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United States vs. Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation has been in the crosshairs of the U. ... The DOJ has long believed that Microsoft uses its dominance in the PC operating system to illegally squelch competition. Microsoft has long countered that the government is intrusive and by going after Microsoft, the government is harming technical innovation. ... Microsoft’s genius has been in their business and predatory tactics, not innovation. Here is how the typical “innovation” at Microsoft has been developed (Thomas Fine refers to it as “innovating backwards”) :
• Good fortune (MS-DOS, which made the company what it is today, was invented by another company altogether; Microsoft had licensed it from them and somehow managed to “sell” it to IBM)
• Copying other companies’ ideas (for one example out of many such instances, their graphical window environment followed the Macintosh’ version by six years)
• Stealing other companies’ technologies (Go Next, a company that no longer exists, showed their pen-based computing product to three Microsoft engineers who were posing as marketers and six months later, Microsoft came out with their own pen product)
• Bullying companies until they were out of business or relegated to the background (the antitrust case dealt with two such companies, Sun and Netscape; more on these two companies later)
The federal government (plus 19 states) spent three years pursuing its case against Microsoft for their anti-competitive actions under the Sherman Act of 1890, beginning in 1997. ... District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found for the government plaintiffs and ordered the break-up of Microsoft they had been seeking. But on appeal one year later, the judge was rebuked for his vocal anti-Microsoft rhetoric and his break-up order was squelched. ... But by now, the political landscape had changed and the DOJ no longer had the resolve to go after Microsoft. In November of 2001, the Justice Department announced that they would not be going forward with their case against Microsoft and an agreement on remedies had been reached between the two parties. But some of the 19 states have yet to accept this deal and a multitude of class-action lawsuits still exist, so Microsoft’s lawyers will be very busy for the foreseeable future.
1) Use the resources on the Internet or other sources, and identify the primary elements of the antitrust case against Microsoft. ...
a) The first feature of the DOJ’s case against Microsoft was their behavior as it pertained to their operating system. Microsoft had used its influence to try to “convince” software developers to disregard “middleware” applications that posed a threat to its OS/2 operating system and concentrate on windows platforms only. ... Circuit agreed with Judge Jackson that Microsoft had acted in an illegal and predatory manner in an effort to safeguard their operating system monopoly. ... Microsoft was found to have committed the following non-competitive transgressions:
(1) Microsoft prohibited “computer manufacturers who installed Windows from making any alteration to the Windows desktop, which included an icon for Windows’ browser, Internet Explorer (IE), and none for Netscape.”
(2) Microsoft excluded IE from the add/remove utility included within Windows so that customers could not get rid of the IE browser readily.
(3) Microsoft wrote their browser code so that deleting all of the browser’s files would also delete vital OS code as well.
(4) Microsoft made deals with all major internet service providers (ISPs) that precluded them from providing non-IE browsers to customers unless they specifically asked for one.
(5) Microsoft made deals with numerous internet software vendors (ISVs) where Microsoft gave the companies their “seal of approval” in exchange for the ISVs using IE as their default browser.
Approximate Word count = 2899
Approximate Pages = 11.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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