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Microsoft Anti-Trust Case
Microsoft was charged with using its position as an industry leader in computer software to force buyers to buy products that were bundled with Internet Explorer. The claim was considered a breach of anti-trust laws which declared that a company cannot package two products together based on one's popularity or market position with the consumer (U.S. v. Microsoft, 2002-2006). Microsoft has denied such claims that they took an unfair advantage of the market and consumer in order to strengthen an already dominant position in the industry (Hemphill, 2004). Especially in the case of the product coming from a company that has domination over the software industry such as Microsoft.
The Internet Explorer browser was not sold but given as a free product with the purchase of the Operating System by Microsoft. This is done by many companies throughout the industry. However when Microsoft applied this marketing principle, it was considered fraud based on Anti-trust Law (Hemphill, 2004). The capitalistic position of gaining a stronger position in the marketplace appears to be no more than a marketing maneuver. Compare to the original iPhone and AT&T partnership (Goldman, 2010). Was Apple or AT&T at fault for requiring iPhone's only carrier being a telecommunications company as monopolistic and widespread as AT & T. There is a two-year commitment tied to the iPhone contract which holds any consumer...
Therefore the claim against Microsoft is not valid. Since other browsers (I. e. carriers) could be used outside Internet Explorer. In this case the claim that this is a mishandling of power in the industry seems unjustified.
In addition the claim against Microsoft was that software glitches were installed to slow down the response time of alternative browsers of the competition to Internet Explorer such as Netscape or Opera (Weil & McMillan, 2003). This allegation may have been correct, but why should a company make it easier for the competition. That is a legitimate marketing tactic. After all the use of other browsers was not banned entirely by Microsoft as in the case with the Apple iPhone. Plus it should be the task of the competition to make their products more user friendly with any competitor's Operating System not the other way around. Again consider the video game market. The Sony Playstation compatible games that are designed by competitors have the task of making their product work with the Playstation console, not the other way around. Therefore here to the citing by the Anti-Trust claimants appear to be in error.
Yet a third complaint of the plaintiff was that the bundled product had a hidden cost associated with Internet Explorer. This appears to implicate Microsoft with intentional misuse of the law in order to manipulate the market in…
References
Brick, R. (2001). U.S. appeals court overturns Microsoft anti-trust ruling . Retrieved June
16, 2011 from http://www. nytimes. com/2001/06/28/business/28WIRE-SOFT. html
Goldman, D. (2010). iPhone anti-trust law goes to class action. Retrieved June 16, 2011
from http://money. cnn. com/2010/07/12/technology/apple_att_lawsuit/index. htm
Retrieved from http://www. pcworld. com/news/article/0,aid,110930,00. asp
United States v. Microsoft, (2002, 2006). Retrieved from http://www. usdoj. gov/atr/cases/ms_index. htm
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