Strategyking92 said: Well, they tolerate these huge ass chinese companies, but they won't tolerate a huge ass american company. I think some1 is getting payed off.

What huge ass chinese companies? I can't name one at the moment. Some huge USAn, european and japanese companies pop into my mind, but no single chinese in EU. @MrBubbles: So, when they have certain business practises in US, and government takes actions, M$ deserves it, but when they have the same practises in EU and when EU takes actions, M$ doesn't deserve it?

Coca-Cola said: @faxanadu this is bad news for Sony and Nintendo and other big companies because EU is happy to fine them for anything they find to be inappropriate and they will fine them for a lot of money. I don't think it's all about hating america but rather hating big companies, or rather taking advantage of big companies. I don't think EU will pick on the Chinese companies yet.

If they work by the law, it's not. Nintendo just got fined a while ago for few hundred Euros for their price cartell in the 90:s. The fine usually is based on what the financial benefits are. Now the M$ case was different, since the fine was set in advance, until M$ corrects the things. There's a lot of companies that get fined. Just a while ago european crane manufacturers got fined pretty big for their price cartell. Even the company (not a crane maker) i work in almost got fined, but evaded it by snitching who the others were and what worth. So yeah, it may be bad news for companies, but good news for consumers.

microsoft: there we go, i hope the euros will be happy that we are complying with their BS

EM (european mafia): hmmm... you know...thanks for complying with what we said....but we dont feel its good enough. so we are going to take your money ANYWAYS because we are GREEDY and need to pay for all our third world countries

MrBubbles said: microsoft: there we go, i hope the euros will be happy that we are complying with their BS EM (european mafia): hmmm... you know...thanks for complying with what we said....but we dont feel its good enough. so we are going to take your money ANYWAYS because we are GREEDY and need to pay for all our third world countries

Well, you still have to pay the speeding ticket, even if you would drive by speedlimits afterwards.

you know if M$ actually paid it's fines the governments of the world would have money to spend. lol

Coca-Cola said: @faxanadu this is bad news for Sony and Nintendo and other big companies because EU is happy to fine them for anything they find to be inappropriate and they will fine them for a lot of money. I don't think it's all about hating america but rather hating big companies, or rather taking advantage of big companies. I don't think EU will pick on the Chinese companies yet.

Yes, it's indeed bad news for Sony and Nintendo. For example, it discourages them from participating in price fixing cartels:

Sony - http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1195559224.82/

Nintendo - http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-13408.html

If you think this is taking advantage of companies, you're a shill. This is just caring for the consumer. If companies play by the rules, no one will fine them.

 

I found a funny cartoon or comic strip on the EU fining Microsoft the 1.3 billion. Anyway it is from a British magazine called the Economist.

http://www.economist.com/daily/kallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10767969

Ok, and this is where im leaving VGCHARTZ, thanks it was actually a fun time while it lasted...but quite frankly, getting anti european sentiment from a Mod,

a mod which i will be precise to call an inbred idiot, yes Mrstickball himself. Be happy in your backwater retarded, no culture country which was basically created by europeans, and shut the fuck up, youre too pathetic for people to listen to you.

God Neoseeker was about a million times better, at least mods wouldnt act like retarded kids.

Cheers all! Was fun

mrstickball said: Europeans still love communism, eh? Hurt the big guys that are smart and make money.

MS ain't 'smart' - they managed to gain a virtual monopoly (and not buy being smart, but by being lucky with a little cheating on the side) and they abuse it in every way they can and use that position, plus the money it brings, to simlpy use brute force against competitors.

At least in Europe we follow through on anti-trust against large corporations - rather than giving up as US action on MS seemed to.  And MS had years to sort this out and tried to duck it... so they fully deserve the fine.  If you want to operate globally you have to step up to the difficulties of dealing with other markets.  MS keeps trying to treat every market as if it is US and it will keep getting smacked for doing so until it wises up and makes series efforts to operate within each territory according to its laws.

Also, I suggest if you want to remain a mod you're very careful with this kind of post - I for one will be complaining rather rapidly to 'the management' if I see such an ill informed, biased and frankly unwarranted comment from a supposed 'moderator' again in the near future.

If I were Microsoft's management, I'd try to pay this fine as soon as possible. It seems like the dollar is going downhill fast. What's $1.3 billion today may well turn into $1.5 billion or more in a few months.