Microsoft received a major set-back after a European Union court gave strict verdict against the software major in an antitrust case. The court said that Microsoft used it dominant market position against the rival companies. The EU court upheld US $ 689.9 million fine.

The Luxembourg based court, considered as the second-highest in EU, dismissed the appeal of Microsoft on all major issues against the earlier ruling which came in year 2004.

Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner informed that the ruling will lead to drop in market share of software major Microsoft from current 95% within next few quarters. Mr. Kroes marked the decision of the court as consumer friendly. Mr. Kroes is confident about other antitrust cases against Intel, Qualcomm and Rambus.

Mr. Kroes said, "The court has confirmed that Microsoft can no longer prevent the market from functioning properly and consumers are entitled to benefit from choice and more innovative products."

The technical analysts believe that there will not be much impact on share prices of Microsoft. It would have been a good thing if the verdict was in favor of Microsoft, but as they have been on the losing side, the markets will not reduce the valuations of the stock to that extent. The fines have already been accounted for in the share price long time back. The Microsoft stock was down by nearly 1.2% in early trades at NYSE.

Microsoft’s top lawyer said that there will not be a very big impact of this ruling on the company. Microsoft has a very successful business model and the court ruling will affect the marketing strategy of the company in future.
However, the competition experts believe that the ruling of EU court will have serious long-term implications for the company.

UK based competition lawyer Chris Bright said, "It's clearly a major defeat for Microsoft. There is no doubt it will spur the Commission on to regulate Microsoft much more significantly."