Microsoft Antitrust Case: 10 Years Later

[Reid Kistler]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-a-decade-of-antitrust-oversight-has-changed-your-pc/2191' target='_blank'>http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/how-...ed-your-pc/2191</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"It was 10 years ago this week that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered Microsoft split in two as a remedy for abusing its Windows monopoly. That judgment was tossed out on appeal, but the eventual antitrust settlement has had plenty of repercussions. From crapware to insecurity, here's ... what 10 years of antitrust regulation has really accomplished." </em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1276276330.usr19541.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>Columnist Ed Bott, at ZDNET.COM, finds four "significant developments" that he thinks have resulted from the now over 10-year-old United States v. Microsoft antitrust case. Two of these are mentioned in the above summary (increased "crapware," and decreased security); read his article for the other two, along with additional interesting thoughts, including his assessment of the three technology companies that exercise "effective monopolies" in specific market areas. For more background on the case, the Public Broadcasting Corporation's <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/jan-june00/microsoft_ruling_6-7.html" target="_blank">Online NewsHour</a> makes a good reference - or you can go directly to the source: the US Department of Justice <a href="http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/ms_index.htm" target="_blank">"Current Case"</a> site, which shows eleven case related documents in 2009 alone! In theory, this was a major antitrust settlement: How well did it work?&nbsp; (Are "we" - the computing public - better off because of it?)&nbsp; Do you agree with Ed Bott's assessment of the fallout?</p>

[doogald]

Ed Bott seems to have forgotten that Microsoft entered into a consent decree with the DOJ not to bundle an app like IE within their OS if they previously charged for it. Neither Apple nor Google are under any sort of consent decree. They are obviously both under scrutiny, probably always. Microsoft had a history before the consent decree, which was why they entered into it, and they had the stones to break it.

Firefox was popular, especially among the tech enthusiast crowd, long before 2008 - I was using it in 2004, and it hit 10% share in 2006 - still more than Chrome. As for the webkit browsers, they grew out of Linux, and I think that neither Linux, webkit, or Firefox would be nearly as successful as they are had the antitrust case never happened.

[ptyork]

Doog, he's not forgetting anything. Whether MS was at fault never really came up in the article. They screwed up. Not as bad as the punishment would seem to indicate, though. Bundling IE with a bunch of other stuff for 6 months in a $30 "plus pack" despite it being free to download all along might break the letter of the consent decree, but certainly not the intent. Browsers were never going to be successful as for-fee software. They were inevitably going to need to be bundled as the internet became more and more an integral part of the core computing experience. MS just recognized it sooner. Regardless, the point of the article is not that MS didn't mess up but rather that the backlash from the settlement made things much worse for consumers, not better. And with that I agree. The only winner was Apple who was all but dead, but was able to capitalize on Microsoft's spanking and offer what Microsoft wanted to offer (i.e., a complete, elegant, bundled computing solution) somehow without fear of litigation--at least to date.

As for Firefox being viable in 2004, read it again. He said a THIRD viable competitor didn't arrive until 2008 (i.e., Chrome). Point being that decent competition was slow in arriving. And for good reason. It doesn't make much money to produce expensive software and give it away unless you've got a good business model around it. That took a long time to develop. Thank goodness it's here, though.

As for Linux being better off in a post-settlement world, well, I've actually published a number of papers on the open source world and this simply isn't the case. We didn't see Dell and Gateway make a mad rush to competing operating systems when the settlement came down. In fact we DID see them stick a toe in the water, but you are hard pressed to buy much of anything pre-loaded with Linux (or any open source software) today. With few exceptions, OSS is made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. And quite frankly, an "evil" Microsoft was far better for the vibrancy of the OSS world than the new "tamed", cooperative Microsoft.

[Jason Dunn]

Personally, I think the whole thing damaged the corporate psyche of Microsoft in a big way: it made them risk-adverse, and lawyer-focused.