Microsoft shrugs off the EU's threatened fine, for now. How much does it take to make a large multi-national corporation stand up and take notice?
Well, how about $243 million? It's been 100 days since the EU's decision in December, and the fine will be retroactive. That's almost 1/4 of a billion dollars. There are some signs that MS may be taking this thing more seriously. But still, they made many times that much in profit last year.
If the EU had been smart they would have made the fine exponential. Like the king that pledged a grain of wheat on the first square of a chessboard and doubled it on each succeeding one, even Microsoft would have had trouble making it past a few weeks.
Or as Everett Dirkson would say, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money".