Is Microsoft still a monopoly? Four years ago, Edward N. Albro of PCWorld asked that question. Noting that ever since Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson of the U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C. officially declared Microsoft a monopoly some eleven years ago (eight years at the time of the article), the company has been losing ground to competitors “such as Google and Apple,” as well as their continued battle over antitrust cases in Europe. Ignoring the legal definition of a monopoly, Albro is only interested in Microsoft’s ability to “make the rest of the technology market cower;” the question being, do they still have it? The author noted that even though “Dell now sells PCs loaded with Linux, as do HP, Lenovo, and other PC vendors,” it has little impact due to marginal sales. He also ignores Apple’s continued growth in sales, as “that doesn't mean much to HP, Dell, or other PC vendors. Their livelihood is still tied to selling Windows boxes.” What is import about all of this is the simple fact that these vendors are selling PCs loaded with Linux. Even more so, the fact that “when [Albro] recently bought a Dell desktop for home use, it came preloaded with products from two of Microsoft's most formidable competitors--Google's desktop search service and Mozilla's Firefox” speaks volumes. It appears, as the author argues, that Microsoft is not “using its power to muscle competitors off the desktop.” Among other arguments, Albro argues that Microsoft’s lack of a killer internet strategy, and the continued growth of online applications that perform functions in the same manor as Microsoft Office, will lead to the decline and end of Microsoft’s status as a monopoly. Albro ignores some of the implications of using the internet for every function of your computer, such as the major dangers to privacy and security, but argues a strong point: Microsoft is not acting as aggressive as it used to, and if it doesn’t gear up with innovation, it’s unlikely to survive.
No comments:
Post a Comment