Author(s)
James DeLong
Source
Washington Legal Foundation, 2007
Summary
This paper looks at how Europe’s case against Microsoft affects high tech firms.
Policy Relevance
The arguments upholding the European Commissions's (EC) competition law claims against Microsoft are poor. Firms must fear being named "dominant" and forced to share their assets, which will deter investment and growth by leading firms.
Main Points
- The EC ruling that a server running a different system must run when dropped into a cloud of Windows servers ignores benefits to consumers of a market for linked groups of servers.
- The case was based on a complaint made by Sun Microsystems in 1998, but punishes Microsoft for gains in market share made much later.
- Microsoft is required to share key technology with rivals. Open source software firms are expected to benefit from this. Open source might now depend on Microsoft engineering.
- The claim that Microsoft’s Media Player should not have been distributed with the Windows operating system shows authorities do not understand this market. European authorities seem poised to object merely to the integration of one product into another.
