In Her Own Words: Neelie Kroes on the MS fines
The European Commissioner stood in front of reporters Wednesday morning to announce the EU's latest round of sanctions against Microsoft.
While BetaNews reported on the news that the EU would be fining Microsoft 899 million euros at that time, we are posting snippets of her comments and answers to reporters questions below in order to give our readers an better idea of the bloc's reasons for this latest round of sanctions.
On the fine itself: "Given the nature of Microsoft's non-compliance, considering both its effects and its duration, today's fine is proportionate and is necessary."
On Microsoft's apparent concession to the EU's demands: "We take positive changes to business practices very seriously. But again, and I stress that a press release in itself, such as that issued by Microsoft last week on interoperability principles, does not necessarily equal a change in a business practice. And if change is needed -- and as I say, I have reached no conclusion on that -- then the change will need to be in the market, not in the rhetoric."
Sending a message to others: "This is a signal whereby we make it very clear that it is unacceptable if you don't abide by the rules, just as in traffic. If you don't stick to the rules in traffic, then you get a fine."
On fining companies for wrongdoing: "It's never [a] pleasure. For me, the best day in office will be when there are zero fines, so to say. For that -- but if we are doing the job properly, and that having been said, we are doing the job properly and all those in the outside world are behaving."
Why the commission opted not to fine the full 1.5 billion euros: "I think this is absolutely reasonable and you should take into account that the sky is not the limit for fines, it is just to be explained that we are reasonable and they have to be reasonable on their terms."
Was Microsoft's public interoperability announcement enough?: "Talk is cheap ... let's wait and let's find the reality in this case. And it's not the first moment that they were announcing this. We do have a couple of experiences."
The full transcript of the press conference is available from Groklaw.