monopolies and antitrust law

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Monopoly and Anti-Trust Laws
Growth to Monopoly
Microsoft is one of the world’s software companies that have had a monopoly of the market. Monopolies do not just sprout out overnight. A combination of business tactics, weaknesses, and challenges by competitors, and shoddy techniques enhances companies rise as a monopoly in the market. This is also evident in the rise of Microsoft as a software developer monopoly. When Microsoft was established there, IBM was the monopoly in the software and hardware development market. They licensed their first product that had been previously bought from a smaller company to IBM. Through this, IBM ceded control of the software development to Microsoft. When Microsoft produced its first product, MS-DOS it was new in the industry and did not have control over the market (Eisenach 2012). Decades after in the 1980s saw the control of the market with collaboration with Intel. The introduction of windows builds its ground to become a software monopoly. The release of Excel and Word for Windows was well accepted receiving massive reviews, which saw the company, became the top seller in those categories.
The company used its control over the operating system and graphical user interface markets to enhance its growth in the application market. Their developers took advantage of the operating system before other developers and this enhanced their control blossom. The new technologies were only available to other developers after they had incorporated it into their products.

Through allowing applications, developers have the upper hand over the third party developers; the company controlled a significant advantage that resulted in application dominance. In 1990, the company subsequently used their dominance and resources to diversify in other products. The company also tried to use shady techniques such as the purchase of Intuit and the union between Microsoft network and Windows 95. This put the market at risk of innovation and competition.
Anti-Trust Laws
Antitrust charges were filed against the company by the department of justice in 1998. The charges were meant to determine whether the company’s bundling of additional programs in its operating system had monopolistic characteristics. This was a result of the collapse of Netscape, which was Microsoft’s closest competitor when Microsoft began to offer free browser software (Eisenach 2012).
The case was characterized by problems as questions were raised as for whether the charges should have been filed against Microsoft, and there were a range of options where consumers could choose but opted to use Microsoft for its ease and compatibility to most devices. Government accusations against Microsoft were that it made it hard for users to install other competitive software. Misleading statement and distractions characterized the case. There were also attempts to seek the president intervene into the matter in support of Microsoft.
Microsoft lost in the case with a ruling that the company was to divide into two, operating system and Software Company. This had some significance in the sales of the company as they drastically reduced.

Work Cited
Eisenach, Jeffrey A., and Thomas M. Lenard, eds. Competition, Innovation, and the Microsoft Monopoly: Antitrust in the Digital Marketplace: Proceedings of a conference held by The Progress & Freedom Foundation in Washington, DC February 5, 1998. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.