Pull out
Billy reports the EU extorting money from Intel. I think companies like Intel and in the past Microsoft should just pull out of the EU. The EU needs you more than you need them.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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May 14th, 2009 at 10:26 am
As a business entity, they have an obligation to make as much profit as legally possible within their business structure.
As such, they “kinda” ‘have to’ do business in the EU.
However, any costs (e.g. blackmail / extortion) that they encounter should just be passed along to the consumers (aka ‘the voters’) in the form of higher prices.
“screw ’em”
May 14th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Ah, brinksmanship. That’s always a winning business tactic. I wonder why we don’t see it more often.
With the MS action, free marketeers should be cheering. Opening up protocols and platforms so more people can compete is a *good* thing. Putting businesses in a position to compete on price and quality (rather than lock-in and network effects) is good for consumers and good for business.
Besides, even with the fines, they made a bundle in Europe. They might not like the fine, but if the next 10 years holds the profits (minus the fines) of the last 10, they’ll sign up for that in an instant.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:43 am
You might want to take a look at what Intel was doing… When you are paying companies and vender’s to only sell or produce items with your product, that isn’t exactly fair or proper business practices. Also when you go to another country you agree to follow their laws. Intel violated their anti-trust laws, there fore Intel is now paying the fine.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Why do people say things like this? No one is disputing what the law is now and what happened as a result of breaking the law. They are saying the law is stupid.
May 14th, 2009 at 11:59 am
They say things like that because they’re stupid.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Like the proverbial monkey with it’s hand in the jar, these companies are simply too greedy to let go.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
as much as it pains me to say it Many Companys are hardly poster children for free-markets. Microsoft being a prime example. Gates repeatedly would dive into a “by any means possible” mindset when capturing effectively all the Pc market, including outright theft of a Competitors IP.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Anti-trust Laws are bullshit. All’s fair in love and war, and business is WAR. Anyone who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand the free market, evolution, and a whole host of other aspects of life.
Intel shouldn’t stop doing business in the EU, that would be foolish. Instead, they should refuse to distribute any new products in the EU market for 10 years. Can you imagine how much damage that would do? Have you ever had a computer that was old as hell, when every new software that was coming out was designed for the processors that are twice as fast as yours? And the Eurotrash would just have to get used to having slower computers, wouldn’t they? Not like AMD can steal their thunder now.
May 15th, 2009 at 10:21 am
All’s *not* fair in love and war. We draw lines about behavior in both contexts. People in every society around the world have gotten together and tried to limit the most egregious tactics. Same goes for business, markets, and monopolies.
And you can fantasize about business being WAR with no limits or rules, but that’s not a very good description of reality. It’s more like a game. There are rules. We compete within those rules. And quite often you’ll make a lot more money cooperating with your competitors here and there instead of blowing up the relationship and trying to kill them.
Microsoft and Sun were competitors in a lot of areas, but they also did an awful lot of business with each other. If they were at WAR, they couldn’t do that. And both would have lost out.