Monopoly Free Download Windows 7

United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001), was a landmark American antitrust law case at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally maintaining its monopoly position in the personal computer (PC) market, primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java.[1]

The government alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The central issue was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its IE web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling the two products was allegedly a key factor in Microsoft's victory in the browser wars of the late 1990s, as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), since it typically took extra time to buy and install the competing browsers. Underlying these disputes were questions of whether Microsoft had manipulated its application programming interfaces to favor IE over third-party browsers. The government also questioned Microsoft's conduct in enforcing restrictive licensing agreements with original equipment manufacturers who were required to include that arrangement.[7]

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Bill Gates himself denied that Microsoft was a monopoly, stating "Microsoft follows the rules. Microsoft is subject to the rules." He further compared the situation with IBM thirty years prior: "People who feared IBM were wrong. Technology is ever-changing."[8]

Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact on November 5, 1999, holding that Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including applications from Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others. On April 3, 2000, Jackson issued his conclusions of law, holding that Microsoft had engaged in monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.[2]

Ultimately, the Circuit Court overturned Jackson's holding that Microsoft should be broken up as an illegal monopoly. However, the Circuit Court did not overturn Jackson's findings of fact, and held that traditional antitrust analysis was not equipped to consider software-related practices like browser tie-ins.[28] The case was remanded back to the D.C. District Court for further proceedings on this matter, with Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly presiding.[29]

Plaintiffs' Joint Proposed Findings of Fact, and the evidence on which they are based, demonstrate that Microsoft has engaged in a broad pattern of unlawful conduct with the purpose and effect of thwarting emerging threats to its powerful and well-entrenched operating system monopoly. Most prominent among these was the threat posed by competing Internet browsers, particularly Netscape's Navigator. Non-Microsoft browsers, if widely used, promised to form the center of an emerging middleware platform that could have helped to erode the high applications barrier to entry that protects Microsoft's monopoly.

Microsoft acted quickly to squelch this evolving middleware threat to what it sometimes called its "desktop paradise," first by proposing an illegal division of markets, and then by embarking on a predatory campaign to restrict the distribution and usage of Netscape's browser and, in Microsoft's words, to "cut off Netscape's air supply." But Microsoft's broad anticompetitive campaign has not been limited to preempting the browser threat; Microsoft sought to curtail other actual or potential middleware threats to its operating system monopoly, including Sun's Java, Intel's Native Signal Processing, and Apple's QuickTime. Microsoft's actions demonstrate that it believed it could not win simply by competing on the merits. As one of Microsoft's top executives candidly acknowledged: "we were very concerned that if the user saw Netscape Navigator side by side with Internet Explorer . . . we would lose."

Microsoft's predatory campaign worked. It succeeded in preserving Microsoft's monopoly power by preventing the successful development of alternative platforms that could have eroded its Windows monopoly and given consumers greater choice. In other words, Microsoft prevented consumers from getting what they wanted so that Microsoft could keep what it had -- a monopoly in operating systems.

For a long time now -- and, if Microsoft's actions to maintain its monopoly are not halted, for well into the future -- personal computer consumers are locked into a Microsoft world, one in which a single company essentially controls the configuration of desktop computing. The evidence detailed in these Proposed Findings establishes both the anticompetitive tactics Microsoft employed and the harm to competition and consumers those tactics caused. What can never be fully known, of course, are (i) the innovative products that would have come to market had developers not been deterred by Microsoft's illegal assault on potential competitors; and (ii) the benefits that consumers would have realized if Microsoft's operating systems monopoly had been eroded. Such products and consumer benefits are inevitable wherever market competition flourishes.

Microsoft has monopoly power in the market for operating systems for Intel-compatible personal computers ("PCs"). Microsoft's operating systems account for an overwhelming share -- well over 90% -- of that market and, indeed, of all operating systems for PCs. Microsoft's customers -- computer manufacturers ("OEMs") and the vast majority of PC users -- have no commercially viable alternative to the Windows operating systems. Microsoft is able to, and does, exercise its monopoly power over OEMs and PC consumers in a variety of ways.

Microsoft's monopoly power is protected, and has been protected for years, by high barriers to entry into the operating systems market, the most important of which is the applications barrier. The applications barrier to entry exists because applications written to Windows will not run on other operating systems and other operating systems cannot effectively compete against Microsoft unless they can offer PC users a wide array of applications similar, in depth and breadth, to the vast set of applications that exists for Windows.

In the mid-1990's, Microsoft identified a potential threat to its monopoly: platform level middleware such as Netscape's Navigator browser. Internet browsers run "on top" of operating systems and contain interfaces ("APIs") to which other application programs can be written. Because Internet browsers and other middleware can run on multiple operating systems, they can enable application developers, by writing programs to the APIs on the middleware, to develop programs that are platform neutral -- that is, that can run across a variety of operating systems. By potentially "commoditizing" the underlying operating system, browsers thus offer the potential to erode the applications barrier to entry and, ultimately, Microsoft's operating system monopoly. Netscape's browser posed a particularly serious threat to Microsoft: it was widely adopted by PC users to browse the rapidly emerging World Wide Web, it was cross platform, and it therefore had the potential to become a ubiquitous platform to which other application programs could be written.

Microsoft has engaged in a broad pattern of conduct to exclude or eliminate products that Microsoft believed could help erode the applications barrier to entry and thereby threaten its Windows monopoly. Microsoft began its attack on the middleware threat by proposing to Netscape that it agree not to compete and to divide the browser market. Microsoft wanted Netscape to agree not to offer its browser and APIs for use on Windows 95; in return Microsoft would agree not to compete with Netscape on browsers developed for other, niche operating systems. Netscape rejected Microsoft's proposal. Over time, Microsoft made similar efforts to enter into illegal market-division agreements, or took other anticompetitive action, with Intel, Apple, and IBM.

Unable to protect its monopoly through illegal agreements not to compete with its rivals, Microsoft engaged in a predatory and anticompetitive campaign effectively to exclude those rivals from the market or, at the least, to impede and weaken them so that they would no longer present serious threats. As part of its campaign, firms such as Compaq that assisted Microsoft in excluding its rivals were rewarded with lower prices and better technical and marketing support for Windows. In contrast, companies such as IBM, Gateway, and Apple that refused to exclude Microsoft's rivals or that distributed competing products were threatened or actually penalized with higher prices and inferior support for Windows or the loss of other, critical Microsoft products. Microsoft Targeted Netscape and Java

Microsoft also entered into a variety of other restrictive agreements with OEMs, Internet access providers, and Internet content providers, all of which made it substantially more difficult for Netscape to distribute its browser and raised its costs. None of these agreements served any legitimate business purpose. In addition, Microsoft gave its browser away for free, without any expectation or basis for believing that it could defray the huge development, promotion, and distribution costs associated with Internet Explorer other than by entrenching its operating system monopoly.

Microsoft's predatory campaign has caused significant anticompetitive effects, has injured consumers, and threatens to cause even greater harm in the future. Microsoft's conduct has succeeded in blunting cross-platform middleware threats and thereby maintaining the applications barrier to entry. Microsoft substantially impeded the most effective channels of distribution for both Netscape and Java, raised its rivals' costs, and, ultimately, effectively eliminated Netscape as a platform threat, further entrenching and maintaining Microsoft's operating system monopoly. By hampering and weakening Netscape, Microsoft's predatory conduct has also dangerously threatened monopolization of the market for Internet browsers. ff782bc1db