Worst week ever: EU fines Microsoft $357 million

Dear Microsoft: Remember how the European Commission has spent the last two years being hostile, demanding, pushy, insistent, and generally in an enforcing state of mind regarding its 2004 ruling that your behaviors were anticompetitive and you needed to open up your protocols to rival companies or face gigantic fines? Well, apparently you don't, or you would have at least made an overture toward meeting their deadlines. And since you didn't, the fine (remember, they said it'd be gigantic) and will start accumulating at the rate of 3 million euros a day starting July 31. I can totally understand why you'd space the whole thing--what with Bill leaving, working on that iPod killer, and trying to churn out Xbox 360s. But maybe now it's time to give the whole compliance thing a try, no? No? You're appealing? Oh. Well, OK. Good luck with that. Love, Molly