The European Commission fined Microsoft a record €899m today for failing to comply with its landmark 2004 competition ruling against the US software giant.
The fine comes on top of the €497m that Microsoft already had to pay after Europe's top watchdog found the company guilty in 2004 of abusing its dominant market power.
'Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision,' EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.
'I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record of non-compliance with the commission's March 2004 decision,' she added.
The new penalty, the sum of daily fines running from June 21 2006 to October 21 2007, is the biggest that the commission has ever levelled against a single company.
The commission said it was hitting Microsoft with the new fine for charging 'unreasonable prices' to rivals for access to key information about its work-group or back-office servers in contravention of its 2004 ruling.
In reaction, Microsoft said: 'We are reviewing the commission's action. The Commission announced in October 2007 that Microsoft was in full compliance with the 2004 decision, so these fines are about the past issues that have been resolved,' it added.
After a five-year investigation, the commission ruled then that Microsoft had abused its share of the market for operating systems running personal computers thanks to its Windows programme.
In particular, it accused Microsoft of using its stranglehold on PC operating systems to elbow rivals out of the more competitive markets for media players that play music and videos, and operating systems running back-office servers.
It imposed a then-record fine of €497m on the software giant with the threat of further daily fines for non-compliance.
Microsoft fought the decision tooth-and-nail until last September an EU court threw out the company's appeal against the ruling, significantly strengthening the commission's hand in the long-running standoff.
Since its court victory, the European Commission has launched a new investigation targeting the interoperability of a broad range of software, including Microsoft's popular Office package, with rival products.
