MSFT -- Should the DOJ Break it up? Message Board

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Technology Stocks : MSFT -- Should the DOJ Break it up?

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To: HerbertOtto who wrote (51)	5/7/1998 3:52:00 PM
From: Jon Stept	of 144

DOJ- The IBM Precedent I got this from the IBM site. Let me know if it is slanted/biased/ wrong. Knowing what DOJ historical tendencies are will help predict what they will do with Microsoft. I will also get the ATT history. This example illustrates anti-trust principles. 1. The inability to purchase one product (Win95/punch cards) unless the another product is purchased/displayed (explorer/punch card machines). 2. Competitors start anti-trust cases (as opposed to citizen action groups, etc...). Disregarding technical feasibility, do you think if IBM built into the punch card machine a punch card creator that eliminated the need to buy punch cards that the DOJ would have made the same decision against IBM? (To create a more accurate analogy to the Explorer embedded in Win95). In my opinion, no. Jon :) ---------------------------------------------------- The Justice Department filed an antitrust case against IBM and Remington-Rand in 1932, alleging that the two companies, which controlled virtually the entire market for punch card machines, were illegally requiring customers to buy their punch cards. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the Justice Department in 1936. In subsequent years, IBM's size and success would inspire numerous antitrust actions. A 1952 suit by the Justice Department, settled four years later, forced IBM to sell its tabulating machines -- at the time, IBM offered them only through leases -- in order to establish a competing, used-machine market. Another federal antitrust suit dragged on for thirteen years until the Justice Department concluded it was "without merit" and dropped it in 1982. IBM's competitors filed 20 antitrust actions during the 1970s. None succeeded. ---------------------------------------------

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