[ Thanks to ll for this
link. ]
“Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has ruled that Microsoft is a
monopoly. Many see the verdict as unique because of its
high-technology spin. But it is not that extraordinary. Antitrust
law has been on a long and winding road since it was invented a
century ago, and corporations in the past have found themselves in
much the same kind of trouble that Microsoft is in today. The
antitrust analogy that most resembles the Microsoft case is the
1945 Alcoa Aluminum prosecution, which forced the divestiture of
Alcoa’s Canadian holdings.”
“Is Microsoft really a predatory monopoly that vanquishes
rivals? There’s no doubt that the economic mechanism known as
“network effects” — which amps up the value of a system as it
acquires more users — has intensified Microsoft’s market power and
bolstered its Herring 100 standing because of the ubiquity of its
Windows operating system. But Microsoft is hardly invulnerable. It
lagged badly in the “browser war” with Netscape in the early ’90s.
Microsoft was able to catch up only by recognizing its mistake and
developing its own high-quality browser. Even two of Microsoft’s
most avid foes, Silicon Valley lawyer Gary Reback and Oracle CEO
Larry Ellison, have admitted that it’s possible to compete
successfully with Microsoft. Industry leaders have been vanquished
before. It happened when IBM was the tech world’s big kahuna.
Free-market competition, which the economist Joseph Schumpeter
memorably defined as “creative destruction,” reduced IBM’s market
power, with Intel and Microsoft as the destroying forces. Now
competition via the Internet from Linux and other open-source
operating systems is carving away Microsoft’s power in the industry
— something that will continue.”
“Microsoft will evolve or devolve. It should be free to do
either without a shove from the government. Although the
antitrust laws have been around since Congress passed the Sherman
Act in 1890, economists have argued for decades that the laws
should be cut back or even tossed onto the junk heap of failed
public policy.”