The Anti-Trust Case Against Microsoft
- Date Submitted: 01/28/2010 06:29 AM
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Since 1990, a battle has raged in United States courts between the
United States
government and the Microsoft Corporation out of Redmond, Washington,
headed by Bill
Gates. What is at stake is money. The federal government maintains that
Microsoft's
monopolistic practices are harmful to United States citizens, creating
higher prices and
potentially downgrading software quality, and should therefore be
stopped, while
Microsoft and its supporters claim that they are not breaking any laws,
and are just doing
good business.
Microsoft's antitrust problems began for them in the early months
of 1990(Check
1), when the Federal Trade Commission began investigating them for
possible violations
of the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts,(Maldoom 1) which are designed
to stop the
formation of monopolies. The investigation continued on for the next three
years without
resolve, until Novell, maker of DR-DOS, a competitor of Microsoft's
MS-DOS, filed a
complaint with the Competition Directorate of the European Commission in
June of 1993.
(Maldoom 1) Doing this stalled the investigations even more, until finally
in August of
1993, (Check 1)the Federal Trade Commission decided to hand the case over
to the
Department of Justice. The Department of Justice moved quickly, with Anne
K.
Bingaman, head of the Antitrust Division of the DOJ, leading the
way.(Check 1) The case
was finally ended on July 15, 1994, with Microsoft signing a consent
settlement.(Check 1)
The settlement focused on Microsoft's selling practices with
computer
manufacturers. Up until now, Microsoft would sell MS-DOS and Microsoft's
other
operating systems to original equipment manufacturers (OEM's) at a 60%
discount if that
OEM agreed...
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