Re:Microsoft fined $731m by European Commission over web bro...
by mda on Wednesday March 06, 2013 @08:09AM
(#5330953)
€1 was just figure of speech. (Still, Governments pay for a ton of Microsoft products; Ms office, Windows, Exchange mailboxes, Sharepoint licenses, SQL server licenses etc. etc. How much money do you think Ms makes from EU governments in one year? in 5 years?)
High software prices indeed harm tax payers. There is no win-win.
Re:Microsoft fined $731m by European Commission over web bro...
by r00fus on Thursday March 07, 2013 @02:55AM
(#5336657)
> High software prices indeed harm tax payers. There is no win-win.
High software prices generally hurt businesses more than individual taxpayers. The 1EUR fine would be a catastrophe for Microsoft's PR, however.
That kind of move would also push a non-trivial population to alternatives (however weak) like Google Docs.
If they raise the price by €1 and for the sake of argument we assume a net profit of 50%, they would have to sell 1.1 billion packages to recoup the fine (I don't think Microsoft has sold that many software products in their lifetime, but it's a fun little thought experiment). 1.1 billion Windows 8 licences at €280 a piece is €308 billion revenue of which the corporation taxes will flow back to the EU members. It's a win-win for our tax payers!