Name
Bibles
Microeconomics
10 February 2014
Microsoft Debate There was a debate over the status of Microsoft Corporation from a business standpoint. They supply the operating system to about ninety percent of computers but they do not have a clear-cut competitor when it comes to prices. Does this make them a monopoly? Do they purposefully keep prices low to discourage other computer companies from being able to compete with them? The question for lawmakers became: “Does Microsoft’s business strategy break any anti-trust laws?” Many different computer programs are automatically designed to be compatible with the Microsoft operating system. Personally, I don’t think that you can blame Microsoft for the actions of other computer programming companies. The inadvertent effect of the programming companies’ actions is that computer users are being encouraged to purchase Microsoft computers to ensure that their programs will be compatible. I don’t think this implication is enough to claim that Microsoft is a monopoly but the courts felt as if it was. Also, they are a good business where they do not totally take all of the business of the market and act as a total monopoly. Microsoft do almost have a complete control of the Operating System Market where almost 93% of computers are programmed with Windows instead of Mac OSX or a Linux Distro. Microsoft was charged with “1. Monopolizing the computer operating system market, 2. Integrating the Internet Explorer web browser into the operating system in an attempt to eliminate competition from Netscape, and 3. Using its market power to form anticompetitive agreements with producers of related goods,” (South-western College). Microsoft was said in court to be a monopoly and the decision of the judge and punishment was for Microsoft’s corporation to be split into two different corporations. One corporation would handle the operating system and the other corporation would handle the software and program development. This did not happen. Microsoft went through a series of appeals and their appeal even made it to the Supreme Court. Their appeal was denied by the Supreme Court and the Federal