Mxsmanic wrote:

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.

You need to be careful about the word 'monopoly' because the court's ruling
is routinely misstated. The court did not find that Microsoft was "a
monopoly" but that they "held monopoly power." They're not the same thing
and neither, in and of themselves alone, mean anything devious or illegal
took place.

Most people have a decent enough grasp of what a "monopoly" is but "holds
monopoly power" is a legal term of art that, in colloquial terms, is akin
to your comment that Microsoft has a dominate market position.

Technically, 'monopoly power' is the ability to control price and/or
exclude competition but you need not even do it, simply being 'able' to is
enough, and the courts often interpret 'control' to an easier
'significantly influence' and 'exclude' to 'significantly inhibit'.

"Monopoly Power" is not tied to market share although the courts often use
it as an 'indicator' anyway.

To make matters even more confusing, 'harsh' business practices, even by
someone holding monopoly power, is not necessarily an anti-trust violation
as the appeals court ruling in Intergraph Corporation v. Intel Corp., 195
F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 1999) stated: "the Sherman Act does not convert all
harsh commercial actions into antitrust violations. Unilateral conduct that
may adversely affect another’s business situation, but is not intended to
monopolize that business, does not violate the Sherman Act."

The Netscape matter is interesting because they began by giving their
browser away then, when they had 84% market share, began charging for it,
which would seem to be an exercise in monopolistic power... but maybe no
one sued. Then, when Microsoft gives away their browser, Netscape brings
suit against Microsoft for doing the same thing they had done to get an 84%
market share.

Amusing, eh?

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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