EU Commissioner Kroes: "Talk Is Cheap"
Feb 27, 2008
Quipping "talk is cheap...flouting the rules is expensive," European Union competition commissioner Neelie Kroes defended the European Commission's decision to levy a massive $1.3 billion fine against Microsoft today for failing to comply with its 2004 antitrust ruling prior to last October.
As the AP reports, it's the biggest single penalty the EU has imposed on a company, and brings the total amount of fines against Microsoft to almost $2.5 billion. Microsoft seemed to take the news in stride, releasing a statement that said "these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved...we are focusing on steps that will improve things for the future.
Indeed, just last week the software company broke the news that it's embracing a set of unprecedented interoperability principles to share information with the open source community.
Tags:
Antitrust, EU, interoperability, Microsoft, Neelie Kroes
