Microsoft has decided it's time to end its fight against European regulators, after losing in its bid to get the European Union's Court of First Instance to reverse EU antitrust rulings. Now, Microsoft will license its protocols to open-source and other developers for compatibility, and pay the fines that have been accruing since the EU antitrust authority since 2004. Backdated daily fines will end as of October Microsoft has decided it’s time to end its fight against European regulators, after losing in its bid to get the European Union’s Court of First Instance to reverse EU antitrust rulings. Now, Microsoft will license its protocols to open-source and other developers for compatibility, and pay the fines that have been accruing since the EU antitrust authority since 2004. Backdated daily fines will end as of October 22 as part of the deal, and Microsoft will pay hundreds of millions of euros in fines.This is good news for some developers, who can easily afford pay €10,000 (currently about $14,000) for the “complete and accurate technical information” required for compatibility with Windows, and a patent royalty of 0.4 of revenues for software sold. But it also means that Microsoft will undoubtedly go after Linux distribution vendors for allegedly infringing on other parts of their intellectual property. Eventually, the impact on enterprise Windows users will be better networking, file-sharing and authentication system compatibility between Windows , Linux and Unix systems. But it may also raise the cost of Linux systems as well. Software DevelopmentSmall and Medium Business