Microsoft and the Government essays

Microsoft and the Government essays On May 30, 1990, the Federal Trade Commission opened up an antitrust investigation on the Microsoft Corporation on charges that the companys pricing policy pertaining to their Windows Operation System illegally thwarted competition and that there was hidden code in their operation system that hindered competitive applications to run. Microsoft continues to battle this attempt by the government to regulate to this day. The leading software company in the world provides the software for nearly half of the worlds websites. The government claim is that the software company continues to practice anti-competitive policies pertaining to the software licensing, thus a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Microsoft simply defends that their practices are all legal and that they are merely trying to innovate their products. Much has been said that if Microsoft controls the majority of the worlds network software, then they are potential controllers of global commerce and content on th e Internet. A deep analysis will be done on the idea that is Microsoft Corporation a good monopoly or bad monopoly. The Microsoft Corporation is the current leader in software licensing not only in the United States, but also globally. Their chief product is their operation system, Windows. But the majority of the accused anti-trust violations come from their actions to control the Internet browser market. On January 22, 2002, AOL Time Warner, Incorporated filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft, accusing the software giant of using illegal practices to remove Netscape Communication Corporation from atop the Internet browser market. According to a recent study by Netcraft, Microsoft controls 49.2% of the actual hardware behind the worlds websites; coming in a distant second-place is Linux controlling 28.5% of the market (Client Server News). Although, one can argue that Microsoft is not a monopoly and does indeed have com...