Word: microsoft
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...finding that Microsoft is a monopoly was a legal no-brainer, once the court accepted the government's narrow definition of the relevant market: PC operating-systems software. If Microsoft--which owns more than 90% of that market--isn't a monopoly, then nobody is. Microsoft tried to argue that its Windows operating system was under constant threat and could be made obsolete at any moment. But the competitors it listed hardly seemed like giant killers. Upstart Linux, the open-source operating system that Microsoft speaks of so fearfully, currently runs less than 3% of all PCs. Even...
...ruling goes on to detail the ways in which Microsoft used its monopoly power to bludgeon the competition. If you liked the trial, you'll love the judge's greatest-hits collection of Microsoft skulduggery: binding its Internet Explorer browser into Windows just to beat out Netscape, bullying Intel into staying out of the software market, polluting Sun Microsystems' Java programming language to diminish the competitive threat it posed to Windows, threatening IBM. And Compaq. And Apple...
...Microsoft likes to say its hypercompetitive business practices hurt rivals, not consumers. But Jackson found that Microsoft was so quick to crush any perceived threats that countless technology products that should have been developed died stillborn. "The ultimate result," he wrote, "is that some innovations that would truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason that they do not coincide with Microsoft's self-interest." Even more devastating, Jackson found that in its rush to make life tough for its competitors, Microsoft was actually willing to diminish the quality of its own products. Bundling a Web browser into Windows...
What do these thousands of facts add up to? More than likely an architectural blueprint for finding that Microsoft did indeed willfully and repeatedly violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. In their Friday-night spinathon, Microsoft's legal experts hastened to point out that this conclusion is not a certainty. In fact, the judge could still find that the mountains of incriminating evidence he laid out don't support a legal ruling against Microsoft...
...Microsoft is found to have violated the law, then what? Klein and his troops are scrupulously avoiding talking about a remedy (though they've had experts on retainer for months sorting through the options). The gamut of possible outcomes runs from a mild go-forth-and-sin-no-more to the truly Draconian stuff: forcing Microsoft to share its Windows source code with its competitors or carving up the company into the so-called Baby Bills (see chart). A judge's findings of fact are often a good indication of how far he's willing to go. It's like...