Microsoft and Monoopolies
Microsoft and MonoopoliesThe true definition of monopoly is “A firm that is the sole seller of a product without close substitutes”. Microsoft has been found guilty of violating anti trust laws and has therefore has been called a monopoly, but does it hold to this definition of a monopoly?
The main case as stated in our book is in 1998 the “US Justice Department objected when Microsoft started integrating its Internet browser into its Windows operating system, claiming that this would impede competition from other companies, such as Netscape”. First I believe that you have to ask is there no other product that is a close substitute? While yes Microsoft does have a majority of the share of business in the computer software world, there are other options. With the new versions of Windows that have Internet Explorer already installed on them, it is also possible to get Netscape as well; Microsoft does not prevent people from using it. On a personal note, I have both Netscape and Internet explorer on my PC, and use both equally as much.
But on another side, is Microsoft using business practices that are forcing the market down and making it unfair for other businesses? On June 4, 1999, the New York Daily News reported about a corporation, Bristol Technologies, that is suing Bill Gates “for denying it (Bristol Technologies) access to software blueprints — called “source code” — behind Windows NT technology that Bristol needs to develop a software product, Wind/U. Software creators use Wind/U as a bridge between Windows and Unix, another operating system.”
Also in the February 17, 1999 edition of the Bangkok Post an unnamed Microsoft executive said that “well, yes, the company threatened Intuit Corp like a mafia jukebox salesman if Intuit used Netscape.” These types of actions only strengthen the argument that Microsoft is participating in anti-trust practices. And in the Denver Rocky Mountain News on April 16, 1999 Bill Joy, who is the co- founder and chief scientist of Sun Microsystem Inc, and the developer of such programs as Java and Unix, was quoted as saying that “”The (monopoly) behavior they’re engaging in is classic”.
On the flip side, in the January 20, 1999 edition of PC Dealer it was reported that during the trial of Microsoft, economist Richard Schmalensee, who is the dean of the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts...
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