EU fines Microsoft €280.5 million

July 12, 2006 Microsoft was fined €280.5 million today by the European Commission for not complying to a 2004 antitrust ruling by the European Union.

EU had ruled in 2004, asking Microsoft to provide its competitors information about its Windows operating system. This was to give the rivals a level playing ground for writing software for the Windows platform to compete with Microsoft's own offerings.

The EU set a dead-line of July 21 for Microsoft to provide complete technical information to its competitors. If not, there may be further fines, up to €3 million a day.

The commission is saying that Microsoft has not done enough on the issue and must provide the information by July 31. Microsoft however does not agree to this and believes that it has done no wrong, and has in fact complied to the 2004 EU ruling.

The European Union's Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes has warned Microsoft to comply with these regulations for their upcoming Operating system, Vista which is scheduled to be released in 2007.