Governments Trying To Decide Next Step For Microsoft Antitrust
Microsoft’s 2002 consent decree that settled the federal antitrust case against the company is expiring at the end of the year, and the federal government and various state governments are trying to decide what to do next.
The federal Justice Department and a number of states, including Maryland, Wisconsin, Ohio and Louisiana, call the 2002 decree a success and that it accomplished its goals. Other states, including California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Massachusetts and D.C., say that it was ineffective, and that it should be extended from a five-year decree to a ten-year one.
Their argument is that Microsoft still has high market share, which must mean it is still an evil monopoly.
Specifically, in the market at the heart of the antitrust case–that is, for Intel-compatible PC operating systems–Microsoft’s share has remained fairly constant, from 93 percent in 1991 to 92 percent in 2006, the filing said. In the Web browser arena, Redmond has seen its market share slip from 95 percent in 2002 to 85 percent in 2006, which the California group attorneys argue is “still well above monopoly levels.” And on the server operating system front, Microsoft has actually seen its market share climb from 55 percent in 2002 to 72 percent in 2006, the filing argues.
If you remember the antitrust case from when it was going on, you’ll know the “market share” argument, by itself, was never good enough, and that Microsoft was screwed on its business practice, not its sucess. The goal of the consent decree was to curb Microsoft’s evil ways, and it has succeeded more often than not. Microsoft has suffered the last five years, as:
- The company was too afraid to develop Internet Explorer, and let Firefox swoop in and embaress them.
- The company lost a lot of its fight, and let Mac OS X release version after version while it couldn’t get Vista out the door.
- The company stayed out of the music player game and certain other industries it could have made an impact in, partially because it was afraid that would be termed a monopolistic practice.
- The company has refrained from using lock-in in its products, even as its competitors are free to do so.
- Microsoft has sat back and watched Google dominate swaths of the online marketplace, and did not engineer Windows Vista to illegally defeat Google.
Ask anyone at Microsoft if the government held them back these five years, and they’ll tell you how many ways the company has been hamstrung by it. Yes, Windows is still very, very popular, but Mac OS is growing like crazy, Apple and Google are juggernauts, Microsoft is struggling in a number of industries and many of Microsoft’s other competitors have been screwing up to much to even compete with them. Market share proves nothing.
The next hearing is on 9/11.
