Full Disclosure: As you're undoubtedly aware, my company Tech Experts (www.mytechexperts.com) is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner; so, our bread is buttered right along with Bill Gates' when it comes to the technology we sell and service for our clients. Admittedly, I'm biased.
On February 27th, the European Commission fined Microsoft $1.3 billion (899 million euros) for "continued failure to honor the 2004 anti trust ruling against it." Articles here and here.
While just a blip on Microsoft's cash pile, it's still just a plain-ass ridiculous amount of money. Especially when you consider the total amount Microsoft has paid out just to the EU exceeds $2.5 billion.
I said several years ago there's a very simple way to bring this to an end, one way or another.
Were I Steve Ballmer, I'd give Neelie Kroes a call. He's the Commissioner for Extortion Competition for the European Union. The call would go something like this:
"Hey Neelie, Steve Ballmer here. Hey, sorry we've had this disagreement! I'm mailing you a check for that $1.3 billion you wanted, because while we disagree with your position, we like to keep everyone happy. By the way, since you guys don't really like the way we do business here at Microsoft, rather than continue to aggravate you, have ridiculous fines imposed, and have all this rancor, we decided today we're just going to stop selling and licensing all of our software in the European Union. Yep - as of today, you can't buy any Microsoft software anymore. Sorry it didn't work out."
Abuse of monopoly power? Perhaps. But I think a very strong argument could be made the EU is using their powers a little abusively, too.
It wouldn't ever work in the real world, I know, but fun to think about. Microsoft has enough cash on hand to survive the (what I expect would be) a very short stand off.