courtesy: bgr
Microsoft has been found guilty of monopolistic practices in the European Union, by not affording its costumers a choice of browers.
The EU court has slapped the software giant with nearly a three quarter billion fine. Such a move is a bellwether as to a EU response in the future for all other companies who think they can corner a market by disallowing entry to competing companies.
It is also a sign of sanity. If the EU fine holds, most large companies might think twice before giving in to their willingness to block competition. In Microsoft's case, the fine levied is much higher than any income the software giant might have
Microsoft in fact had pledged to allow such choice of browers for its customer, but then apparently reneged on its commitment by only allowing their computers to use the default browser, Internet Explorer, a Microsoft product.
The fine however, could have been much larger. The EU commission investigating the case has given Microsoft credit for what it calls significant cooperation during the investigation.
For their part, Microsoft had claimed that the reason its customer could only used the default browser Internet Explorer, was due to a glitch, and not from intentional reasons.
Source: Bloomberg 3.5.13
No comments:
Post a Comment