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Microsoft Corporation is one of the most famous firms that are monopolistic in structure. However, Microsoft’s behavior as a monopoly was put to a case that questions its practices and actions in maintaining its market power and position. It violated the antitrust laws by spending a massive amount of money in improving the version of its browser software and placed it out in the market intensively by incorporating it with windows, pricing it at zero and paying the online service providers and personal computer manufacturers to distribute it to as many consumers.
According to Benjamin Klein(The Microsoft Case:What can a Dominant Firm Do to Defend its Market Position 2001) and Michael D. Whinston (Exclusisvity and Tying in U.S. v. Microsoft 2001), The government claimed that these competitive actions of Microsoft was due to the fear of Netscape’s Navigator browser software with the combination of Java software from Sun Microsystems becoming an alternative platform of users. Both researchers said that the government thinks that if that happens, Microsoft would encounter a significant competitiveness with any operating systems linked to Navigator that might lessen the necessity of using Explorer. The article of B. Klein said that these anticompetitive actions of Microsoft led to the fundamental policy question of to what extent should be placed on a dominant firm’s ability to compete aggressively in defending its market position. This question was analyzed in Microsoft’s four competitive actions that affected the use of Internet Explorer relative to Navigator. The first one was Microsoft’s extensive investments in browser technology, second was its pricing of zero o Internet Explorer, the third one ...