To date, Microsoft has attempted to restrict the vision of the case to a narrow interpretation of the June 2001 Court of Appeals ruling that found the company illegally maintained a monopoly in Intel-based operating systems. The narrow interpretation would limit the case to Microsoft's past actions during the so-called browser wars. But Shapiro argued that, from an economics perspective, only a remedy that looked beyond the scope of the case would adequately ensure that competition is restored. He identified what he called two defining characteristics about the Microsoft antitrust case. "The case is about the illegal defense of a monopoly in the face of a threat that might have eliminated the monopoly power, not about the creation of a monopoly," Shapiro testified. He also focused on how the technologies that posed a threat to Microsoft's Windows monopoly had changed dramatically since the case was brought in May 1998. He noted that the threats posed to Windows in the past by the browser and Java are different from those in the future and difficult to identify. "An effective remedy must be forward-looking and not merely focus on the particular products or technologies that posed a threat five years ago," Shapiro testified. "No remedy can be effective if confined to browsers and Java." Shapiro used marketing analyst forecasts and other data to identify some of the potential middleware products an appropriate remedy must protect, such as media players. He went on to describe specifics ways the litigating states' remedy proposal would benefit competing products, such as the Linux operating system. Microsoft, which enjoys more than a 90 percent market share in desktop productivity applications with its Office suite, does not offer the product for Linux. The proposed auction mechanism would ensure that "the companies that are the most capable of performing the porting and those with complementary products, especially operating systems," would benefit most from Office compatibility, Shapiro testified. The states' remedy proposal that would compel Microsoft to give away the source code to its Internet Explorer browser "will help Linux overcome the applications barrier to entry," Shapiro testified. The same provision would also benefit rival companies developing competing middleware technologies, he added. He went on to explain how Microsoft uses its monopoly in client operating systems to the disadvantage of server rivals. Linux is one of those threats to Windows in the server market.
Think it's all over? The antitrust case against Microsoft can still go back the to Court of Appeals, and then there's the European Commission's investigation... See ZDNet UK's DoJ/Microsoft News Section for the latest headlines.
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