Microsoft hit with €9m fine over German pricing The German competition authority, the BundesKartellamt, has fined Microsoft €9m for colluding with retailers to set the price of "Office Home and Student 2007". Suppliers are allowed to talk to retailers about prices but need to be careful not to break competition rules. But in this case, Microsoft staff and a leading German …
I am a bit confused about what Microsoft has done wrong here. I assume the real reason for the fine has been lost in translation, or someone has avoided the main issue to make the judgement look controversial.
I do not see what is wrong with a supplier and a retailer agreeing on a retail price. I support Microsoft's right to rent third rate software at exorbitant prices. If Microsoft want to reduce the price of a product for one segment of the market, their choices are to sell direct, or to form an agreement with a distributor to pass on a price reduction to customers.
Microsoft's financial support for the adverts looks questionable. If that support required a promise not to install open source office software on all PC's for free, then I could understand a fine. Unlike Vista, it is possible to buy a computer without a copy of Microsoft Office. People can choose a free product that will work for years, or to pay Microsoft so they can swear when the format of a document gets screwed up because someone is using the wrong version of MS Office.
Does anyone know what is really going on here?
"Does anyone know what is really going on here?"
Yeah, MS have been up to their usual skullduggery and they've been caught (again).
This time they know they've got no legal defence, so they're paying the fine.
Personally, I think a more appropriate sentence would be to ban the product from sale in Germany altogether for a certain length of time. That would really hurt them and might make them think twice about using this kind of tactic again.
They have consistently broken the law, bent the law, used unfair practices etc and none of the previous fines have made them think twice about doing it again. This needs to change.
Blatantly breaching the law is not something that most corporations take on board as a strategy...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
