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Everyone loves the word monopoly....

... yet it seems that very few actually understand what the word means.

I will preface this by saying that I am not a particular Microsoft fan, though I do use their products because for a number of reasons you almost (I did say almost) have to for many business purposes.

"Microsoft as a WHOLE is a monopoly. Period."

With that said, let's consider the definition of the word monopoly. (as taken from dictionary.reference.com)

monopoly (n)

1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: ?Monopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals? (Milton Friedman).

2. Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3.
a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
b. A commodity or service so controlled.


Now sections 2 and 3 definitely do not apply to Microsoft, as there are no laws granting them monopolistic status.

Definition 1, however is quite interesting. It states that a monopoly is when a group maintains EXCLUSIVE control of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.

The only place where Microsoft could be argued to be a monopoly is in the OS market. Some would argue the same in the Office/productivity application market as well, but that's for another discussion.

Microsoft participates in MANY markets: OS, Office software, financial software, internet applications, games, even hardware. The claim that they "as a WHOLE" are a monopoly is amusing. When you walk into a computer game store, can you only buy games produced by Microsoft? Can you only use a mouse manufactured by Microsoft on Windows?

Microsoft in NO WAY has any monopoly in anything internet related. This can be proven by the large number of people using Mozilla and other browsers. Even with e-mail, the number of e-mail servers running Exchange is far inferior to those running unix based e-mail agents. That anyone can claim that Microsoft has a monopoly on e-mail is absurd.

Let's stop throwing around the monopoly buzzword and bring the discussion back to reality.

Posted by: AckItsMe2   Posted on: 06/24/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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