280.5 million euros or 357 million dollar is the amount of the fine decided by the European Commission against Microsoft following a decision taken on July 1st claiming that the Redmond Company has failed to comply with a March 2004 antitrust judgment against it. Initially Microsoft had only 120 days to meet the terms of the antitrust decision and to disclose details on the inner workings of server protocols to its competitors but the deadline was postponed several times following negotiations as Microsoft made slow progress.

Although Microsoft has only one more protocol documentation installment scheduled to be issued on July 18, with the rest of six batches of technical documentation already submitted, The EU Commission's decision at the beginning of this months led to an inevitable course of action.

"Microsoft says it's committing huge resources to tackling this problem. It's a shame they didn't do so two years ago," said Neelie Kroes, the European Union's competition commissioner.

"The fine announced today is larger than the fines the Commission has imposed for even the most severe competition law infringements, such as price-fixing cartels," said General Counsel Brad Smith. "When you consider Microsoft's massive efforts to comply with this ruling, and the fact that more than a dozen companies are already using similar documentation provided in the U.S. to ship actual products, we do not believe this fine is justified."

Microsoft has by the end of the month to convince the EU Commission of its good intentions. Failing to do so, come July 31, the Redmond Company could face fines of no less than 3 million dollars per day.