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March 24, 2004
Microsoft hit with $613M fine, yawns indifferently
Original story here.
The European Union declared Microsoft Corp. guilty of abusing its "near monopoly" with Windows to foil competitors in other markets and hit the software giant with a record $613 million fine Wednesday.Microsoft shares rose 15 cents to $24.30 in early trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
631 million dollars is a lot of money, right? Not if you're Microsoft it isn't.
Checking out Microsoft's latest balance sheet, we see that have 6.4B in *CASH* right now, and zero debt. Last year they had sales of 32.1B.
How do those numbers look when put into real-world terms?
If you made $75,000/year, and were given a fine proportional to the one Microsoft just received, you'd have to pay $1,282.00
But also keep in mind, if you had the cash equivalent that Microsoft has, you'd have $14,250 in the bank from which to pay that fine.
Exactly how punitive is that?
Posted by Christopher at March 24, 2004 11:17 AM
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