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Ah, it's the "Don't upset corporations or they will punish us with infinite price hikes" mantra. If they raise the price by €1 and for the sake of argument we

by omd 14y ago

Ah, it's the "Don't upset corporations or they will punish us with infinite price hikes" mantra. 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!

mda 14y ago
€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.
- grapjas 14y ago
  >SQL server The rest I can understand but please tell me this isn't true
- r00fus 14y ago
  > 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.