Well not I am wondering was it a real mistake, or did the company decide they'd rather pay what ever fine if it means they get to delay presenting any other browser for as long as possible?
I find it implausible that IE earned Microsoft half a billion euros in net revenue over the course of 18 months. It has been many years since bundling IE with Windows has provided a strategic business advantage - making IE the default simply streamlines their support costs by avoiding the finger pointing that occurs between browser vendors and Redmond when something doesn't work quite right...such as security.