| scottie said: I would argue it's not related to a particular percentage, but to what it means you can do. MS has just under 90% market share in the OS market, and yet I wouldn't consider it a monopoly due to a lack of two main things The ability to drive their competitors out of business if they wished (and believe me, they are trying their hardest to stop people turning to Linux or Mac) Creative control over the direction and pace of advancement of their industry |
Sorry, but MS was found guilty of monopoly in 1999 and although the appeal overturned the decision to break MS in two it didn't overturn the finding that MS was a monopoly. In September the dept of justice under Bush admin decided to give MS a lesser penalty.
"Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact[11] on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to the monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, Real Networks, Linux, and others. Then on April 3, 2000, he issued a two-part ruling: hisconclusions of law were that Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, and his remedy was that Microsoft must be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components."
MS was also found guilty in Europe and had to pay 1.35 billion USD in compliance with the rulling in 2004.
