The Conclusions of Law 3
The Conclusions of Law 3
Microsoft also addressed the allegations
that Microsoft holds a monopoly over PC operating systems and has turned to
unfair means to maintain that monopoly. The market, as defined by the DOJ, that
Microsoft is alleged to hold a monopoly over is too small, says Microsoft. By
defining the relevant market to include only PC operating systems, you eliminate
many of the major competitors to the Windows platform, including all of the
competitors that the DOJ alleges Microsoft harmed in order to maintain its
monopoly—Sun’s Java and Netscape’s Navigator are not operating systems,
they are a programming language and a web browser, respectively, and Intel’s
Native Signal Processing isn’t even software at all, but a processor
technology.
Furthermore, Microsoft points out that the existence of a monopoly also requires that the monopolist hold the power to restrict output and control prices, neither of which they claim to have. And, even if a monopoly does exist, Microsoft says they have no incentive to misbehave in the traditional way. An operating system is only as good as the programs developed to run on it, and the only way to attract developers to a platform is by creating a common, open environment. The best way to do that is to produce abundant amounts of a cheap platform and distribute technical information freely to developers.