EU Fines Microsoft $1.4 billion
Back in 2004, Microsoft lost an antitrust ruling in the EU. The summary: Microsoft had to offer competition some of the key information at a reasonable price to competitors. Now these competitors aren’t in the operating system business. No, they are in the media player, browser, etc. business. These are actually areas of business that Microsoft doesn’t make direct profits from. Well, Microsoft decided to offer the materials, but at an exorbitantprice. Because of that, the EU charged them a lump sum of 899 million Euros (the sum of daily fines running from June 21, 2006 to October 21, 2007). Hopefully, this will give Microsoft a reason to change their tune.