Microsoft Fined $11.9 Million for Office Price-fixing
Microsoft has been dealt a second blow in the courts as a ruling from Germany sees the software giant fined nearly $12 million.
The German competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, ruled that Microsoft had coordinated with retailers for Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, which resulted in anti-competitive pricing. The Bundeskartellamt said that prior the launch of the advertising campaign in mid-October 2008, employees of Microsoft and the retailer in question had agreed on at least two occasions on the resale price of the software package “Office Home & Student 2007.”
"The product in question was heavily advertised in the autumn of 2008 in stationery retail outlets,” said the Bundeskartellamt in a statement. “Among others, a nationwide active retailer advertised the product with financial support from Microsoft," the statement continued.
While Microsoft has accepted the ruling and will be paying the fine in full, the competition authority assured suppliers and retailers alike that not all talks regarding resale is illegal. “However, this must not lead to a form of coordination where the supplier actively tries to coordinate the pricing activities of the retailer and thus retailer and supplier agree on future actions of the retailer. In the present case, this boundary has been crossed.”
Microsoft this week lost a patent infringement suit against Uniloc Inc. which could cost the company $388 million.
That said, it doesn't matter what you're selling, you can't conspire to fix the price. Microsoft could sell donuts, it wouldn't matter, they still couldn't fix the price with a retail chain. Manufacturers put MSRP values on products, but the retail outlet gets to decide how much to charge (and in theory, that price is driven by what consumers are willing to pay, in theory).
Having been screwed over on presentations with people who use it, I would tend to agree. The lack of a truly standard format for documents is really a pain to deal with.
This is so retarded, people are getting a almost racist hate of microsoft...
But yet... guess who made half the programs you run...
[/rant]
(Oh and I don't LIKE microsoft, but they are a hell of a lot better than the alternatives..)
OpenOffice supports Word 6.0, 95, 97/2000/XP and 2007 documents. Open documents can be opened in Word after installing a plugin, or they can be converted using Media-Convert.com or Zamzar.com.
Hatred for Microsoft isn't because of the color of their skin, or any prejudicial notions. It's because of what they've done. To even say that we're just Microsoft haters is ridiculous following an article that shows that Microsoft was engaged in illegal practices.
Sell something at too high a price? Price gounging/monopoly! Sell it too low? Anti-competitive! Give rebates to retailers for large volumes? How dare you screw consumers by allowing retailers to lower costs and lower prices! I think the EU gov't should just publish what they consider acceptable pricing to be, what acceptable features are, and what acceptable annual revenues should be. Let's stop this charade and just get to the central planning already!
Microsoft didn't simply apply a set MSRP (manufacturer suggested retail price), but they told the retail outlets to sell office at a given price.
My notion exactly. Even if they weren't being ripped off, where will the money go?
Dry that one out and fertilize the lawn with it. It's blatantly obvious that every one of these European lawsuits against Microsoft is just cover to further marginalize Capitalism in European society as Capitalism is the one true path to providing individual freedoms.
Want to talk expensive? IBM Rational Suite, which is a set of software for developers that is analogous to AutoCad for designers, costs over $15,000 --- per person. And that's in addition to the costs of the server software that backs the $15,000 client software.
Of course not, nobody got ripped off. This EU will just use this money to further marginalize Capitalism.