Microsoft and the Government
On May 30, 1990, the Federal Trade Commission opened up an antitrust investigation on the Microsoft Corporation on charges that the company's pricing policy pertaining to their Windows Operation System illegally thwarted competition and that there was hidden code in their operation system that hindered competitive applications to run. Microsoft continues to battle this attempt by the government to regulate to this day. The leading software company in the world provides the software for nearly half of the world's websites. The government claim is that the software company continues to practice anti-competitive policies pertaining to the software licensing, thus a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Microsoft simply defends that their practices are all legal and that they are merely trying to innovate their products. Much has been said that if Microsoft controls the majority of the world's network software, then they are potential controllers of global commerce and content on the Internet. A deep analysis will be done on the idea that is Microsoft Corporation a good monopoly or bad monopoly. The Microsoft Corporation is the current leader in software licensing not only in the United S
tates, but also globally. Their chief product is their operation system, Windows. But the majority of the accused anti-trust violations come from their actions to control the Internet browser market. On January 22, 2002, AOL Time Warner, Incorporated filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft, accusing the software giant of using illegal practices to remove Netscape Communication Corporation from atop the Internet browser market. According to a recent study by Netcraft, Microsoft controls 49.2% of the actual hardware behind the world's websites; coming in a distant second-place is Linux controlling 28.5% of the market (Client Server News). Although, one can argue that Microsoft is not a monopoly and does indeed have competition, but the main charge against the corporation rose to the top by mandating computer makers to install the Explorer browser if they want to install the Windows operating system, thus eliminating the competition in the browser market. In the summer of 2000, the federal courts did indeed find that the Microsoft, Corp. violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Although a federal appeals court last year vacated an order to break Microsoft into two separate firms, the appeals court unanimously upheld the lower court's findings that Microsoft broke the law (Bray). In Microsoft's defense, their spokesman Jim Deslaer claimed that Microsoft routinely attempted to work with AOL, the plaintiff of the suit in 2000, and claimed that AOL is using the political and legal systems to compete with Microsoft Not only have the competitors of Microsoft sought legal actions to regulate Microsoft, but on August 20, 1993, the U.S. government also took Microsoft to court on the charges of illegal conduct and the case reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on June 20, 2000. The government claimed that Microsoft used illegal tactics to push their software onto computer makers. The government acted upon concerns aroused around the release of Windows 98, which uses Microsoft Internet Explorer in almost every application it runs. The U.S. government noticed Microsoft's monopoly of operating systems but chose not to regulate the firm due to the lac
Some common words found in the essay are:
Microsoft Corporation, Obviously US's, Internet Explorer, Compaq Computer, Operation System, Supreme Court, III Conclusion, Justice Department, Client Server, Act Microsoft, windows 98, internet explorer, operating system, microsoft corporation, computer makers, market share, sherman anti-trust act, browser market, operating systems, appeals court, anti-trust act, internet browser market, anti-trust act microsoft, microsoft internet explorer, internet explorer microsoft,
Approximate Word count = 1460
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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