Microsoft has over 90% of the desktop OS and Office software markets. It’s impossible to come up with a reasonable definition of monopoly that doesn’t include them in those markets.
Is Microsoft abusing their market position to keep competitors out of the market?
Laughs in edge ignoring browser preferences screwing over firefox
laughs in constantly returning widgets, Microsoft reward currency on the start menu, forced telemetry.
Laughs in teams bundling.
Laughs in the coming super monopoly of cross domain AI finetuning in teams.
Lol, by the standards of the last century, they are worse than what did them in in the 90s
If there was a company that controlled 100% of a market, but was committing no "abuse", that's still a problem.
We want competition. If there is no competition, then evidently conditions that prevent competition exist.
Also, as the 90s Microsoft case showed, just having a monopoly isn’t bad. It’s the harm caused by having the monopoly. Back in the 90s, Microsoft was found to harm other browsers.
[0] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
But I think if Standard had 64% in the beginning and there was a competitive market, they would not have been broken up.
[0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-evolution-standard-oi...
As to when the case started, it’s impossible to know what the minimum threshold was. It could just as easily been well below 64% as people where in monopoly busting push at the time.
Can you elaborate your thoughts here because the point of breaking up companies with monopolistic power is they cannot be divorced from monopolistic abuse of that power. It is written into US law that the company has a legal duty to it's shareholders. It seems your point is a distinction without a difference.
And duty to shareholders would actually mean that management would not abuse their monopoly power because of the risk of breakup.
The legal duty to shareholders doesn't mean that companies need to violate the law. In reality, saying " we don't abuse our market position to avoid regulatory scrutiny" is acting in the interests of shareholders, and a lawsuit wouldn't go further. Otherwise you'd be saying that companies had a duty to break all laws in pursuit of shareholder value, which is obviously silly.
And yeah under us law you have to prove consumer harm or anticompetitive practice, not just having a significant market majority.
What do you think this looks like in practice? Because it makes logical sense to me that monopolistic companies would use their monopolistic power to come as close as they can with anti competitive behavior without attracting scrutiny which is why you break them up in the first place. And it's not theoretical, there are many examples not least of which is Microsoft.
It's not though!
The legal duty is to act in the best interests of shareholders. Avoiding the risk of regulatory scrutiny is in the interests of shareholders. The way a lawsuit like this would work is that you'd go to discovery and short of the CEO explicitly stating that they were tanking share prices (and not disclosing that at the time), the lawsuit would get thrown out.
> monopolistic power
What is monopolistic power that isn't anticompetitive? Either what you're saying here is "Companies would engage in anticompetitive behavior and avoid scrutiny" in which case that's a regulatory failing, or you're saying "companies would engage in legal practices I personally dislike, and not attract scrutiny as a result", which is totally fine.
> And it's not theoretical, there are many examples not least of which is Microsoft
I'm not sure what you're saying, Microsoft wasn't broken up.
I am saying this isn't theory. That this happens basically any time a company has monopolistic power. We cannot expect companies to behave altruistically (nor should we, the purpose of a corporation is to make a profit).
> "Companies would engage in anticompetitive behavior and avoid scrutiny" in which case that's a regulatory failing
Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. And the regulatory response is to break the company apart or provide a public service that meets the need of the public if the monopoly is natural.
The legal duty is to maximize shareholder value. Because that is the only interest of a shareholder. I am aware I'm repeating myself here but that necessarily means the company must behave in a way that they maximize their profit under the law as it currently stands regardless of morality/ethics. Given the US government has not done any monopoly control since I can remember, avoiding regulatory scrutiny is a farcical risk.
The original point we were discussing is that private monopolies by themselves can be okay but monopolistic manipulation should be punished. And I disagree with that point because monopolies (and any company) must maximize their profit. Nevermind the legal duty to their shareholders, companies must maximize profit.
Their market has been shrinking due to the rise of tablets and smartphones (so a majority of the population doesn't need PCs at home beyond certain professionals, gamers and hobbyists)
They do have a large business market share, but that is also shrinking as many "modern" businesses diversify with Apple computers due to employees growing up with them.
Depending on stats, it has fallen from 90% to 75% in a decade and will most likely continue to fall. This is part of the business case for Microsoft to make their software work cross-platform in order to diversify.
Otherwise their position is a natural monopoly. Companies opted to all use Windows because there are certain economies of scale that occur when you all standardize on the same software, including, and this is the biggest one, your employees not needing to relearn whatever ridiculous snowflake UI scheme came up by each different linux distro. It's why Windows and macOS will continue to remain dominant in the PC space.
The same goes for Office 365. Sure there are certain elements of it that are a bit _too pushy. But companies buy into it because it's one standardized and integrated system. Going elsewhere has overhead of increased training costs for end users and even the IT admin side.
EDIT: OP eventually clarified in the thread that they're talking about piracy. So apparently the argument is that because Microsoft products can be pirated, Microsoft isn't a monopoly. Make of that what you will.
And also as a small fish the higher OEM price is being subsidised by the Fortune 500 companies which buy millions of dollars worth of products from Dell etc.
Edit: The idea that OEMs only tack on the extra cost to big companies is demonstrably false. For one thing, margins per-item are always lower on bulk purchases, not higher—Fortune 500 do not pay list price on anything. For another, you can see the difference in cost on the Dell XPS 13 by switching between Linux and Windows:
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/xps-13-plus-dev...
Computers that don't offer a Linux option just all come with that $149 surcharge baked in.
You get Windows for free from the combo of self-assemble + torrenting + Microsoft not pursuing individual users for piracy
> > Dell XPS 13
And that is what I said, if you don't assemble the thing yourself buy the cheapest option from an OEM and then you can get Microsoft products for free if you are a wise guy.
And Microsoft tolerates it.