From: Waider (waider at domain dspsrv.com)
Date: Wed 17 Oct 2001 - 09:25:39 IST
According to cybersean3000 at domain yahoo.com:
> Keep these things in mind:
>
> * Microsoft has over 90% of the desktop market, yet the American
> government has difficulty declaring it a monopoly. IBM and Standard Oil
> were declared monopolies and broken up with a much lower percentage of
> market share.
This gets a bit tiring after seeing it so many times.
You do not automatically fall foul of monopoly law by holding the greatest
(or in fact, the only) market share. The so-called monopoly laws are
concerned with how you behave once you /are/ the majority `shareholder' of
a given market. It is a simple matter of arithmetic to prove that a company
holds the biggest share of a market; it is far more difficult to prove that
they are abusing that position, no matter how obvious it is to `everyone'.
The EU have been equally as slow to do anything about Microsoft, as have any
other given nation you care to choose. I guess they're all part of the
conspiracy.
The law is designed to protect as well as prosecute. If the law were instead
designed to simply declare a holder of > 50% market share to be a monopoly
and thus a target for litigation, you would be disposing of the principle
of innocent until proven guilty.
It's the price of a fair system - some good guys get caught out, and some
bad guys get away.
Waider. I'm not, of course, suggesting the system is even remotely fair.
-- waider at domain dspsrv.com / Chances are I'm not at home right now.
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