What motivation have Microsoft got to pay this?
If they did, I'd be heading to Brussels with a pitchfork along with about 100 other people at my company.
Could a business, a corporation, go to war against another entity. Countries go to war all the time and while it may be "illegal", it's only the loser that has to suffer the consequences.
What if Microsoft just decided screw it, and flipped a magic switch somewhere and shut down the entire EU infrastructure. No OS, no web servers, no SQL, no sharepoint, etc. Trashing or stealing every bit of data along the way? Freeze Microsofts assets you say? What if they could freeze or steal a great portion of the EUs assets?
Sure, the EU would get over it eventually, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
Afghanistan looks like a useless chunk of dirt until you dig some holes.
If Microsoft did it, I'd probably laugh a bit at the irony simply because its how the EU operate.
More than likely, they'll roll out changes to their browser preferences now (that they've been caught red-handed) and maybe include a "browser bundle" that has Firefox, Chrome and IE in newer versions and recommend OEMs deploy the same. Naturally it may still default to IE if the user clicks "next". That way, they can maybe negotiate down the overall sum of the fine saying "hey, sorry we're late, but look! We're doing the changes."