The United States v. Microsoft Corporation is a very famous antitrust lawsuit that represents a successful government regulation that prevents a strong corporation’s incentives and attempts to gain dominant market power. This case is ultimately settled by Department of Justice, “where Microsoft Corporation was accused of becoming a monopoly”. To be specific, the court claim that the Microsoft violates the second article of the Sherman Act by “engaging in a series of exclusionary, anticompetitive, and predatory acts to maintain its monopoly power” (NY times). Overall, the main problem that the Microsoft is accused of is the abuse of its market in attempt to gain monopoly by using anticompetitive strategy to hurt or obstruct potential …show more content…
(Fisher 36) Microsoft makes this decision not to achieve efficiency. Instead, Microsoft uses this as a strategy to illegally avoid competition. The main problem here is not about the bundled version of windows with IE. It is that Microsoft eliminates people’s opportunities to use other browsers. Consumers under this condition have to consume IE browser in order to get service provided windows system. This decision harms consumers in different ways. The consumer is harmed because their options are restricted. Also the bundling hurts consumers by “unnecessarily cumbersome operating system, and by the limited options of those who preferred not to use a browser” (Fisher 37). This action also blocks the technology improvement, the profit maximization of OEMs and the other browser corporations to enter the market as Microsoft requires all OEMs who want to preinstall windows system have to also install IE system. The restrictive agreement “limited the ability of OEMs to promote other browsers, or to substitute other browsers for IE” (Fisher 38), which harms the benefit of OEMs as they could have use other browser more efficient than IE, a browser that is well know for low capability, to create more profit and maximize their utility. For this part, the Microsoft does abuse its market power to harm many