John Doe writes:

But seriously. Microsoft was known to hold monopoly power over the
personal computer operating system market long before our courts
finalized the issue.

The courts didn't finalize anything, except in a restricted legal
sense, and there was no general consensus on such questions before or
after the courts gave their opinions.

Few people dispute that Microsoft has a dominant position in a handful
of key markets, most notably in PC desktop operating systems. Whether
or not this is a monopoly or a harmful monopoly is a much more open
question.

Intel has a comparable market share (currently around 81%, vs. 94% for
Microsoft in the desktop OS arena), and yet it does not appear to
raise so many questions of monopoly. I think in part that is because
the average geek cannot fancy himself building a chip fabrication
facility and competing with Intel, whereas many geeks like to imagine
building a software product that somehow competes with Microsoft. And
many more geeks would like to work for Microsoft, which is more
willing to hire people with no education. Chips don't engender the
same emotions and envy, in any case.

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