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Union's longest-running fight with Microsoft Corp. neared an end Wednesday as regulators imposed a record $1.3 billion fine on the world's largest software company for failing to fully comply with a 2004 antitrust order.Sun Microsystems complained about Microsoft and the European Union issues a EU antitrust order. And just where were the American courts in all this?
Microsoft has not decided whether to appeal the penalty, which amounts to a fraction of the $14.07 billion it earned in fiscal 2007. In all, the company has been fined just under $2.4 billion by European antitrust regulators over the years.
Barring an appeal, the fine shuts the door on an investigation into Microsoft's behavior that was triggered by a 1998 complaint by Sun Microsystems Inc. It alleged Microsoft was refusing to supply information that servers need to work with its market-dominating Windows operating system.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said Microsoft now appears to have finally complied with the 2004 EU antitrust order. But she warned that the company was not yet in the clear because the EU last month launched new probes into its Office software and Windows' Internet browser.
EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes? Tell her to go after the big oil cartels if she's looking for corporations stifling competition.
Maybe now bill Gates will back away from his goal of globalizing the world, seeing's how he must now realize he will be just another victim of these unelected one-world dictators. For Pete's sake, they're not even American citizens.
If I was Bill Gates, I would tell EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes to go to hell.
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