Microsoft hit with 280m euro fine

[loganosborne]

Microsoft has been fined 280.5m euros ($357m; £194m) by the European Commission for failing to comply with an anti-competition ruling.

Read More http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5171126.stm

[Perfectionist]

Bill Gates could pay that much from the spare change in his pockets

[Jupiter]

This £191m fine is in addition to the £338m fine already imposed by the European Commision. That's getting close to a billion dollars, and Microsoft will feel that - they operate on a cash-rich basis (I don't believe they have ever paid out a dividend so far to shareholders) - nonetheless $1 billion is a lot of money even to one of the richest companies in the world!

Microsoft shares closed down 1%, close of trading 12/07/06.

[Ningishiddza]

Well, what did you expect? Gates never invented DOS, he bought it. It was originally called QDOS. When Epson made computers they used QDOS as the operating system.

Gates browbeat some old unemployed guy into giving up the rights to QDOS for $30,000 and the promise of a lucrative consulting position. Gates reneged on the consulting position.

Because MS never invented DOS, they never understood it and it's inherent flaws were continually present in never-ending upgrades.

Gates never invented Widows either. That was invented by a company called the SoftwareGroup. It was originally marketed as ENABLE with a follow-on version ENABLE II.

ENABLE was first released in 1982 and was way ahead of its time. It consisted of a WP-style word processor, a Lotus-style spreadsheet and a DBase compatibile database, a telecommunications module for communicating with other commuters, plus a command module to tailor a system to your individual or company needs.

You could have 8 windows open at a time (pretty good considering the fanciest of computers had only a dual 5 1/4 floppy system and practically no memory), for example, an address database, plus 2 or 3 WP docs, and spread sheet data to merge into a form letter and send using the telecommunications module.

Like I said, they were about 10-12 years ahead of their time. Gates bought the rights around 1988 or so and took ENABLE II off of the market, plus cut all customer support for it.

Gates never understood Windows then laid it over MSDOS, which is really QDOS, which Gates never understood either and the result is the mess we have today.

Gates was key to blocking the formation of an operating system working group, like all other industries have, for example CTIA. They set the operating standards so that all cell phones work and are compatible with multiple systems, instead of having to buy a new cell phone every time you change service providers.

Without an operating system group and with MS as practically the sole provider, security issues were inevitable.