Well, explicit or not, I believe most business deals are made by a company seeking to enhance its market position with respect to a competitor. Whether or not Bill Gates said, "undermine Sun," I think it's fairly obvious that Microsoft intended to gain the upper hand in Java, so I don't understand the DOJ's contention of this being a "smoking gun." By the same token, it's obvious that Sun and Friends have been doing everything possible to "undermine Microsoft," so what's the big deal?
In this light, nothing Microsoft did to Netscape with Apple is illegal, and similar deals are being struck throughout the industry with each passing day. The DOJ's problem with the Msft/Aapl deal, however, is that they think Microsoft is a monopoly and leveraging its monopoly position to harm competitors.... I disagreed with this notion vis-a-vis Microsoft Office, which I do not believe is a monopoly product.
The real question here is not the deals themselves, but the fact that it's Microsoft doing the deals. Not only must the DOJ prove that "Microsoft have a monopoly," but I think they'll should have to do so for specific products, as well as determine that X-monopoly was acquired illegally. Those questions will determine the structure of Microsoft's business dealings going forward. Clearly, the deals themselves are not anti-competitive; otherwise, everyone in the industry would be facing violations of some sort.
Are things like the ABM Alliance ("Anyone But Microsoft") fair/legal? I believe so. But I also believe that Microsoft's dealings with Apple, AOL, and others are fair/legal as well. |
