Microsoft loses $690M in anti-trust fine

[Zom]

Normally I'm not a fan of the they are rich they will just shrug it off argument however I'm looking at it from this perspective. The lawsuit is essentially about their core business policies. Policies that have led to them being able to consistently make 12-14 billion dollars a year. Now there are only a few ways they could have avoided this firstly not abusing their position as the predominate OS preinstalled on the majority of home computers, hired better lawyers(not likely) , or bribed officials which of course is illegal and I'm not going to assume that they participate in that. So that basically leaves option one which they would not like either because the whole philosophy to their business is to bundle all their products together such that if you can't live without one you are forced to live with the rest. They eliminate competitors in markets like web browsers and media players not because they sell these standalone obviously they don't. They do it because oh if you use Firefox well you can run that on Linux/Mac too there is no reason for you to be tethered to windows if you like Firefox. If you like VLC movie player again oops these can be ran on competitor operating systems too. Essentially IE and WMP are only tools to keep the Windows as an operating system thriving and by extension MS Office aka the major cash cows of the company. Now why did I go through all the lengthy explanation its to close with that in this particular case I don't think their investors will care because ultimately there are 2 scenarios that Microsoft can be in at the current time. Scenario A) where they rule the OS market and make 14 billion a year with 800 million fines ( ignoring the Xbox thing because its another product that has nothing to do with Windows ) or Scenario B) Company that only has say 50-75 percent market share of OS/Office software and only makes 7-10.5 billion a year and has no fines of any kind levied against them. They are ruthless and successful for a reason I can't say I blame them the punishment doesn't fit the crime and there is more money to be made through the route that gets you in trouble with the law.