> Microsoft’s case was about parlaying their monopoly in Windows to the browser space by making Internet Explorer an intrinsic part of Windows.
Nope, they have been accused and sentenced of abusing their dominant position by forcing OEMs to pre install IE on Windows, before the integration started.
The way MS force them was with restrictive licenses that practically threatened OEMs to do what MS ordered or face legal consequences and risk to go out of business.
The second accusation was that MS used internals secret API for their product not available to third parties giving MS an unfair advantage.
Those API were also shared among few OEMs that helped MS secure its dominant position.
> Law professor Eben Moglen noted that the way Microsoft was required to disclose its APIs and protocols was useful only for “interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product”
The third of their anticompetitive behavior was to pay some OEMs to not install (or offer to customers) other operating systems on their hardware (including BeOS, for example)
"Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market."
The cases are not even close to being in the same league.
Microsoft didn’t force OEMs to preinstall IE: it came with the Plus! pack in Win95 which was optional. IE shipped preinstalled on the OSR1 distributions in late 1995. OEMs couldn’t uninstall it. MS saw IE as a feature, nor a product. The DOJ disagreed. And yes, the API arguments were the other factor of the consent decree violation.
Apple:
- has no consent decree to violate
- is not being anticompetitive by taking a retail cut on a store for its own platform (ISVs are free to go exclusively Android); Google is free to drop its retail cut, 3rd party stores on Android exist, and also the browser exists and is arguably completely unrestricted.
- should be allowed the freedom to admit apps on its platform to better the consumer experience.
Interfering with this collapses the whole security and curation value add of the App Store, or relegates it to a 3rd party with different incentives, or declares that Apple’s store is the only one where ISVs make money and therefore must become a utility because ISVs want more margin.
Good luck with arguing this. It will take 5+ years or more to legislate properly, and I suspect parliaments have bigger problems to deal with.
If one wanted to chase Apple for anticompetitive behavior it would be to do some amazing stuff in-browser with things like WASM, streaming, etc. and argue that Apple is blocking those innovations with its Safari mandatory policy to force people to use its App Store and native APIs. That’s the closest where I can see this argument holding water.
> When Apple starts OEMing iPhones, get back to me.
> The cases are not even close to being in the same league.
- MS was sentenced for making the software, not the hardware
- MS was abusing the dominant position to be the only OS on the HW, just like iOS is the solely possible OS on Apple HW and Apple store is the sole possible distributor of iOS apps, because Apple is abusing of its dominant position in the Apple ecosystem market (which is IMO a separate market from Android). If there were OEMs there would be at least competition in the HW space, like there was in the pc that drove down the prices for end users.
> Microsoft didn’t force OEMs to preinstall IE: it came with the Plus! pack in Win95
I firmly believed on HN arguments were not thrown around without backing them up with facts
It all started before Win95 was even around...
> In 1993, Novell claimed that Microsoft was blocking its competitors out of the market through anti-competitive practices. The complaint centered on the license practices at the time which required royalties from each computer sold by a supplier of Microsoft's operating system, whether or not the unit actually contained the Windows operating system. Microsoft reached a settlement in 1994, ending some of its license practices.
> The DOJ disagreed.
That's the US case
You know Europe has over 700 million citizens, you should remember that thing happens over here as well sometimes...
> - is not being anticompetitive by taking a retail cut on a store for its own platform
nobody has said that
Apple is a monopolist on a closed platform that they refuse to open up to third parties while at the same time acting as gatekeeper by allowing or disallowing apps on the store at their whim
that's clearly an unfair advantage for Apple the software company exactly like MS using secret OS Apis of their operating system to write their software had an unfair advantage (and was sentenced for that)
> argue that Apple is blocking those innovations with its Safari mandatory policy
It's the same circular argument
[1] Apple is blocking third parties from distributing their software freely AND [2] is hindering user's freedom by not allowing to replace certain parts of their system (like for example the browser) even though they allegedly are a source of vulnerabilities because [1]
That's the same thing MS did by making IE undeletable
Microsoft had 90% market share in the operating system market and that is why they lost their case. Apple has less than 50% market share in the United States and it's unlikely the courts would view them as having monopoly power. The case is even weaker in Europe where Apple only has 25% market share.
It does not make sense to point to Microsoft and declare "these situations are the same" when there is a key difference in the amount of market power each company wields.
> Microsoft had 90% market share in the operating system market
only in the consumer market...
it is not the same argument people use right now for Apple?
"Buy Android" they say
People could buy Sun, SGI, IBM with OS/2, Macintosh computers etc. etc.
in 1993 even Amiga was a viable option
The point is that the alternative is not really an alternative if switching is expensive or straight impossible (it's very hard to switch from iOS to Android)
> It does not make sense to point to Microsoft and declare "these situations are the same" when there is a key difference in the amount of market power each company wields.
Microsoft in 1995 was ranked below place 250 in Fortune's 500 list
Apple is 3rd in 2020 and the company with the highest capitalization in the history of the stock market
I think that makes for pretty important key differences too ...
Market power is a specific term used in economics relating to how much control a company has over the price of a good or service. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_power)
It does not have anything to do with stock market rankings.
Microsoft had a very large amount of market power in the operating system market, high enough that it was considered monopoly power, and that is why they lost their case.
What you fail to understand is that money is power
Especially when money can be used to
- buy competitors
- put them out of business
- sue them on the most insignificant detail
- sue other small companies just because they use a different fruit in their logo. Why? Because you have money and you can! (see prepear logo fight for reference)
- stall job market to keep workers from going to competitors (see Apple and Google's wage-fixing cartel involved dozens more companies, over one million employees)
- abuse your market position, fines in the range of billions are peanuts for you (see French antitrust authority fined Apple for 1.2 billions)
etc etc
- did we forget that they have a monopoly in a luxury brand used mainly by managers and very powerful people that involves handling their private data and can exactly "control the price of good and services" on that platform at their will?
Companies that make yachts have no monopoly on means of transport, but they make boats for people like Paul Allen and have much more power than Fiat/Chrysler
Last but not least
You are wrong again
Microsoft lost their case because they ABUSED of their dominant position, that's exactly what Apple is doing in the iOS market
And it's much worse because MS was an outsider at the times, Apple is the richest company in the World
US is not dominating the World because they are better - the contrary is probably true - or have a larger market influence, but because they have more money than anybody else and spend more than anybody else on military budget (also used to spy on allies on civil matters, see USA spying Angela Merkel)
> Microsoft lost their case because they ABUSED of their dominant position, that's exactly what Apple is doing in the iOS market
Microsoft used their monopoly power in the operating system market to forcibly acquire market share in the web browser market. The case against Microsoft was based on their monopoly power.
Apple has no monopoly power so you cannot claim the situations are the same, sorry.
I've made my point. You seem more interested in off-topic ranting rather than engaging in good faith so I'm going to move on.
Nope, they have been accused and sentenced of abusing their dominant position by forcing OEMs to pre install IE on Windows, before the integration started.
The way MS force them was with restrictive licenses that practically threatened OEMs to do what MS ordered or face legal consequences and risk to go out of business.
The second accusation was that MS used internals secret API for their product not available to third parties giving MS an unfair advantage.
Those API were also shared among few OEMs that helped MS secure its dominant position.
> Law professor Eben Moglen noted that the way Microsoft was required to disclose its APIs and protocols was useful only for “interoperating with a Windows Operating System Product”
The third of their anticompetitive behavior was to pay some OEMs to not install (or offer to customers) other operating systems on their hardware (including BeOS, for example)
"Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market."
Does it sound similar to what Apple does today?