Case Study - Playing Monopoly Microsoft
Microsoft’s journey towards Monopoly
Summary
The case evolves around the unethical monopolistic actions taken by Microsoft to achieve monopoly. Some major facts in the case are given below –
• In 1980 IBM representative met bill gates for Operating System
• Bill Gates bought Operating System from a friend in $60,000
Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to IBM with condition that it could license it to others too
•1981 IBM started mass production of and MS-DOS became standard Operating System for Personal Computer
•More programmers willing to write programs for MS-DOS
•Network effect of MS-DOS
•MS-DOS increase caused decrease in market share of other
•1984 Apple developed Graphical user interfaces which became very popular
•1987 Microsoft launched Windows for IBM Personal Computer’s that copied Apples GUI features
•Apple sued Microsoft for copying look& feel and lost
•1995 Windows 95, 1998 Windows 98, 2000 Windows Millennium 2002 Windows XP
•2000 Microsoft controlled 90% of Personal Computer Operating System market
•1990’s two threats to Microsoft’s Monopoly: Netscape Navigator, Java
•15 December 1994, Netscape Navigator captured 70% browser market
•May 1995 Sun Microsystems developed java, a platform independent language
•September 1996 Bill gates Asked manager to neutralize java
•Java Netscape Joined forces
•June 1995 Microsoft team met Netscape executives, proposed Browser market division
•MS refused to share code of window 95, Netscape had to wait till it launched to develop its browser for Win 95
•Microsoft developed its own browser Internet Explorer
•Internet Explorer copied Netscape’s many features but failed to capture browser market
•Microsoft required companies using Windows not to remove IE, not to promote Netscape
•Microsoft obtained license to distribute Java with Windows from Sun.Microsoft changed java so regular java programs could run on windows java version. Programmer had to use windows java version. Microsoft encouraged
Summary
The case evolves around the unethical monopolistic actions taken by Microsoft to achieve monopoly. Some major facts in the case are given below –
• In 1980 IBM representative met bill gates for Operating System
• Bill Gates bought Operating System from a friend in $60,000
Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to IBM with condition that it could license it to others too
•1981 IBM started mass production of and MS-DOS became standard Operating System for Personal Computer
•More programmers willing to write programs for MS-DOS
•Network effect of MS-DOS
•MS-DOS increase caused decrease in market share of other
•1984 Apple developed Graphical user interfaces which became very popular
•1987 Microsoft launched Windows for IBM Personal Computer’s that copied Apples GUI features
•Apple sued Microsoft for copying look& feel and lost
•1995 Windows 95, 1998 Windows 98, 2000 Windows Millennium 2002 Windows XP
•2000 Microsoft controlled 90% of Personal Computer Operating System market
•1990’s two threats to Microsoft’s Monopoly: Netscape Navigator, Java
•15 December 1994, Netscape Navigator captured 70% browser market
•May 1995 Sun Microsystems developed java, a platform independent language
•September 1996 Bill gates Asked manager to neutralize java
•Java Netscape Joined forces
•June 1995 Microsoft team met Netscape executives, proposed Browser market division
•MS refused to share code of window 95, Netscape had to wait till it launched to develop its browser for Win 95
•Microsoft developed its own browser Internet Explorer
•Internet Explorer copied Netscape’s many features but failed to capture browser market
•Microsoft required companies using Windows not to remove IE, not to promote Netscape
•Microsoft obtained license to distribute Java with Windows from Sun.Microsoft changed java so regular java programs could run on windows java version. Programmer had to use windows java version. Microsoft encouraged