On Wednesday, the European Commission fined Microsoft 280.5 million euros for defying a 2004 antitrust ruling in which it ordered Microsoft to give rivals information that would enable their servers to compete on a level playing field with Microsoft's by interconnecting smoothly with Windows. It also found that Microsoft harmed competitors by illegally bundling its Windows Media Player with the operating system, leaving consumers little incentive to buy rival software to watch movies or listen to music. Read the press release here.
The bundling issue has raised concerns about Vista, which could package Internet search functions or software that creates fixed documents and thus threaten Google and Adobe Systems. However, Microsoft Japan President Darren Huston told a news conference:
I don't think this has any impact on the teams and the efforts that are going forward to that launch.
We are still committed to the existing plan of record.
Read more here.
