Hacker News Reader

Comment by Havoc | Hacker News Reader

Not MS?

They're all kinda up to the same shenanigans really

Does Microsoft really have any monopolies? They have a big OS market share, but operating systems have become less and less relevant as mobile computing grows. Same deal with office.

Bing is nowhere near the market share as google. Azure competes with AWS and others. Xbox competes with Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft store competes with Steam. IE and edge are also being beaten by Chrome. I think the argument that Microsoft has a monopoly is much less feasible.

One acquaintance of mine that works at MS humorously remarked on the irony of situation along these lines, "Back in the day Microsoft was the Big Bad. But now we're not big in social media, we're not big in advertising or search. All these other companies are taking the heat now - not for our lack of trying to get into these spaces, though (laughs)."

Does Microsoft really have any monopolies?

What's the difference between a monopoly/almost-monopoly and a really deep "moat?"

"...All these other companies are taking the heat now - not for our lack of trying to get into these spaces, though (laughs)."

We're #2. We try harder.

>Same deal with office.

Excel? I'm in the finance world and I can say with confidence that they've got 100% market share.

We use google sheet too. Every day even....for tracking everyone's QuizOfTheDay scores. Great track but not even close to Excel replacement.

That means Microsoft has a better product, that doesn't mean it's a monopoly.

Those two aren't mutually exclusive

You're correct, but in this case it's clear Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on spreadsheets. They just make the best software. They aren't bashing vendors over the head with Excel, etc. IMO the case for Apple or Microsoft being monopolistic is pretty weak compared to Google, Facebook and perhaps Amazon. Apple has a problem because it's such a walled garden. Microsoft generally doesn't have any of the problems the FAANG (sans Netflix) companies have.

This, currently on the front page...sure doesn't sound like Excel is a monopoly https://foundationinc.co/lab/the-saas-opportunity-of-unbundl...

What's the difference between this and Google's "monopoly" on search, which is again based on a superior product (You could argue the same about Facebook, but at least in the search case, there's no network effects tying people to using Google).

This isn't comprehensive, but no one has really talked about Excel being unfairly leveraged to prevent the entry of competitors, gain an unfair advantage in unrelated markets, or exploit its consumers.

Now Google may not have done any of the above with search, but it's likely possible to argue that they have unfairly promoted their own products over others, or "unfairly" chose to not list certain websites.

Google doesn't have a monopoly on search - the supply for search engines has many equally accessible competitors supplying the market.

FB has a monopolistic-power in the network effects like you said, but even then entrants like Snapchat show that the network effects can be gained for new competitors.

Because Google removes consumer choice and forces vendors to play ball with its search platform on Android devices. Microsoft does not make you use Excel on Windows, iOS or Android. Google can cripple your entire company or industry by cutting APIs. You can't do that in Windows, even if Microsoft bans you from volume licensing, you can still install Windows on virtually any machine.

Those two are not mutually exclusive.

Better product for sure. But that doesn't mean it's not a monopoly.

>That means Microsoft has a better product, that doesn't mean it's a monopoly.

Actually that's the text book definition of monopoly.

Monopolies are thus characterized by

* a lack of economic competition to produce the good or service - nobody else is making commercial spreadsheet tools

* a lack of viable substitute goods - all the other stuff (google sheets, openoffice) isn't workable in practice

* high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost - a MS office download costs MS near nothing...selling price is still sky-high.

There are crazy network effects at play which create near insurmountable barriers to entry. Another sure sign of a monopoly vulnerable to monopoly pricing/profits.

I've taken plenty of business law classes, and I've never heard such a thing in terms of what defines a monopoly. Your 1st point is debunked by your second point. Your 2nd point of "isn't workable in practice" is just bunk. For your third point, GSuite costs more per seat than O365 in some cases...so I don't even know what you're talking about.

Spreadsheets are becoming old tech as big data picks up, which is why you're seeing a split in the substitute products.

For smaller datasets, there's online solutions like Google Sheets and Airtable. For larger datasets, there's thousands of different databases that work better than Excel. Either way, consumers have options.

That's what I always thought, but apparently it does now.

A monopoly isn't illegal, not in the US anyways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Mo...:

"First, the alleged monopolist must possess sufficient power in an accurately defined market for its products or services. Second, the monopolist must have used its power in a prohibited way"

My office is on Google docs completely. No point in shelling out the $ for office when you get Google docs as part of enterprise gmail. Bear in mind that just because it has near 100% market share in specific fields doesn't mean it's got 100% market share in aggregate.

MSFT is getting hammered along with the rest, though.

Not to say there aren't things they could probably be investigated for, but in the cases of search, cloud computing, and mobile Microsoft has actually been the 'underdog' competitor. They successfully gained inroads to cloud computing thanks to Azure, but Bing has never had the search market share of Google, and mobile offerings were never Android or iOS. Microsoft as the 'victim' of anti-competitive behavior would have been inconceivable 20 years ago, but technology changes that quickly and if you miss the boat you can find yourself in a very tricky spot.

Azure is like the 2nd biggest cloud. Underdog...I think not.

I mentioned them mostly since it seems odd excluding them more than specific actions they took.

Google is going to get wrecked on anti-trust somewhere though that's for sure. My money is on mobile or browser.

Azure is still incredibly small compared to AWS, and it has plenty of competition. No one is attacking Amazon for having AWS on Antitrust grounds anyhow. It certainly is a cash cow they use to corner other markets, but it by itself is not problematic.

Well, there's plenty of healthy competition between cloud providers. AWS doesn't have the stranglehold on the industry like they do in retail, where you have no choice but to be on Amazon.

Can you provide even a single current example? Or just jumping on the MS-bashing bandwagon 'cause it's fun?

Apple, Facebook, and Google all have current practices that are questionable. Pointing fingers are companies that have already paid their dues is just useless noise.

Is regulation really "one and done"? MS got fined (repeatedly) around 2000 so they're done with regulation?

They at least have shady sales tactics.

Twenty years ago. Please try again. I hope you're constantly held accountable for things you did decades ago.

Going to prison doesn't exempt you from the law from the rest of your life.

No, but it cleans your slate of the crime you committed because you've paid your dues. We don't charge people - or businesses - twice with the same crime.

If anything, their efforts in search and cloud compute delayed or muted the case for monopolistic behavior by others as they can point to MS and say, see, they are competing against us successfully, we’re not the big bad monopolists some claim us to be.

How ironic that they once bailed out Apple to use as their own lightning rod.

They invested $150 million in non-voting stock from Apple, at a time when Apple had $1.2 billion in cash reserves. As part of that Microsoft agreed to support Office on Mac for five year, and Apple agreed to drop their long running lawsuit against Microsoft alleging Microsoft copies the look and feel of Windows.

Apple's business was struggling a bit at the time, but with those cash reserves they were a long way from needing bailing out.

Double jeopardy?

In case this isn't a joke, double jeopardy in the United States applies only to criminal cases, and two antitrust cases against one company need not necessarily be the same offense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com