Today must have been a busy day at Microsoft’s Redmond campus.
Microsoft has been fined 561 million euros ($731m; £484m) for failing to promote a range of web browsers, rather than just Internet Explorer, to users in the European Union (EU).
Ouch. As noted by the EU commission, they’re trying to make a statement that breaking the rules is bad. Changing to follow the rules and then quietly slipping back in to non-conformance? Even worse.
But wait, there’s more…
A couple weeks ago, I posted this blog to clarify the new Office 2013 licensing terms. Based on customer feedback we have changed the Office 2013 retail license agreement to allow customers to transfer the software from one computer to another. This means customers can transfer Office 2013 to a different computer if their device fails or they get a new one. Previously, customers could only transfer their Office 2013 software to a new device if their PC failed under warranty.
This is an incredibly sensible move. I hope whoever came up with the original licensing agreement has been swiftly shown the door.
Oh, and a little more Microsoft related food-for-thought from Techcrunch.