Today's XKCD: Microsoft
xkcd.com
xkcd.com
Microsoft was a monopoly with 98% of the OS market who was trying to use that monopoly to force their competitors out of business.
Remind me again, what company am I supposed to believe is doing that today? Near 100% market share and uncompetitive practices?
This comic seems like the opposite of http://xkcd.com/774/ - it's trendy to ignore the abuses of Microsoft in the 90s, or to paint some false equivalency that allows you to just ignore stuff.
And as we all know Apple would never use strong arm tactics like excessive patent litigation to try to hamstring its competitors. And thank goodness that they promote an open platform where anyone can run whatever software they want.
Edit: the 95% figure is a bit out of date, however Apple's revenue marketshare in tablets still remains quite high (around 90% in 2011 and even in 2012).
Edit #2: For reference, when Standard Oil was brought to court on anti-trust charges they had a 70% market share. And US Steel in its heydey only controlled 2/3 of the market.
This says 65%: http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/14/ipad-market-share-all-time-hig...
This says 52%: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/10/02/android-co...
Try again?
Also, even if it was 95%, there are clearly competitors with momentum, and you could probably argue that the tablet market isn't really distinct from the smartphone market. But really, it seems like it's way less than 95%. No monopoly.
Although there are no hard and fast rules, to be considered a Monopoly in the UK, for example, you only need to have a minimum 25% market share. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
I'm going by the typical colloquial definition (which might be closer to the real definition outside the UK), that a monopoly is when there's basically just one option and that market dominance can be used to harm competitors and consumers.
It's one of the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions for the OFT to refer a merger to the Competition Commission for investigation under the Enterprise Act[1], if the result would have greater than 25% market share. The other main conditions being that it believes the result would be "a lessening of competition", that it's an important market, etc. That doesn't suddenly make every company with >25% market share a monopoly.
The nearest I can find for the definition of a monopoly, for the purposes of investigating a company on its own (rather than a merger) is "a dominant position in a market"[2], the wording imported from Article 102 TFEU[3].
[1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/40
[2] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/41
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_102_of_the_Treaty_on_th...
This is important because there is an inflection point where you are not allowed to use your monopoly in other markets -- that might be at 95%, but probably not at 75%.
I am making no judgement on their practices -- just correcting market share and when they may or may not be within the law.
The law cares about using earned monopoly power in one market to advantage yourself in another market.
I wasn't able to find web usage stats that are very old. http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/os_marketshar... is the oldest usage-based data I could find, which puts Windows up at around 97% in 2005. I can't imagine it was much lower in the late 90s, given that Macs of that era were pretty shitty and even less people used Linux back then.
And this was also a time when none-Linux Unixes were still still popular, so I would expect some share from them. Linux got a lot of momentum around '98. (Yes, and Macs existed too.) Moreover there was OS/2, BeOS, Irix and whatever... Linux however lost a lot of momentum in the early 2000s when people realized it sucks as a Desktop OS for non-geeks.
90% is well possible I think, but 98%? Never ever.
If I recall correctly, Apple's market share of computer sales were as low as 3% in the 1990s, and that included sales to homes and education.
I'm not sure when Linux gained traction in the server market, but I doubt it was significant prior to 2000.
(And you have to give Microsoft credit for taking the threat seriously, because many people would have dismissed the notion in the 1990s. Today there is no doubt. The open platform created by web browsers has already inflicted the greatest damage to Windows' dominance, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.)
In the 90s (relative to now), Microsoft's scenario involved very specific and identifiable things on which to evaluate the market from an anti-trust point of view. It wasn't just things like 98% of the OS market or browser bundling; these were very concrete things that any person could look at and visibly see. In a fast-growing market without a lot of players, it was easy to see that MSFT was largely the only game in town.
Nowadays it is much more complex. Who cares about OS installations anymore (besides MS Windows division?) Back in the 90s, categories such as search weren't yet a critical part of the mainstream. What about personal data (social networks) or advertising (display/text)? Consider a more granular scenario: when Twitter or Facebook makes an API policy change that forces third-parties who have built upon their API into wholesale business changes, is that anti-competitive? The "low switching costs" that service providers mention isn't quite so cut-and-dried.
It seems to me we could use some evolved thinking on the subject. Continuing to apply the simple metrics used with the MSFT anti-trust evaluation feels outdated.
Apple is a monopoly with 100% of the iOS market and use that monopoly to shut any potential competitor out of the market. Can you buy ebooks from Amazon from Kindle app? No. Can you have a true Firefox browser on iOS? No. Can you buy apps directly from developers? No.
What ever Microsoft did in 90s, is nowhere near as bad as Apple today.
Microsoft didn't "have a monopoly on Internet Explorer" - they had (still have?) a monopoly on COMPUTER OSes, which they used to force-feed everyone with a BROWSER. It would be a monopoly if Apple's iOS ran in 90% of the phones in the world, but that's not the case today (nor in the foreseeable future)...
iOS is not a product(you can't buy it separately, can you?), it's a platform that many developers make a living on. When I am saying iOS market, I am actually saying iOS software market.
As for iOS, you don't HAVE to buy an iphone today. NO ONE is forcing you to develop on it. In fact, less than 1/3 of the smartphone owners do have one - And THAT's the distinction: choice. Argueing "it's the same thing" puts you on the same boat as that chinese clone manufacturer that sued Apple because they "didn't license their OS for anyone": it's THEIR product, they do whatever they want with it.
As for iOS being a product on itself, you're right - it's just the software that powers Apple's hardware, not an "isolated" product. Same as Kindle OS, WebOS or Bada, not the same as Android and Symbian, which are sold/licensed to third parties...
Now, I bought iPhone/iPad because they are the best hardware with some of the best software. I don't REALLY have other choices if I want the same build quality. I don't have a problem that Apple bundles apps for free, I do have a problem when Apple stops me from running software that I really want to have running on my device. Just because he can control everything running on the hardware doesn't mean he can do whatever he wants. Again, whatever this thing should be called, it is far far worse than MS's "monopoly".
Same with Microsoft. Windows 95 kicked all others asses cause they MADE the PC business. Just like Apple did with tablets and iphones. iphones have since gotten saturated with other products, tablets soon to follow. Just like the computer business in the 90s.
This is like saying that your microwave manufacturer has a monopoly on your microwave. Just buy another microwave.
Just kidding. I wish I could though.
"[e]conomic arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom." [1]
On the other hand, Karl Marx saw capitalism as dividing society into the haves and have nots - the haves being the bourgouise with all the wealth, and the have nots being the proleteriat who had none of the wealth. Marx, obviously, was not a fan.
Isn't that pretty much Google's business plan?
More so, the truly anti-competitive behavior of Microsoft (where they effectively bribed OEMs to prevent them using other OSes) didn't receive nearly as much attention.
By the same token, half the crap on a fresh install nowadays doesn't really benefit either although it's hard to say which direction the money is flowing, I suppose if they're charging me less for installing McAffee/ton of ISPs/etc whatever, I'll opt in and remove them. But I still don't have the option or anything..
I don't know why their was no outcry over this.
My guess would be he's criticizing "monopoly as dangerous" accusations in general as silly since Microsoft has fallen so far. But that's kind of a poor argument since Microsoft was punished for monopolistic practices, both de jure and de facto.
This really isn't XKCD's best comic and it's not even funny.
So it is partially about Apple.
[To be more explicit: that is WebKit on mobile devices.]