14 DAY TRIAL // The European Commission made aware about the possibility to further issue fines against Microsoft Corp. and those could rise to as much as 5 percent of the company's average daily turnover. This is a drastic measure which will be applied if Microsoft fails to implement in due time the changes the EU Commission decided upon. It was decided 10 months ago that Microsoft abused its virtual monopoly of the Windows operating system and has already fined it $647.9 million.
Microsoft lost a court bid to suspend sanctions for breaking the law and said it would offer a light version of the Windows Operating System, which will not include the Windows Media Player. At the same time, the software giant is forced to share by early February some protocols with competitor companies, server manufacturers.
A spokesman for the Commission made clear that all these changes take place in a certain amount of time, but should Microsoft take too long to respond to the EU requests, severe fines will be imposed. Considering Microsoft's turnover in the year ending June 2004 was $36.8 billion, a 5% fine could mean the company has to pay 5 million dollars a day.
Microsoft decided to rename Media Free XP Operating System, but the name is now unknown. Microsoft and EU officials are working together to come to an agreement on the new editions naming scheme. The media free edition of Windows XP is due to be released in February within Europe