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Posts with tag antitrust

Filed under: News, Windows, Microsoft

Microsoft to EU: You win, we'll change

Microsoft Europe
After nine years, Microsoft has given up its fight against European Union regulators. Essentially, the EU says Microsoft is a monopoly, and as such should take certain measures to give consumers more options and open up its source code a tiny bit to enable interoperability with third party software.

Microsoft has decided not to appeal the latest EU court ruling, which means the company will fork over $705 million which had been sitting in an escrow account since since the fine was levied in 2004.

Other highlights of the agreement include:
  • Microsoft will allow third party companies to license non-patented technology to ensure interoperability with Windows
  • Companies will only have to pay a one-time €10,000 fee for that intellectual property, not an ongoing royalty
In return, the EU is removing its hit from Microsoft's head. In other words, no more fines against the company until the next time it tries to do something incredibly anti-competitive, like (hypothetically) engineering an operating system that plays well with Microsoft Office but not so well with competing software suites like OpenOffice.org.

Filed under: News, Microsoft

EU issues Microsoft $690 million fine in antitrust case

EuropeThere's good news and bad news for Microsoft today. The bad news is that the European Court of First Instance has upheld a 2004 court decision finding Microsoft guilty of violating antitrust laws. The god news is that if anyone can afford a $690 million fine and 80% of court costs, it's Bill Gates. But somehow we doubt he'll see it that way.

The Court upheld portions of the 2004 ruling that ordered Microsoft to share information with other software developers in order to make sure their programs were compatible with Microsoft's operating systems and applications. Microsoft also needs to have a version of Windows that does not come with Windows Media Player pre-loaded.

The Court did throw out one portion of the earlier ruling. A lower court had ruling had established an independent trustee to monitor Microsoft, but the Court of First Instance found this step unnecessary.

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith released a statement saying that he is still reviewing the decision. He does say the company will "comply with our obligations under European law," and implies that Microsoft may still appeal today's decision.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

View more Time Wasters

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